THE ROMANCE OF THE ANIMAL WORLD

[Illustration: AN UNEXPECTED MEAL.

The peccary stood on the alligator’s tail, mistaking it for a tree trunk.
In a moment the alligator stretched its tail round like a bow almost to
its side: suddenly it let go, and whilst the peccary thus shot up was
still in mid-air, it swung its terrible tail again, and knocked its now
insensible prey almost into its own jaws.

_Frontispiece_—see p. 216.]




                              THE ROMANCE OF
                             THE ANIMAL WORLD

                       INTERESTING DESCRIPTIONS OF
                         THE STRANGE & CURIOUS IN
                             NATURAL HISTORY

                                    BY
                              EDMUND SELOUS
                                AUTHOR OF
                        “BIRD WATCHING,” ETC. ETC.

                      WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY
                       LANCELOT SPEED & S. T. DADD

                               PHILADELPHIA
                         J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
                        LONDON: SEELEY & CO. LTD.
                                   1905




CONTENTS


                                CHAPTER I

    A MICROSCOPIC COMBAT—A SNAIL’S FRIENDSHIP—HERMIT-CRAB AND
    SEA-ANEMONE IN PARTNERSHIP—A CRAB IN AMBUSH—CRABS THAT EAT
    COCOANUTS                                                     _Page_ 1

                               CHAPTER II

    NATURE’S PARASITES—PUSS-MOTH CATERPILLAR AND
    ICHNEUMON-FLY—CATERPILLAR DEFENCES—WASPS AND THEIR VICTIMS—A
    SPIDER CAUGHT—ANTS THAT ARE OGRES—OSPREY AND EAGLE—GULLS AND
    SKUAS—PEEWIT AND BLACK-HEADED GULL                                  26

                               CHAPTER III

    PENGUINS AND THEIR WAYS—UNCROWNED KINGS AND EMPERORS—INNOCENT
    ARMIES—SURF MISSED IN A BASIN—DARWIN AND THE PENGUIN—HARANGUING
    THE PENGUINNERY                                                     39

                               CHAPTER IV

    WONDERFUL BIRDS’-NESTS—A CITY OF GRASS—BIRD WEAVERS AND
    TAILORS—BIRDS THAT MAKE POTTERY—EVOLUTION IN BIRD-ARCHITECTURE      49

                                CHAPTER V

    BOWER-BIRDS AND GARDENER-BIRDS—HOW BIRDS SHOW OFF—A MALAY
    TRAP—CRIMSON COMPETITION—LOVE IN A TREE-TOP                         59

                               CHAPTER VI

    BIZCACHAS AND BIZCACHERAS—INTERESTED NEIGHBOURS—A PROVIDENT
    MOTHER—PRAIRIE-DOGS AND RATTLESNAKES—OWLS THAT LIVE IN BURROWS      73

                               CHAPTER VII

    THE PUMA AND THE JAGUAR—TWO FIERCE ENEMIES—A STRANGE
    ATTACHMENT—A NIGHT ON THE PAMPAS—THE STORY OF MALDONADA             81

                              CHAPTER VIII

    BEES AND ANTS—A ROBBER MOTH—ANTS THAT KEEP COWS AND SLAVES—ANTS
    THAT ARE HONEY-POTS—ANTS THAT SOW AND REAP                          90

                               CHAPTER IX

    ANT ARMIES—A SNAKE’S PRECAUTION—WONDERFUL BRIDGES AND
    TUNNELS—MUSHROOM-GROWING ANTS                                      103

                                CHAPTER X

    WHITE ANTS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE—VERY WONDERFUL NESTS—“A
    PRISON AND A PALACE”—THE AARD VARK AND THE ANT-EATER—HOW ANTS
    ARE TRAPPED                                                        118

                               CHAPTER XI

    AQUATIC ARCHERY—THE ANGLER-FISH AND THE CUTTLEFISH—INSECT
    ARTILLERY—EELS THAT GIVE ELECTRIC SHOCKS                           130

                               CHAPTER XII

    PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN NATURE—SPIDERS THAT LOOK LIKE ANTS—A
    TRAP TO CATCH A BUTTERFLY—FALSE DEVOTEES—LEAF, STICK, AND
    GRASS-RESEMBLING INSECTS—“CUCULLUS NON FACIT MONACHUM”             141

                              CHAPTER XIII

    SPIDERS AND THEIR WEBS—TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS—SPIDERS THAT EAT
    BIRDS—AQUATIC SPIDERS—BORN IN A DIVING-BELL                        158

                               CHAPTER XIV

    BEAVERS AND THEIR WORK—THE DAM AND THE POND—PRACTICE WITHOUT
    PRINCIPLES—A USEFUL TAIL—HOW BEAVERS CUT DOWN TREES                174

                               CHAPTER XV

    BEAVER “LODGES”—PRIMITIVE BEAVERS—INDIAN BEAVER-STORIES—AN
    ARABIAN NATURALIST                                                 182

                               CHAPTER XVI

    BEAVER-CANALS AND BEAVER-MEADOWS—ANTIQUITY OF
    BEAVER-WORKS—BEAVERS AND RAILWAY COMPANIES—WHITE BEAVERS           192

                              CHAPTER XVII

    SEALS AND THEIR WAYS—BREEDING HABITS OF THE
    SEA-BEAR—SEA-ELEPHANTS—THE WALRUS AND THE POLAR BEAR—MATERNAL
    AFFECTION UTILISED—A WINTER SLEEP IN A SNOW-HOUSE—A DANGEROUS
    INTRUSION—BREAKFAST WITH AN ALLIGATOR—THE CROCODILE AND THE
    TROCHILUS                                                          201

                              CHAPTER XVIII

    CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS—DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES—AN UNFORTUNATE
    PECCARY—AN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER—LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLES            215

                               CHAPTER XIX

    JAGUARS AND PECCARIES—A FOREST DRAMA—STRENGTH IN
    NUMBERS—RETALIATION                                                223

                               CHAPTER XX

    THE GREAT CACHALOT OR SPERM-WHALE—HOW THE BULLS FIGHT—A BATTLE
    OF MONSTERS—GIANTS THAT EAT GIANTS—ENORMOUS CUTTLEFISH—THE
    KRAKEN A REALITY—DISAPPOINTED PROFESSORS                           231

                               CHAPTER XXI

    WHALES AND THEIR ENEMIES—THE THRESHER AND THE SWORD-FISH—SPORT
    AMONGST ANIMALS—THE SWORD-FISH AND ITS WAYS—CANNIBALISM IN
    NATURE—THE SHARK AND THE PILOT-FISH                                243

                              CHAPTER XXII

    THE SHARK’S ATTACHÉ—QUEER WAYS OF FISHING—HINTS FOR NAVAL
    WARFARE—FISH THAT DO FLY                                           256

                              CHAPTER XXIII

    THE SEA-SERPENT—MANY OCCASIONS ON WHICH IT HAS BEEN
    SEEN—CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM OF SCIENTIFIC MEN—A FIGHT
    BETWEEN MONSTERS—THE LARGEST LAND-SERPENT—SNAKES AND
    SNAKE-STONES—MEDICAL EVIDENCE—A COLONIAL REMEDY                    267

                              CHAPTER XXIV

    HUNTING RUSES AMONGST THE HIGHER ANIMALS—WOLVES, FOXES, AND
    JACKALS—UNTEMPERED JUSTICE—GESTURE-LANGUAGE IN MEN AND DOGS—THE
    CAPE HUNTING-DOG AND HIS PREY                                      279

                               CHAPTER XXV

    MAN AND BEAST IN THE FAR NORTH—TRAPS THAT ARE SEEN THROUGH—A
    NEW DISCOVERY—CUNNING OF ARCTIC FOXES—THE TRAPPER AND THE
    WOLVERINE                                                          294

                              CHAPTER XXVI

    MAN-EATING ANIMALS—THE TIGER’S SLAVE—A SAVAGE
    LION-HUNT—WOLF-REARED CHILDREN—MEN AND APES—A SHAM
    GORILLA—UNPROHIBITED MURDER—A MONKEY’S MALISON                     308




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


     1. ALLIGATOR AND PECCARY        _Frontispiece_

                                              PAGE

     2. EAGLE ATTACKING AN OSPREY               34

     3. BEAR BESET BY WILD SWINE                82

     4. MALDONADA AND THE PUMA                  88

     5. SPIDERS AS PETS                        168

     6. OTTER AND SALMON                       174

     7. BEAVERS TREE-FELLING                   194

     8. A BRAVE WALRUS                         210

     9. JAGUAR ATTACKED BY PECCARIES           224

     10. COMBAT OF WHALE AND SWORD-FISH        260

    11. WOLF PLEADING FOR LIFE                 282

    12. SABLE ANTELOPE AND WILD DOGS           292

    13. WOLVERINE STEALING A GRIDIRON          304

    14. A LION HUNT                            310

    15. MIDNIGHT ASSASSINS                     316

    16. GORILLAS FIGHTING                      326




THE ROMANCE OF THE ANIMAL WORLD




CHAPTER I

    A MICROSCOPIC COMBAT—A SNAIL’S FRIENDSHIP—HERMIT-CRAB AND
    SEA-ANEMONE IN PARTNERSHIP—A CRAB IN AMBUSH—CRABS THAT EAT
    COCOANUTS.


Before there can be any romance—as I understand the word—in animal
life, there must be some degree of intelligence in the romance-making
animals. The question, therefore, is, at what stage in the ascending
scale any conscious exertion of brain-power—any evidence of what we
call a mind—begins to show itself. I say this because I have to begin
somewhere, and in my selection of subject-matter to illustrate the title
of this book, I had intended to pursue a plan similar in principle
to that resolved on by Koko, in Mr. Gilbert’s _Mikado_, who, with a
view to becoming perfect as an executioner, was going “to begin with a
guinea-pig and work his way through the animal kingdom, till he came
to a second trombone.” Of course _I_ must begin much lower down than a
guinea-pig, and the nearest approach I can hope to make to a second
trombone will be a gorilla—but the principle is the same. However, on
further consideration, I think that this scheme, if rigidly followed,
may prove too exacting, and also give an appearance of scientific
pretension to this humble little work, which it is entirely guiltless of.
I have decided, therefore, to soften and modify it by the employment,
when occasion offers, of another and somewhat opposed principle, that,
namely, of letting one thing link itself to another as it does in
ordinary conversation, either through suggestion or association, quite
irrespective of whether there is any or no natural—that is to say,
systematic—connection between the two. For instance, should alligators
be the theme, and should they, after lying like logs on the water, and
so forth, proceed, in the dramatic development of their character, to
seize and devour some unsuspecting mammal, I shall use the incident
as a convenient opportunity for treating of that mammal—should there
be anything to say about it—without waiting for its proper turn to be
treated of to arrive, as upon the first-stated principle I should have
to do. But where opportunities of this sort do not present themselves—if
birds have only to do with birds, insects with insects, and so forth—then
I shall be systematic, and so go on, letting the one method balance the
other. A third principle—that, namely, of paying no attention to either
of the other two—will also occasionally be acted upon, and if, as a
result of the three, no principle at all should be discernible by the
reader, I would ask him to look upon that as a merit, since “Summa ars
est celare artem.” And now, having explained my system, which I think is
an easy and flexible one, I will proceed to put it into practice in the
best way I can.

The lowest of all animals are the _protozoa_, yet even here, as it
appears to me, we begin to see the dawnings of that intelligence, without
which that kind of interest which the life and acts of any creature
should possess, in order to make it the subject for a work like this, can
hardly be said to exist. The _infusoria_ stand at the very bottom even
of the protozoa. Most of them are so small as to be invisible, except
through the microscope, and they are not supposed ever to think. Yet a
creature belonging to this humble group, having a cup-shaped body, with
a grasping arm or tail to it, has been seen to attach itself, with this,
to the cup of another individual of the same species, considerably larger
than itself, and cling there with a pertinacity very suggestive of a firm
intent. Upon this the larger one became, to all appearance, very excited,
and, moving about in the water—for these creatures are aquatic—till it
came to some weed, fastened with its one limb on a piece of this, and
proceeded to jerk itself backwards and forwards, with great suddenness
and vigour, and with the evident design, as it seemed, of ridding itself
of the intruder. The latter, however, held on like grim death, and this
hard-pitched battle, which had all the appearance of being intelligently
directed, went on between these two microscopic and simply formed
creatures, for quite a long time. At length the smaller of the two was
jerked off, upon which it made a second attempt to establish itself as
before, but was defeated by the efforts of its more powerful adversary.
The witness of this interesting scene tells us it was very difficult to
believe that the two lowly organisms engaged in it, though consisting but
of a single cell, without a head and with no trace of a nervous system,
properly so called, were not sentient beings, conscious of what they were
doing, and of why they were doing it.

Coming to the earthworms, which stand higher than the protozoa, though
still very lowly, there seems little doubt that they are capable of
forming and carrying out an intelligent purpose, since, when they pull
leaves into their holes, they always catch hold of them by the proper
part, so that they go down easily, and this they do even with the leaves
of foreign trees, of which they can have had no previous experience. And
if worms have experience, snails have both that and something better,
or, at any rate, still more interesting to discover in a creature of
this kind. “They appear,” says Darwin, “susceptible of some degree of
permanent attachment. An accurate observer—Mr. Lonsdale—informs me that
he placed a pair of land-snails, one of which was weakly, in a small and
ill-provided garden. After a short time the strong and healthy individual
disappeared, and was traced, by its track of slime, over a wall and into
an adjoining well-stocked garden. Mr. Lonsdale concluded that it had
deserted its sickly mate; but after an absence of twenty-four hours it
returned, and, apparently, communicated the result of its successful
exploration, for both then started along the same track, and disappeared
over the wall.”

Both snails and worms, however, stand higher in the scale than do the
sea-anemones, amongst which latter creatures—those flowers of ocean,
rivalling with their pillared stalks and many-coloured living petals
the proudest ones on earth—we yet find an instance of what is called
commensalism—the living together, that is to say, in friendly community
of two separate and often widely sundered species, each thereby obtaining
some benefit for itself. The other party to the arrangement is in this
instance a crab—the hermit-crab—that curious anchorite which by living
and moving about in the disused shell of another creature escapes the
many dangers which would otherwise threaten its soft and palatable body.
Indeed, the association may almost be said to be between three, rather
than two, different species, each of them belonging to a separate and
well-marked division of the animal kingdom—viz. to the mollusca, the
crustacea, and the cœlentera respectively. As, however, the mollusc
is represented by its house only, and not by itself—though, indeed,
its house is structurally a part of it—it will be safest to consider
the alliance as a dual rather than as a triple one. That the anemone
establishes itself on the shell, not by mere chance, as might sometimes
happen, did the crab allow of it, may be demonstrated in a very
delightful way; for if, when it is attached to a stone, a hermit-crab
should be placed in its vicinity, it will, after a time, abandon its
post, and gliding, like a snail, to the hospitable portals of its
friend’s domain, proceed to attach itself there, much to the satisfaction
of the latter. For that the crab’s participation is of an active kind,
that he does not merely not mind the anemone, and that the latter has
more than his sanction, is, likewise, a thing that can be proved. This
discovery was first made in 1859 by Mr. Gosse, the naturalist, for up to
that time it had always been imagined that the crab, at any rate, was
indifferent. Mr. Gosse, however, by the simple expedient of detaching
the anemone from the shell, demonstrated that this was not the case,
for on each occasion that he did so the hermit-crab picked it up again
in its two claws, and pressing it against its shell, held it there for
about ten minutes, at the end of which time it was sticking fast, as
before. The crab, therefore, must derive some advantage from the presence
of the anemone in return for the protection which he perhaps affords
the latter against certain enemies. Or possibly the constant change of
locality, with its increased chances of procuring food, is the real or
the principal benefit conferred. But how does the crab benefit? This, at
first sight, is not quite so easy to see. The explanation usually given
is that it is “masked” or concealed by the sea-anemone, which is by no
means small in comparison with the size of the shell, but often almost
and completely covers it, forming a sort of cloak round it at its base,
and towering like a pillar above it, so that of the two it is by far
the more conspicuous object, especially when the crab is withdrawn, or
partly withdrawn, into its shell. Nor is it always one anemone only that
is affixed to the shell; there may be as many as two or three, or even
more, and in some cases not only the shell, but the crab’s own claws may
be thus utilised. Certainly, therefore, if concealment is a gain to
the crab, it obtains this advantage by the arrangement. If, too, it has
any special enemies of its own—as it is very probable that it has—the
stinging cells of its allies would be likely either to incapacitate them
or keep them at a distance. Of one thing, at least, we may be certain,
that some advantage is obtained—and, no doubt, it is a substantial
one—by each of the individuals in this strange copartnership—for
throughout nature, in associations of the kind, the principle expressed
by the homely Scotch saying of “giff, gaff”—Anglicè, “nothing for
nothing”—obtains. Apparent instances may indeed be found of one species
doing something for the benefit of another, since the very nature of
these arrangements is such as often to give them this appearance. But
such instances are apparent only. Whatever it looks like, and whatever
either or any of the parties concerned may do, they always do it for
their own, and not for one another’s benefit.

Supposing that concealment is the principal advantage accruing to the
hermit-crab from its relations with the sea-anemone, it seems likely
that this is more for the sake of securing prey than of avoiding
enemies—though, indeed, both objects seem fairly attained by the shell.
Another crab—the Hyas of Otaheite—arrives at similar results by means
which are somewhat similar, but which, in this case, constitute a ruse
which is all the creature’s own. It deliberately loads on to its back a
cargo of seaweed mingled with the sand and débris of the coral, amongst
which it lives, and having done so, remains motionless, awaiting the
advent of anything that may serve as a meal. The tips of the ready
claws lie just within the weedy thatch, whilst the eyes at the ends
of their stalks are raised above it, so as to obtain a full view. They
are, however, indiscernible, except in a fatally close proximity. Time
passes, the sun shines brightly down through waters clear as the clearest
crystal and bluer than the bluest sky. Fishes, rainbow-hued and flashing,
sometimes, with the iridescent sparkles of the humming-bird—the jewels
of the tropic seas—pass and repass often quite near to the unseen peril,
but except by the motion of their own bodies, or the throb of the waves,
the weeds which conceal it remain unstirred. Nothing happens: yet the
eyes observe, the claws may, perhaps, itch; but their owner moves not.
Such beings are not for him. They are beyond his sphere, too bright, too
beautiful, above all, too quick. Medusæ, too, of substance translucent as
the waters they move in, and washed with the colours of the sea itself,
go by, sometimes in flocks, alternately expanding and contracting their
smooth, bell-like bodies, whilst threads and filaments of varied form,
and delicacy more exquisite than that of the finest lace, stream in
beauty behind them. Sea-horses swim vertically like little mermaids,
twining their tails together, or around the long fronds of many-tinted
seaweeds, whilst strange and varied forms of mollusc and crustacean move
upon the shell-strewn sand, or amidst the bright mazes of the coral—but
still our crab makes no sign. At length a small creature of the shrimp
or prawn kind—a crustacean like itself, and more active it would seem,
for it swims, though backwards and in a curious jerky way—approaches the
little heap; the crab’s eyes glisten—they would, at least, were they
capable of doing so. Alternately shooting up and sinking down again, the
unsuspecting creature continues to play about in the close neighbourhood
of that deadly ambuscade, and at length, in one of the latter movements,
comes well within reach. It is almost on the bottom, its tail stirs the
weeds and is about to bend again, when with a rush the lurking enemy is
upon it, seizes it between its fatal claws, and retiring backwards amidst
the shelter which the violence of its sudden movement has partially
removed, proceeds to devour it at its leisure. Such is the stratagem, and
such the sure, if somewhat slow, result. All sorts of creatures are thus
secured by the crab, including, perhaps, on special occasions, a small
and less wary fish or so.

What makes the thing still more curious and interesting—from the
standpoint of the evolutionary naturalist—is that the back of the clever
strategist is covered all over with a crop of stiff, wiry bristles,
which, curving inwards, maintain a firm hold of the weeds that lie upon
them, and prevent their slipping off. No doubt these bristles have become
more and more developed as the crab has become more and more in love
with the ruse, to the success of which they now largely contribute: but
which came first, the ruse or the bristles, that no one can say. On the
one hand, the bristles, whilst yet small and but slightly curved, might
sometimes, catching amongst and holding fragments of seaweed, etc., have
suggested to the crab the use to which these might be put; but, on the
other, as many creatures hide themselves in order to dart out on their
prey, and as a good way of doing so in the case of a flat-backed creature
would be by placing things on its back, the crab may possibly have
thought of this without any structural facility to suggest the idea.

Both these crabs that we have been considering exhibit their intelligence
and live their lives in the sea, and it is with salt water and the rocky
pools of the sea-shore that crabs, generally, are inseparably associated
in our minds. Nevertheless there are land crabs, and even crabs that
eat cocoanuts. Whether these latter are also in the habit of climbing
the lofty palms on which the cocoanuts grow, throwing them down and
then ascending again with them, in order to break them by repeating the
process, having previously freed them from their huge husky envelope,
does not seem to be quite certain, but such is the account explicitly
given by the natives of the Samoan Islands. “I inquired of them,” says
Mr. T. H. Hood, in his _Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. “Fawn” in the Western
Pacific_, “about the habits of the Ou-ou, or great cocoanut-eating crab,
common here, and found the reports previously received from the natives
corroborated. It ascends the cocoa trees, and, having thrown the nuts
down, husks them on the ground; this operation performed, it again
ascends with the nuts, which it throws down, generally breaking them at
the first attempt, but, if not successful, repeating it till the object
is attained.” This account, Mr. Hood goes on to say, was confirmed by
every native subsequently spoken to on the subject. It is difficult
to see how the natives should have been mistaken in regard to such a
noticeable and very remarkable habit, and on the other hand, if they were
inventing, why should they have all invented in one and the same way?
In the new edition of Wood’s _Homes without Hands_ this account of Mr.
Hood is still quoted without any qualifying statement in the form of a
footnote. On the other hand, Darwin, when he visited the Keeling Islands,
was told by Mr. Liesk, an English resident on one of them, that the crabs
fed upon such nuts only as happened to fall from the trees. The Keeling
and Samoan Islands are, however, some 5,000 miles apart, and it is at
least possible that the crabs of each, though of the same species, may
have learnt a different way of getting at the inside of the cocoanut,
especially as elsewhere they seem to practise yet a third method.

To begin with Darwin’s account. Mr. Liesk, speaking as an eye-witness,
told him that the crab first shredded off the husk, fibre by fibre,
beginning always at that part under which the three eyeholes of the nut
lay. It then, he said, hammered with its claws, which are heavy and
powerful, on one of the eyeholes and, having made an opening, turned
round and inserted its thin posterior legs, which are also armed with
small pincers, into it, and thus extracted the kernel. This is a plain
statement, and in it we see the philosophy of the small and weak pair of
claws which are as useful in the last and most satisfactory part of the
process as are the larger ones in the pioneer work preceding it. Just as
plain, however, is the following statement, which was made by two South
Sea missionaries (Mr. Tyerman and Mr. Bennett) at about the same time.
They say: “These animals live under the cocoanut trees, and subsist upon
the fruit which they find on the ground. With their powerful front claws
they tear off the fibrous husk; afterwards inserting one of the sharp
points of the same into a hole at the end of the nut, they beat it with
violence against a stone until it cracks; the shell is then easily pulled
to pieces, and the precious food within devoured at leisure.” Here, then,
is quite a different way of getting at the contents of the cocoanut, but
the same informants go on to say that “sometimes by widening the hole
with one of their round gimlet claws, or enlarging the breach with their
forceps, they effect sufficient entrance to enable them to scoop out the
kernel without the trouble of breaking the unwieldy nut.” This, perhaps,
may mean the same as what Mr. Liesk tells us, but nothing is said about
the crab’s turning round. It is not very clear from the account of the
two missionaries whether they speak as eye-witnesses or not. Mr. Liesk
does, but I should not myself think that his observations had been very
exhaustive, and as the _Voyage of the Beagle_, in which they are referred
to, was published nearly sixty years ago, it seems to me a pity if the
habits of the cocoanut-eating crab have not been more carefully studied
since then. I think myself that a crab which lives on cocoanuts, and may
possibly climb the trees on which they grow, is worth taking some trouble
about. This, however, is not all that the _Birgus latro_—for that is his
scientific name—does. Not only does he live upon land, but he makes a
deep burrow in the ground to dwell in, and with the shredded fibres of
the cocoanut husk, which he has torn up, he makes a thick soft bed at the
bottom of it to lie on. One would think with all this that he had said
good-bye to the sea for good and all, and would never want to go back
to it. But this is not the case. Like other crabs, these strange ones
breathe through branchiæ or gills, as a fish does, and in order for them
to do so these must be kept moist. The peculiarity of all land-crabs is
that their gills remain moist for a long time, but at the end of this
time, when they are beginning to get dry, they have to moisten them
again. Every night, therefore, the cocoanut crab pays a visit to the
sea, and has a cool, refreshing bathe in it. For a little while he is a
marine creature again, as his ancestors were before him, but when he has
moistened his gills, he goes back to his palm-trees and cocoanuts.

This great strange crab grows to two feet in length, is stout in
proportion, and has a fantastic appearance, which it is difficult to
describe. It walks very high on two long stout pairs of legs, whilst
a pair or two of little ones behind them are too short to touch the
ground, and so dangle in the air. Its claws are enormous, its thorax very
peculiar, its antennæ are like those of a lobster, and its body behind
more like a hornet’s than a crab’s—at least in a picture. What it really
resembles is a hermit-crab, to which it is closely related; only to see
the resemblance one must take the hermit-crab out of its borrowed shell.




CHAPTER II

    NATURE’S PARASITES—PUSS-MOTH CATERPILLAR AND
    ICHNEUMON-FLY—CATERPILLAR DEFENCES—WASPS AND THEIR VICTIMS—A
    SPIDER CAUGHT—ANTS THAT ARE OGRES—OSPREY AND EAGLE—GULLS AND
    SKUAS—PEEWIT AND BLACK-HEADED GULL.


In the sea-anemone affixing itself to the shell of the hermit-crab, who
becomes its friendly and interested landlord, we have seen one of the
more pleasing instances of association between two or more different
species of animals. There are many others, such as that between the shark
and the pilot-fish, the honey-guide and the ratel, the rhinoceros and its
little bird, etc., etc., which we can dwell upon with equal pleasure.
Some, however—and, unfortunately, they are much more numerous—are of a
darker character, repelling us almost as much by the picture which they
present of nature’s unbending cruelty as they arouse our admiration by
their wonderful ingenuity and adaptation of means to ends. The most
salient examples of this kind of living together—partnership we can
hardly call it—are to be found, perhaps, in the insect world. Parasitism
is the proper word for it, and the most salient, or at least the most
repulsive, examples are furnished perhaps by the hymenoptera—that genus
of insects in which the bees, wasps, and ants are included. Thus
almost all caterpillars—perhaps all—are victimised by some species of
ichneumon-fly—a wasp-like creature that seeks it out, pierces its soft
body with a long ovipositor, with which it is provided for the purpose,
and lays a number of eggs inside it. Having done this, it goes away, and
the caterpillar goes on feeding. It is, however, doomed, and destined
never to enter into the moth or butterfly state of existence. In due time
the eggs are hatched by the warmth of its own body, and on this body to
which they are so highly indebted, the young ichneumons, now in their
own caterpillar state, begin with unconscious ingratitude to prey. They
feast upon it day and night, but the creature, ordained by the iron laws
of nature to suffer in this way, is long-lived, and though sickening from
day to day, has often sufficient strength to become full-fed, and make
its cocoon, and pass into the chrysalis, or pupal, state. How long it
lives after that it is difficult to say. Probably some vitality remains
as long, or almost as long, as any part of itself does. All that we
know is that after a longer or shorter interval a score or so of ugly,
evil-looking ichneumon-flies issue from the dry shell of the chrysalis,
instead of the innocent and radiant creature that would otherwise have
done so.

It is curious—gratifying, too, if one allows oneself to give way to a
natural, though unreasonable feeling—to learn that some of these very
ichneumons themselves become, in a similar manner, the victims of others
of their own species. Thus from two corpses, on the slowly dying bodies
of both of which it has directly, or indirectly, fed, the third life in
death emerges, like some ghoul from a double tomb. Could the caterpillar
know that the being which so remorselessly preyed upon its tissues and
juices had a similar parasite within its own body, doing it to death in
the same horrid way, how relieved and almost happy it might feel! But
Nature, though she often brings in her revenges, seldom grants to her
suffering children the proverbial sweetness of revenge. Caterpillars,
however, do not always submit to the machinations of the ichneumon-fly
without a struggle, and in some cases they may be successful—how often
it is not easy to say—in guarding themselves against their attacks.
The puss-moth, for instance, which is especially liable to them, is
furnished, no doubt for that very reason, with a special weapon for its
defence. The end of its body is forked, and each fork is prolonged into
a sort of tail, from which a red filament can be extruded and waved
about at the will of the creature. In this way, and by its violent
contortions, it may sometimes succeed in whipping off, as it were, the
ichneumon that is attacking it, but it has another and more efficacious
means of defending itself. An aperture in the skin behind the head
communicates with a gland containing a clear fluid, forty per cent. of
which is formic acid, and the rest water. This the caterpillar can eject
with great force, and so pungent is it that a few drops falling on an
unwary ichneumon-fly are sufficient to incapacitate, if not actually
to kill it. Lizards, indeed, and monkeys, as has been experimentally
ascertained, are affected by this powerful irritant, nor, as far as
we know, is there any other animal secretion which contains so large
a proportion of strong acid. It is probable that the caterpillar of
the puss-moth is not the only one which has this power of spurting a
noxious fluid over its enemies, whilst many are protected in other
ways: some by their hairiness, others by being coloured like the leaves
they eat, or resembling, when at rest, a twig of the plant on which
they sit immovable. By these latter means they certainly avoid being
eaten by birds, and there seems no reason why they should not sometimes
deceive the ichneumon-fly also. But in spite of all defences, whether
consciously or unconsciously brought into play, a large proportion of
most caterpillars yield to destiny, and are slowly eaten alive by the
special parasite which Nature has provided for them.

Still worse, perhaps, though very similar, is the fate which various
insects—caterpillars, grasshoppers, etc.—as well as spiders, experience
at the hands of several species of wasps. These wasps are not social,
like the ones we are familiar with, and make no nest other than a cell in
which to place their eggs, together with the nourishment which the young,
when hatched, will require. This nourishment is the creatures aforesaid.
In the best-known instance the female wasp first makes a long tunnel in
the earth, with three or four separate chambers or cells at the end of
it, in which she deposits her eggs. She then seizes an insect, which, if
it is a grasshopper, or something equally active, struggles violently to
escape, and being often as large as, or larger, than the wasp herself,
the contest may be a long one. Invariably, however, the wasp—or _sphex_,
to give her her generic name—is victorious. She could, indeed, sting at
once, if she were so minded, but this she does not do. She reserves her
fire, so to speak, till, after more or less violent exertion, she has
succeeded in throwing her victim on its back. Then she stings it in two
particular spots, the throat, namely, and between the thorax and abdomen.
Instantly the struggles of the wretched creature cease: a ganglion, or
nerve centre, has, with each sting, been pierced—it is paralysed, but not
by any means dead. To kill it, indeed, is far from the intention of the
_sphex_ herself, and, kind and thoughtful mother, she does not allow the
meat which she provides for her offspring to go bad. It will last, as she
has managed it, for the whole time that it is wanted. All now is quite
satisfactory. She can be grateful for mercies vouchsafed. She rests for
a little, then seizing the helpless, living food by a leg or a wing, she
drags it—for it is usually too heavy for her to fly with—to the mouth of
her nursery larder. Here she leaves it for a little, while she enters to
see that all is well. Re-emerging, she seizes it again, drags it down the
tunnel, deposits it in one of the chambers, plasters it up, and leaves it
for a while. In due time she returns with, and inters, another paralytic,
and, having thus successively filled all the four chambers, she closes
the mouth of the tunnel and flies merrily away—doubtless

    “With the gratifying feeling that her duty has been done.”

Of course, after a certain number of days, the eggs are hatched, each
young _sphex_ caterpillar immediately falls to, and the grasshoppers
that have been previously buried alive are now eaten alive—two kinds
of deaths which are equally unpleasant, and each of which lasts a long
time. However, they are paralysed—insensible, we may hope, therefore, to
such pain as insects feel. Whether the paralysis is mental as well as
corporeal it is impossible to say, but it may, in any case, be doubted
whether grasshoppers can suffer through the mind. Assuming that they
cannot, the inability, though it would involve another of an opposite
nature, must yet here be considered advantageous, since that sort of
pleasure which arises out of a just sense of the beautiful contrivances
and adaptations of nature, must always, we may suppose, be beyond the
capacity of an insect; and even were it not, it is the _sphex_ in
this case whose mind would, in all probability, be most open to such
reflections.

The habits of the _sphex_ have been studied in Europe by “that inimitable
observer,” as Darwin calls him, M. Fabre, from whose writings the
foregoing account has been compiled. In India its place is taken by a
very large wasp of a uniform steely-blue colour and a most venomous
aspect. This kind makes a clay nest, of about the size and shape of a
very large Brazil-nut, on the outside of some perpendicular surface, and
often chooses for this purpose the walls of houses or bungaloes. I have
watched it time after time flying in first with little glistening round
balls of moist clay, and afterwards with curled up balls of caterpillars
of about the same colour, but larger. With these she filled up one large
cell, the entrance to which she then closed with more mud. It was an
interesting sight, but, to enjoy it thoroughly, one ought to be an
optimist.

In the above-mentioned instances the cell which serves as cradle and
tomb combined is made by the provident mother. Some wasps, however, have
learnt to save time and trouble by walling the victim up in a cell of
its own manufacture, or, at least, of its own choosing. This happens to
a certain spider in South America, which sits in a little hole in the
ground waiting for insects either to pass or come in. The wasp, which is
blue like the other, but smaller than our common one, goes about from
hole to hole, and when it finds one occupied by a spider, goes a little
way into it, and then rushes out, hotly pursued by the owner. When on the
point of being overtaken it suddenly turns, grapples with the spider,
stings it, drags it back, paralysed, into its own hole, lays an egg by
it, and departs, having previously blocked up the entrance with earth.
The entrance of the wasp into the spider’s hole, with its retreat,
some time afterwards, in feigned alarm, so as to draw the spider out,
is certainly an act of great intelligence. The intelligence, however,
is surpassed, or exhibited in a more entertaining manner, in the case
of another wasp which has been seen to creep noiselessly round to the
entrance of a spider’s nest, and then wriggle one of its antennæ in front
of the opening. Upon this, the owner of the nest, a very large spider,
came out, and was at once stung to death by the wasp. The latter then
wriggled an antennæ again, and upon no notice being taken, entered the
nest and killed all the young spiders, which he then carried off at his
leisure.

Other wasps lay their eggs in the nests of humble bees, and the young
growing up there prey upon the honey and comb. Amongst ants, again, some
of the smaller species are parasitic upon the larger ones, an enforced
association which may be very much to the disadvantage of the latter.
Especially is this the case where an ant whose Latin name is _Solenopsis
fugax_—if it has an English one I do not know it—is the unbidden guest.
Lord Avebury tells us that it “makes its chambers and galleries in the
walls of the nests of larger species, and is the bitter enemy of its
hosts. The latter cannot get at them because they are too large to enter
the galleries. The little _solenopses_, therefore, are quite safe, and,
as it appears, make incursions into the nurseries of the larger ant,
and carry off the larvæ as food. It is as if we had small dwarfs, about
eighteen inches to two feet long, harbouring in the walls of our houses,
and every now and then carrying off some of our children into their
horrid dens.” The insect world is particularly rich in these parasitic
relations, but space will not allow me to enlarge upon them further.

Turning to birds, we meet with instances not less interesting, whilst
very much less painful, since here the victimised species is only robbed
by the other, and not so frequently as to prevent its making a living.
The osprey, for instance, which preys almost exclusively on fish, which
it hooks with its claws out of the water, is forced, though itself a
large bird, to give up much of its booty to the still more powerful
white-headed eagle. The latter sits on some rocky crag or peak “that
beetles o’er its base into the sea,” and watches with a greedy eye the
“inferior fiend,” as, far below, it hovers on broad wings above its
destined prey. At once the wings are closed, and the spray dashes over
them as the bird precipitates itself upon a gleaming light amidst the
waves. For a moment it is almost hidden in the foam and swirl, the next
it emerges out of it, and mounts with powerful beats into the air, its
head stretched shorewards, and its bent claws struck deep into the body
of a large fish, beneath the weight of which it labours. Slowly at
first, but gaining strength and speed as it ascends, it heads towards
the cliff’s face. Already it can see the crag on which its eyrie hangs,
when, like a thunderbolt, and with the shriek or laugh of a demon, the
lonely watcher, who has marked it all, hurls itself downwards on spoiler
and spoil. With a quick turn the startled bird avoids the furious rush,
but almost at the same moment another maniac laugh, answering the first,
drowns its own note of anger and despair, as the mate of the eagle that
has commenced the attack swoops towards it from a neighbouring pinnacle.
All striving now on the osprey’s part is in vain. Like storm-clouds the
two strong robbers gather above him and descend like the jagged lightning
out of them. Their screams sound almost in his ears, their claws have
cut his feathers, when his own reluctantly relax their grip, and the
glittering booty falls. Something falls with it—over it. There is a
rushing wind of wings, an overshadowing darkness in the air, the trail of
light is checked in its descent, and out of that whirlwind of excessive
speed an eagle soars serenely to the sky bearing a fish in its claws.
In their eyrie, or on a ledge of the precipice, the pair of imperial
brigands share their meal, or distribute it to their eaglets. The osprey
tries again, and may, perhaps, catch another fish before they have
finished.

[Illustration: HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

The osprey rose with its prey when the eagle swooped, but by swerving,
the osprey momentarily escaped. The eagle is shewn stopping himself
against the wind, to swoop again with fiendish cries until the osprey
drops his prey in terror.]

Other piratical plunderers are the skuas and some other members of the
gull family. With the former the practice is more habitual, or, rather,
it is pursued more to the exclusion of other habits of feeding. In the
more northern parts of the British Isles—especially in the Orkneys and
Shetlands—the lesser or arctic skua may be seen all day long during the
breeding season, taking toll of the various sea-fowl, as they fly with
fish to feed their young. One might think that when once the fish had
been swallowed there would be an end of the annoyance, and that the
rightful owner must, by the very nature of things, now be safe. Such,
however, is by no means the case. Most birds have no difficulty in
bringing up again what they have swallowed down.[1]

The skua, when it swoops upon a gull, does so with the deliberate
intention of forcing it to disgorge the fish it has swallowed, which
it then, like the eagle, catches in the air before it has touched the
sea. Should it not succeed in doing this, the fisherman asserts that
it will not touch it, but invariably leaves it lying on the water, or
on the land, should it chance to fall there. I have myself seen skuas
act in this manner, but am not so satisfied that it is their invariable
practice. Terns, should there happen to be a colony in the neighbourhood,
are particularly persecuted by these skuas, insomuch that the gulls
derive a distinct benefit from their presence. Puffins and guillemots are
also pursued, and so ingrained is the habit of piracy that the skuas will
sometimes, as it were, play at it, swooping at and chasing one another
in the same manner and with the same wild cries as when they practise
the art in earnest. Of course, under these circumstances neither bird
disgorges to the other, and it is easy to see that neither expects the
other to do so.

Though gulls uniformly suffer at the hands of the skuas, they can be
pirates too amongst each other, and in harbour or where fishing-smacks
are anchored nothing is commoner than to see a bird that has seized on
some offal of fish thrown overboard mobbed by a host of others, till the
morsel reappears again _de profundis_.

Only one British gull, however, as far as I know, has taken up piracy as
a profession, and that is the black-headed one. It is difficult in works
of natural history to find any reference to this interesting fact, but
it seems to be alluded to in one of the common or local names of this
species, viz. the peewit-gull. For here the parasitic relation is between
a sea-bird and a land-bird—the peewit, namely—which to me makes it still
more interesting. At certain times of the year, and in certain parts of
the country, almost every field or piece of land near the sea-shore in
which peewits are feeding is sure to have a few of these gulls scattered
about it. They stand, apparently, doing nothing, but are really keenly
on the look-out, and as soon as a peewit has found anything, come
sweeping down upon it. In the chase which ensues the pirate is not always
successful, but very generally the peewit drops his booty, and the gull
either catches it in the air or picks it up off the ground.

In all the above kinds of robberies the young of the piratical species
are fed more or less frequently with the food carried off by it from the
various victims. This, however, is only incidental to the main habit, so
that there is little in these bird doings to remind us of those horrid
relations between insect and insect, with some examples of which this
chapter opened, wherein one species is wholly sacrificed for the sake of
the young of another. There is, however, a nearer approach to this—since
though the effects are less tragic, the governing cause is the same—in
that instinct which impels some few birds to lay their eggs in the
nests of other species. Here, as the services of the foster parent are
required, it does not itself suffer, but its own young perish to make
place for the stranger. One most familiar example of this more advanced
and complicated kind of parasitism is, of course, the cuckoo, but as the
habits of this bird have been treated of in so many books, I need say
nothing of them here.




CHAPTER III

    PENGUINS AND THEIR WAYS—UNCROWNED KINGS AND EMPERORS—INNOCENT
    ARMIES—SURF MISSED IN A BASIN—DARWIN AND THE PENGUIN—HARANGUING
    THE PENGUINNERY.


Amongst the strangest and, as Buffon calls them, the most
unbirdlike-looking of all birds, are the penguins—an aquatic family,
numbering many species, whose headquarters are the wide waters of the
southern seas, as far as to the remotest parts that have yet been
explored. Wherever, indeed, the land that lies around the southern
pole has a coastline, it is probable that penguins lay their eggs and
rear their young; and the best hope for their continuing to do so is
that some parts of this area may be too remote, or have too rigorous
a climate to admit of its being often visited by mankind. Wherever
sailors go, these poor birds, besides being plundered of their eggs, are
destroyed in thousands, so that if every one of their breeding-haunts
were to be visited each year, they would before long become extinct. On
some islands, indeed, they are protected, but a modicum of protection
accorded to a bird is not of much avail as against a vast amount of
slaughter. Independently of what it may suffer in unequal warfare with
the greed and brutality of man, every species has to hold its own in
the general struggle for life, and when reduced to very small numbers,
it may be unable to do so. The Falkland Islands, which lie far down off
the western coast of South America, were once amongst the most popular
breeding-resorts for various species of penguins, but “now,” says
Professor Newton, “owing doubtless to the ravages of man, whose advent is
always accompanied by massacre and devastation on an enormous scale, it
does not nearly approach to what it is in other places—the habit of the
helpless birds, when breeding, to congregate by hundreds and thousands
in what are called penguin rookeries, contributing to the ease with
which their slaughter can be effected. Incapable of escape by flight,
they are yet able to make enough resistance or retaliation (for they
bite powerfully when they get the chance) to excite the wrath of their
murderers, and this only brings upon them greater destruction, so that
the interest of nearly all the numerous accounts of these rookeries is
spoilt by the disgusting details of the brutal havoc perpetrated upon
them.” It is to be hoped that the rising generation, by having stronger
views upon these things than have hitherto been held by the great
majority of people, will gradually bring them to an end. Otherwise books
like this will become more and more difficult to write—for there can
be no romance of animal life when animal life has disappeared, and the
rapidity with which it is disappearing all over the world is dreadful to
think of.

In all the penguins the wings have been converted into a pair of flippers
or paddles, incapable of flight, but with which the birds can propel
themselves with wonderful speed in the water. It is only, however, when
they dive that they use them in this way. Until then they swim with their
webbed feet alone, like a duck, but as soon as they go down the wings
are extended, and rapidly beat the water as if it were the air, whilst
the feet close together and trail behind them like a tail. These birds,
in fact, fly through the water, as others do through the air, but they
do not look like birds at all, but much more like seals; and indeed
the whole shape of a penguin is so much like that of a seal that one
might almost mistake him for one, if it were not for his long, narrow
bill. This, however, is only when he is in the water, and especially
whilst swimming under it—if ever one has the chance of seeing him do
that. When on land the bird presents a very different appearance. He
then stands bolt upright, exposing, in a front view, the whole surface
of throat, chest, and the lower ventral region. For the most part this
is of a dazzling white, but in the king and emperor penguins the white
passes upon the chest into a light but very lustrous yellow, which,
intensifying as it mounts upwards, shines, at last, like the very sun
itself. It is like a pale gold sunrise over pure white virgin snow, and
as the beams rise higher they get more golden by degrees. Above this
zone of colour the throat, as far as the bird’s forehead, is black, but
with a vivid golden band on either side, whilst the beak is of a coral
red. This distribution and contrast of colouring, with the beauty of the
hues themselves, give to such large, upright birds a very striking and
distinguished appearance, so that, though the purple robe and the diadem
be wanting, one may well think, as one looks at them, that no real king
or emperor, with these to help him, ever looked the part to greater
perfection than do these two grand penguins who respectively bear their
titles. But if one by itself looks magnificent—and to acknowledge that
it does one has only to visit the Zoological Gardens, where a specimen
is kept in a basin—how must hundreds of them look, standing side by
side in long rows, like so many regiments of soldiers? That, indeed,
is the general simile which those who have seen these penguin birds
in their antarctic dwelling-places make use of, in order to describe
their appearance to more stay-at-home people, and the resemblance is
increased by their sometimes walking one behind the other in single file,
especially when coming up from the water to take their place on the eggs.
They walk upon their toes alone, as do some of our own sea-birds—the
puffin, for instance, and often the guillemot—but when standing sink down
upon the shank—or tarsus, as it is called—that bone which corresponds
with our own ankle.

The regimental manner in which penguins, when collected in large
numbers, arrange themselves, and the soldierly appearance which they
then present, is remarked upon by Dr. Bennett in his account of their
habits, as witnessed by him on Macquarie’s Island, in the South Pacific
Ocean. “The number of penguins,” he says—he is speaking of the king
penguin—“collected together in this spot is immense, but it would be
almost impossible to guess at it with any near approach to truth, as
during the whole of the day and night thirty or forty thousand of them
are continually landing, and an equal number going to sea. They are
arranged, when on shore, in as compact a manner, and in as regular ranks,
as a regiment of soldiers, and are classed with the greatest order,
the young birds being in one situation, the moulting birds in another,
the sitting hens in a third, the clean birds in a fourth, etc., and so
strictly do birds in similar condition congregate that, should a bird
that is in moulting intrude itself amongst those which are clean, it is
immediately ejected from amongst them. The females hatch their eggs by
keeping them close between their thighs; and if approached during the
time of incubation, move away, carrying their eggs with them. At this
time the male bird goes to sea and collects food for the female, which
becomes very fat. After the young one is hatched—for these large penguins
lay but a single egg—both parents go to sea and bring back food for it:
it soon becomes so fat as scarcely to be able to walk, the old birds
getting very thin. They sit quite upright in their roosting-places, and
walk in the erect position.”

When arrived at the beach, preparatory to taking the water, they fall
forward on their breasts, and then shoot, with the greatest ease, through
the heavy surf which breaks continually on these southern, though arctic
shores. It has been supposed by members of the Zoological Society that
these birds, when in confinement, miss this tumbling surf, and that the
absence of the exhilaration which they experience in riding or plunging
through it prevents their being bright and happy. I can well believe
that they miss the surf, but as penguins at the Gardens are allowed
only a very small tank or basin, whilst some are even kept in hutches
without any at all, the probability is that they miss the wide expanse of
water they have been accustomed to live in still more. I think if they
had something a little more like the sea they could do better without
the surf, and if I had anything to do with the laws of the country I
would make it illegal to keep either penguins or any other kinds of
swimming-birds without giving them a sheet of water at least as large as
a swimming bath. Even that would be very small, but, at least, it would
be better for them than a wash-basin, which is more like what they get
now. Artificial rocks and rocky shores, and ice, whenever they could get
it, would also be very good things for penguins in captivity.

Most of the penguins, as might be supposed, considering the life on
the ocean wave which they lead, are flesh-eaters, but the king and the
emperor prefer a diet of crustacea, varied, according to the Rev. J. G.
Wood, with cuttlefish.

The skill with which the smaller kinds catch fish is quite wonderful,
but I do not know that it is more wonderful than that displayed by other
diving-birds that live in the same way. The little puffin, for instance,
that with its white breast and gaily-coloured beak and feet, may be
called the penguin of our shores, flies in regularly from the sea to
feed its young with quite a number of fish in its bill. I have counted
almost a dozen sometimes, and how it could have caught any one of them,
except the first, without letting the others go, I can hardly imagine.
I think, however, that each fish is killed as the bird catches it,
being ripped right across by the sharp, razor-like beak. But even so, it
seems wonderful that the beak can be opened whilst the bird is swimming
rapidly without the force of the water carrying the fish, either alive
or dead, out of it. I do not know if the penguin can add up fish in his
bill in this way, but I rather doubt it, because it is a long, thin bill,
more like the guillemot’s than the puffin’s, and I have not seen the
guillemot flying to feed its young with more than one fish at a time.
The razor-bill, however, whose beak, as its name suggests, is flat and
blade-like, is able to perform this feat.

The king and emperor penguins are the two giants of their race, but there
are a number of species much smaller, some of which are crested. These
latter are called “macaronis” by the sailors, perhaps because the crest
gives them a smart appearance, for “macaroni” is the Italian word for a
fine gentleman, and used to be used a good deal in England once. Others
are called rock-hoppers, because when they are in a hurry, and want to
go quickly, they hop or jump with both feet off the ground, and get, in
this way, from rock to rock. It is these smaller kinds of penguins that
come to the Falkland Islands to lay their eggs, whilst the two great
penguins breed only within the solitudes of the antarctic circle. Captain
Abbott, of the Falkland Islands Detachment, has given a short account
of the former, which contains some interesting passages. Speaking of
the rock-hopper penguins, he says: “The space occupied by some of the
breeding-places is nearly 500 yards long, by about 50 broad, and their
eggs lie so close together that it is almost impossible to walk through
without breaking some of them. I have often wondered, on disturbing these
birds, and driving them away from their eggs, how, on their return,
they could pick out their own among so many hundreds. Yet this they do,
walking back straight to their eggs and getting them between their legs
with the utmost care, fixing them in the bare space between the feathers
in the centre of the lower part of their belly and gradually lowering
themselves till their breasts touch the ground, the male bird of each
pair standing upright, alongside of the female.”

In regard to another species, called the gentoo penguin, he says:
“Some of their breeding-places are near the sea, and, generally, near
a freshwater pond; others, however, are several miles inland. Why they
should select these latter places—so far from salt water—is a mystery.
The grass from the sea to the breeding-ground is trodden down and made
into a kind of road by detachments of these birds, of from ten to twenty,
going to the sea and returning. They make no nest, but lay in a hollow in
the earth; they occupy a square piece of ground and deposit their eggs,
two in number, as close to one another as they can sit. When the young
birds are old enough they all go to sea, and only occasional stragglers
are found on the coast at any other time of the year.” Elsewhere Captain
Abbott tells us that the ground about these “rookeries” is covered with
small, round stones, which these birds eject from the bill on coming
up from the salt water, in green masses, about the size of a shilling.
It was on the Falkland Islands that Darwin, the great naturalist and
philosopher, had an experience with a penguin, of which he gives the
following interesting account: “Another day, having placed myself between
a penguin and the water, I was much amused by watching its habits. It
was a brave bird, and, till reaching the sea, it regularly fought and
drove me backwards. Nothing less than heavy blows would have stopped him;
every inch he gained he firmly kept, standing close before me, erect and
determined. When thus opposed he continually rolled his head from side to
side in a very odd manner, as if the power of distinct vision lay only in
the interior and basal part of each eye.” This bird that thus measured
its strength with the celebrated philosopher, was of a kind called the
jackass penguin, a name which it has received “from its habit, whilst on
shore, of throwing its head backwards and making a loud, strange noise,
very like the braying of an ass; but while at sea, and undisturbed, its
note is very deep and solemn, and is often heard in the night-time.”

Darwin further tells us that “in diving, its little wings are used as
fins; but on the land as front legs. When crawling, it may be said, on
four legs through the tussocks, or on the side of a grassy cliff, it
moves so very quickly that it might easily be mistaken for a quadruped.
When at sea, and fishing, it comes to the surface for the purpose of
breathing with such a spring, and dives again so instantaneously, that I
defy anyone, at first sight, to be sure that it was not a fish leaping
for sport.” These observations were made by Darwin during his famous
voyage round the world in the _Beagle_, which lasted five years, and of
which he has given us the delightful account, from which this passage
is taken. The commander of the _Beagle_ was Captain FitzRoy, who has
also told us something about the penguins. He says that, when feeding
its young, “the old bird gets on an eminence, and makes a great noise
between quacking and braying, holding its head up in the air, as if it
were haranguing the penguinnery” (a much better word, I think, than the
“penguin-rookery”), “while the young one stands close to it, but a little
lower. The old bird, having continued its chatter for about a minute,
puts its head down and opens its mouth widely, into which the young one
thrusts its head, and then appears to suck from the throat of its mother
for a minute or two, after which the chatter is again repeated, and the
young one is again fed.”




CHAPTER IV

    WONDERFUL BIRDS’-NESTS—A CITY OF GRASS—BIRD WEAVERS AND
    TAILORS—BIRDS THAT MAKE POTTERY—EVOLUTION IN BIRD-ARCHITECTURE.


The penguins, like others of the diving sea-birds—our own guillemots
and razor-bills, for instance—make no nests. Birds, however, taken as
a class, are remarkable, as we all know, for the wonderful structures
which they build, to lay and incubate their eggs in, and sometimes,
as we shall shortly see, for other purposes as well. Chief, perhaps,
amongst these wonderful builders come the weaver-birds, and especially
that species which is named, _par excellence_, the sociable weaver-bird
or grosbeak—for most of them are sociable in a greater or less degree.
Though not more than about five inches long and of a plain appearance,
these little birds, by uniting together, make, perhaps, the largest
nest or structure that any bird makes, it being large enough to conceal
four or five men from view, if they should get behind it. It is built,
however, in a tree, and entirely of a very long, tough, and wiry kind of
grass, called Bushman’s or Booschmannie grass, because it is plentiful
where the Bushmen used to live—for the grass has outlived the Bushman.
This grass the birds pull out of the ground, and when they have got a
good bunch of it they fly to the tree they have chosen—which is often the
pretty mimosa, or _kameel-dorn_ of the Boers—and lay it across a properly
shaped branch, so that it hangs down upon either side. Then they plait
and weave each row of ends together, and by constantly bringing more
grass and continuing the process, pushing it out, as they go, so as to
make it bulge, gradually, on each side of the branch, they make, at last,
a hollow, thatched structure, narrow at the top, where it is supported by
the branch, but getting wider as it descends, like the thatched roof of
a cottage, which, indeed, it much resembles. It is higher, however, in
proportion to its length, and so has roughly the shape of a beehive or
diving-bell; or, again, it may be widened out at the top and made more
rounded, so as to resemble the head of a gigantic mushroom. The structure
is, of course, continuous all round, the two rows of hanging grass-stems
having been woven together by the birds, at either end. Inside this
hollow dome, or roof, the actual nests are now placed, each pair of birds
building a separate one, though as they are all woven together, the whole
of them, with the covering thatch, has the appearance of one structure
when finished. The nests descend within the roof, to the same depth, so
that the central hollow becomes filled up with a mass of material, within
which, however, are a great number of smaller hollows—each one the nest
of a pair of weaver-birds—like the cells of a honeycomb, but with wider
spaces between each. A sort of thatched honeycomb, indeed—though without
the honey—is what the completed structure may most be said to resemble,
but really to complete it, takes many years; for it is not in one season,
nor two, that the whole of the roof, or dome, is filled up. Indeed, when
it is, it may be surmised that the numerous colony inhabiting it, which
may then amount to some two or three hundred souls, or perhaps more, is
shortly about to emigrate, since the weaver-birds, like most other ones,
do not care to occupy the same nest, for two seasons in succession.
Instead, when the breeding-time comes round again they build another one,
and it is in this way that the whole space of the dome is gradually taken
up, though a large part of it always remains unoccupied. As many as 320
nests have been counted, which would make 640 birds, were there a pair
to each; but a considerable number of them—perhaps half—must have been
old ones, no longer in use. What proportion such old nests bear to the
new ones I do not know, so when I say that a colony of weaver-birds may
number some two or three hundred souls only, it is in order to be on the
safe side.

But how delightful to see and be able to watch such a colony as this,
clouds of the birds continually flying in and out, or clustering together
amongst the branches, or on the outside of the thatched roof of their
common house, all chirping and twittering, flying off every now and
then with a whirr, and descending again with another one. Add to this,
the ordinary daily vivacity of the scene, the occasional approach of a
hawk or a monkey—a baboon, perhaps, or a whole party of baboons. How
great then would be the commotion, hundreds of incensed, twittering
little creatures flying out in swarms and dashing about the intruder,
who, being thus mobbed, would probably soon find discretion to be the
better part of valour. The hawk, however, might, and probably frequently
does, take his toll before going. As in our own country, he is no doubt
accustomed to being mobbed, and does not mind it much. With regard to the
monkeys, they would be extremely glad to get any of the weaver-birds’
eggs, and still more, perhaps, the birds themselves, but the nest—to
give the whole collective structure this name—is built in such a way
as to render this difficult. It hangs in the air, and slants outwards
as it descends, so that a small monkey getting on the top of it might
find it difficult to avoid slipping down, whereas the massiveness of the
structure is such as to deter even the baboons from trying to pull it
to pieces. Whatever the reason, they do not apparently endeavour to do
so. Perhaps the swarm of angry birds alone is sufficient to keep them
off, or possibly, being always accustomed to see these great house-like
structures amidst the branches, they look upon them as a part of the tree
itself. The birds, of course, would not be likely to choose the most
exposed branches to build on, but still, judging from the illustrations
one sees, these nests cannot be said to be inaccessible. The smaller
monkeys, however, are not so very common in South Africa—whilst baboons
are less arboreal than monkeys generally are. Some people write, indeed,
as if they had given up climbing altogether, but if they had seen them,
as I have, walking out along the branches of high trees on the banks
of the Limpopo, and on, from tree to tree, they would not go as far as
that. However, it is to these two circumstances, as I believe, that
these great social nests of the Weaver-birds in South Africa, principally
owe their immunity.

Others of the family make separate nests, which they attach to the end of
leaves, twigs, small branches, or slender swaying creepers that hang down
over water—generally a river—so that they cannot be got at by any monkey,
however small, or even by snakes, which are still more redoubtable
enemies. These graceful “pendent nests and procreant cradles,” swung
and danced by the lightest air, are of all sorts of shapes—rounded, or
gourd-shaped, or rounded with a sort of stocking hanging down from it—and
are all of them beautifully woven with the stems and blades of various
grasses.

In this plaiting of the natural growing grass into a fabric, one might
think that the height of bird architecture had been reached, but there is
a Tailor-bird as well as a Weaver-bird, and what he does is perhaps even
more wonderful, since he uses a needle and thread, his bill doing duty
for the needle. Having picked some holes along the edges of two or more
leaves that hang near to one another, the bird passes a thread through
them, in and out, all the way along, and then draws them together with
it, tightening the thread, as we should do, and making a knot at the end
of it, so that it may not come undone. It has previously made another
knot, or bunch, at the other end of the thread, to prevent that slipping
either; but how it does it, or how it makes the thread that it uses (for
it is said to manufacture it, not merely to take a fibre or grass-stem,
at least not always) nobody seems to know. As the Tailor-bird is a
native of India, and is not shy, but comes into gardens and compounds,
where, no doubt, it often builds its nest, this want of information is
not much to the credit of naturalists in that country. But perhaps it
is a difficult thing to see, however near the bird may come. Jerdon, in
his _Birds of India_, tells us that “it makes its nest of cotton, wool,
and various other soft materials,” and that “it draws together one leaf
or more—generally two leaves—on each side of the nest, and stitches them
together with cotton, either woven by itself, or cotton thread picked up;
and after passing the thread through the leaf, it makes a knot at the end
of it.” This sounds as if the nest was made first and the leaves drawn
round it afterwards, but nobody would suppose this, or, indeed, that
it was possible, so I am not going to believe it till somebody who has
seen the bird at work tells me that this is its _modus operandi_.[2] The
Tailor-bird is quite small and of sober appearance. It has a long tail
though, which, in the illustrations, sticks right up, whilst the beak has
a very delicate tactile appearance, almost suggesting a needle, though
not quite the kind that we use. There is, too, a certain little dapper,
demurely self-satisfied look about the bird—I mean in the illustrations,
for I have never seen it—as if it knew what it could do, and was proud
of being able to do it. If it is, nobody, I think, need blame it.

Besides birds that weave or stitch their nests, thus associating
themselves, as it were, with two of the oldest and most respectable
guilds of human society—there are others that belong to a third guild,
and may be called potters, inasmuch as they make theirs of clay, with
only a small admixture of other substances. The Oven-bird is, perhaps,
the chief of these, a bird allied to our own little tree-creeper, but
about the size of a lark. It lives about the banks of South American
rivers, and with the mud, or clay, that it finds there, stiffened with
grass, bits of straw, or other vegetable fibres, it builds its very
remarkable nest, which, “in shape, precisely resembles an oven or
depressed beehive,” and is soon baked almost as hard as a brick, by the
heat of the tropical sun.

The outer clay wall of this strange nest is nearly an inch in thickness,
and, as there are two interior chambers, the size of the whole is very
considerable, in proportion to that of the bird. It is, therefore, a
conspicuous object in itself, and not the slightest attempt is made by
the bird to conceal it. “It is placed,” says Darwin, “in the most exposed
situations, as on the top of a post, a bare rock, or on a cactus.” The
entrance is at one side, and in the larger of the two compartments, which
is the inner one, the nest, which is a soft bed of feathers, is placed.
What the outer compartment is used for, or whether it has any special
use, I do not know. Wood says that the male probably sits in it, whilst
Darwin thinks it merely forms a passage, or antechamber, to the true
nest. As to a very learned work written by several learned people, which
I am always looking at, and always to little or no purpose, it says
nothing, but merely tells you that so and so has mentioned the bird and
somebody else said quite a good deal about it—and it evidently thinks
this enough, though I don’t.

Then there is the Pied Grallina, an Australian bird that makes a nest
which resembles a large clay bowl or pan, and another, called the Fairy
Martin, belonging to the same country, whose nest, built wholly of clay
and mud, has very much the shape of an oil-flask with a rather short
neck, which projects forwards and downwards, and has an aperture at the
end, by which the bird enters. Like those of other swallows and martins,
these nests are built several together, and are fixed to the face of a
cliff or the hollow of a large tree. Our own little martin-nests are not
quite so remarkable as these, but they are sufficiently curious, and
it is interesting that in the swallow family we at last get to birds
which make their nests—I mean, of course, the exterior part—entirely
of mud, without any straw or grass being mixed up with it. It is
interesting, I think, because my own idea is that mud came first to be
used in nest-making, through its adhering to the roots of grasses and
water-plants, and that in the bits of straw and fibre, mixed up in the
pottery of such accomplished mud-builders as, say, the Oven-bird, we
see the last traces of the way in which these structures began. It was
watching blackbirds build that first gave me this idea, for the blackbird
plasters the cup of its nest with mud, as the thrush does with cow-dung
and rotten wood; yet this mud is procured in the way indicated, and the
plants to which it adheres form the bulk of the burden, and are of more
importance than it is in the architecture of the nest. Gradually, as I
believe, the mud got more and more, and the vegetable alloy less and
less, till, at last, in the nests of some species mud only came to be
used.

But we reach a further stage where mud has been given up, and something
else adopted in its place. Thus the thrush, whose nest, up to a certain
point, much resembles that of the blackbird, makes a cup to it, not
of mud, but of cow-dung and rotten wood mashed together. That it once
used mud, however, but that in civilised lands, rich in cows, the other
substance gradually took its place, I have myself little doubt.

Finally, in the nest of the Edible Swallow, or rather Swift, of India
and the Malay Archipelago, we have, perhaps, in its way, as wonderful an
example of bird architecture as any that exists. These nests are attached
to the face of precipices, and both in this and their general appearance
resemble those made by the house-martin, who, before there were houses,
no doubt chose precipices too. They are open, however, not domed, so that
the resemblance is to a martin’s nest about three-quarters finished,
rather than to a completed one. Who can doubt, having regard both to
their shape and the site chosen for them, that the bird that makes these
nests, or rather its ancestors, used, ages ago, to make them of mud. But
this mud was mixed with the salivary secretions—just as in the case of
the house-martin now—and these becoming, as the glands developed, more
and more viscous and glutinous, as well as more copious, began at last to
do duty for the original material, so that now they have entirely taken
its place. The substance thus used is, at first, in a semi-liquid state,
but dries and hardens till it becomes quite solid. On being steeped in
hot water, however, it again softens into a sort of jelly, which is made
into soup by the Chinese cooks, and eaten with the greatest possible
relish by the Chinese epicures.




CHAPTER V

    BOWER-BIRDS AND GARDENER-BIRDS—HOW BIRDS SHOW OFF—A MALAY
    TRAP—CRIMSON COMPETITION—LOVE IN A TREE-TOP.


As we have seen in the last chapter, some nests of birds are very
wonderful buildings, but there are some birds which make much more
wonderful buildings than nests. These are the Bower-birds—a family allied
to that of our crows and starlings—whose habitat is Australia and some of
the adjacent islands. It includes a good many species, and all of them,
besides the nest, make another and quite different structure, which is
known as the “bower,” but for which “playground” or “garden” is, perhaps,
a better name. All three words, however, have something to commend them,
for not only do the birds play and sport in and about these rustic
buildings, and decorate them sometimes with leaves and flowers; but it
is here, also, that the sexes resort, to court and choose one another
before the more prosaic duties of matrimony begin. Whilst the nest,
therefore, is the nursery, this other structure may be looked upon as the
bower of bliss. Generally the birds make it of sticks, grasses, or other
materials belonging to the vegetable kingdom, but it differs in each
species, so the best way is to describe what it is like in a few of the
more salient instances. The Satin Bower-bird makes a sort of platform of
sticks, which it weaves together, so that they are firm enough for it to
run over. This is the floor of the bower, and now come the walls, which
are made of sticks too, but of another kind—long, flexible twigs, which
the bird places upright and opposite to one another, on the two longer
sides of the platform, which is somewhat oblong in shape. The thicker
ends of these twigs rest on the platform, or the ground on each side of
it, whilst the thin tips bend inwards till the two walls almost meet at
the top, to make a sort of vaulted thatched roof. The whole forms a sort
of rustic arbour, open at either end, so that the birds can run through
it. This they delight in doing, and in order that the sticks may offer no
obstruction as they dart along, they are careful, when minor twigs branch
off from them, to place them so that these point outwards. Having made
their bower, the next thing the birds do is to decorate it. Anything they
can find that is bright, or gaily-coloured, such as feathers, bleached
bones, snail-shells, leaves, flowers, etc., they pick up and bring to
their bower. The feathers, or flowers, they hang about the rustic walls,
whilst they drop the bones and shells in a heap outside each of the
entrances.

As the birds are always adding to these collections, and keep up and
repair their bowers from year to year, these curious, white, glistening
heaps grow and grow, until sometimes they are large enough to fill a
cart. Quite a number of birds—perhaps a dozen or more—come to play and
sport at these bowers, or summer-houses. They run through and in and out
and round about them, chasing one another, and having all manner of fun.
The cock of this species is a most beautiful bird, and it is here that he
shows off his glossy, blue-black body and velvety wings to the female,
who is of a sober green, and not nearly so handsome. It is because the
cock’s feathers are so smooth and shining, that he is called the Satin
Bower-bird. The female has not this satiny appearance, but, like other
ladies, she has to take her husband’s name. The size of the birds is
about that of a jackdaw—at least I have seen them in the gardens, and
they looked to me almost as large. Mr. Gould, speaking of the bower of
this bird, says: “It has now been clearly ascertained that these curious
structures are merely sporting-places in which the sexes meet, and the
males display their finery and exhibit many remarkable actions, and
so inherent is this habit, that the living examples which have, from
time to time, been sent to this country, continue it even in captivity.
Those belonging to the Zoological Society have constructed their bowers,
decorated and kept them in repair, for several successive years.” A
gentleman who kept these Bower-birds in captivity, writing to Mr. Gould,
says: “My aviary is now tenanted by a pair of satin-birds, which for the
last two months have been constantly engaged in constructing bowers. Both
sexes assist in their erection, but the male is the principal workman.
At times the male will chase the female all over the aviary, then go to
the bower, pick up a gay feather or a large leaf, utter a curious kind
of note, set all his feathers erect, run round the bower, and become
so excited that his eyes appear ready to start from his head, and he
continues opening first one wing and then the other, uttering a low
whistling-note, and seeming to pick up something from the ground, until
at last the female goes gently towards him, when, after two turns round
her, he suddenly makes a dash, and the scene ends.”

I forgot to say that Mr. Gould once found a stone native tomahawk,
amongst the heap of things that this bird had collected at its bower,
and when, in Australia, either a native or a white man loses anything
in the least ornamental—anything, in fact, that is not too heavy for a
Bower-bird to carry—the first thing he does is to go to all the bowers in
the neighbourhood, and see if it has been taken to any of them.

The Spotted Bower-bird is as beautiful, perhaps, as the last, and
its bower or sporting-place is a still more wonderful structure. Mr.
Gould describes it as considerably longer than that of the Satin
Bower-bird—three feet long sometimes—so that it is more like an avenue
than a bower. “Outwardly,” he says, “they are built of twigs, and
beautifully lined with tall grasses, so disposed that their heads nearly
meet” (others, however, who have seen them, say that they are much more
open at the top); “the decorations are very profuse, and consist of
bivalve shells, crania of small mammalia, and other bones, bleached by
exposure to the rays of the sun, or from the camp-fires of the natives.
Evident indications of high instinct are manifest throughout the whole
of the bower decorations formed by this species, particularly in the
manner in which the stones are placed within the bower, apparently to
keep the grasses with which it is lined fixed firmly in their places;
these stones diverge from the mouth of the run, on each side, so as to
form little paths, while the immense collection of decorative materials
are placed, in a heap, before the entrance of the avenue, the arrangement
being the same at both ends. In some of the larger bowers, which had
evidently been resorted to for many years, I have seen half a bushel of
bones, shells, etc., at each of the entrances.” Mr. Gould goes on to say
that he “frequently found these structures at a considerable distance
from the rivers, from the borders of which the birds could alone have
procured the shells, and small, round, pebbly stones,” and that “their
collection and transportation must, therefore, be a task of great labour.”

The “bower” or, rather, the little rustic village, made by the beautiful
Golden Bower-bird—a name which is as good as a description—is still more
wonderful than either of the other two; indeed it is like a fairy-tale
to read about it. This species chooses out two trees that stand near one
another, and round the trunk of each it piles up an enormous quantity of
small sticks and twigs, in the shape of a cone or pyramid. One of these
stick pyramids may be as much as six feet high, and bulky in proportion,
but the other is not nearly so large, standing only about eighteen inches
from the ground. Having reared the two pillars, as it were, the birds—for
several may join in the labour—proceed to arch over the space between
them. For this purpose they search out the long stems of creepers that
grow in the woods, and having fixed them, by an end, to the top of one
pile, stretch them tight, and trail them over the other, thus making a
covered walk between the two. Then they bring white moss, and festoon the
pillars with it, and into the leafy roof they weave clusters of green
fruit, like grapes, that hang down from it, so that it looks as if they
had trained a vine over a trellis. Yet still the birds are not satisfied.
All around the great central arbour they make little dwarf huts, or
wigwams, of the growing grass, bending the stems together till the ends
meet, and then thatching them over with a horizontal layer of twigs. When
all is finished, they chase each other through their trellised arbour
and round and round their little grassy wigwams—or “gunyahs” as they
are called by the natives—the males, all resplendent in their beautiful
golden plumage, glancing in and out amongst them, like so many little
suns.

But the wonder of these things goes on increasing, and at last we come to
the Gardener-bird, who, as its name implies, lays out a regular garden
with a lawn and flower-beds, and a summer-house in it, as well. The
lawn, however, is made of soft, verdant moss, and stuck about in it, at
various points, are the brightest blossoms and berries that the country
where the bird lives—which is New Guinea—can afford. As these wither,
the “gardener” takes them away, and brings new ones in their place. The
summer-house, which is about two feet high, is built of sticks round a
small tree, which projects through the top and makes a central support.
From this the walls radiate outwards, in the shape of a tent or wigwam,
and, to make them look smooth and pretty, they are all covered over
with orchid stems. On the top—either round the projecting tent-pole, or
over it—the birds put moss, arranging it in the form of a sugar-loaf.
At one side the wigwam is left open, and it is in front of the opening
that the lawn and flower-beds are placed. The birds can sit in their
tent, or summer-house, and look out at their garden, or walk about their
garden and look at their pretty summer-house; and if that is not romance
in animal life I am sure I do not know what is. The bird that does all
this is not very handsome itself, and this makes its appreciation of the
beauty of a garden and summer-house—which must be much the same as our
own—all the more remarkable. Signor Beccari, an Italian gentleman, was
the first to discover and describe the species, and he has made a drawing
of it and its garden, which may be seen in volume ix. of _The Gardener’s
Chronicle_, at p. 333. One can only hope that he did not “obtain,” as
they call it, any specimens—for to kill a creature that makes a garden
and looks after the flowers in it, taking them away when they wither and
bringing fresh ones in their stead, is, to my mind, to do something but
little short of murder. Perhaps if it watered them as well it really
would be thought wrong to take such a bird’s life: but where are we to
draw the line?

Many of these Bower-birds are wonderful mimickers, and can reproduce all
sorts of sounds so exactly that people in Australia are often taken in
by them. Mr. Morton, of Benjeroop, relates how a neighbour of his had
been driving cattle to a certain spot, and on his way back discovered a
nest in a prickly needle-bush, or hakea tree. While “threading the needle
branches after the nest (to take, that is destroy it, of course), he
thought he heard cattle breaking through the scrub, and the barking of
dogs in the distance, and at once fancied his cattle had broken away, but
could see no signs of anything wrong. He heard other peculiar noises, and
glancing at his dog, as much as to say, ‘What does it mean?’ he saw the
sagacious animal, with head partly upturned, eyeing a spotted Bower-bird,
perched in the next tree.”

The structures which we have been here considering are of so
extraordinary a nature, that they more arrest our attention than do those
special activities relating to courtship and matrimony, for the due
performance of which the birds have erected them. With all other species,
however, in which these rites are a special feature, the exact converse
is the case; or, rather, whilst a special place is sought out for their
indulgence, no structure in connection with them is made. In some few
cases, however, we perhaps see the beginnings of this. The male argus
pheasant, for instance, displays before the hen in a little open space in
the jungle, to which, in the breeding season, he day after day repairs,
and though he builds nothing, he is most assiduous in keeping this space
clear and clean, so that if a leaf or a twig, or anything else, gets into
it, he takes it up and drops it outside. So pronounced, indeed, is this
habit, that the Malays have learnt to take advantage of it to the birds’
destruction. They cut off a long shaving from the stem of a bamboo, and
tie one end of it to a peg, which they drive into the ground in the
centre of the clearing. Finding that an ordinary pull will not remove
the untidy-looking thing, the irritated bird at length seizes it with
his bill by the free end, and twisting his neck two or three times about
it, makes a violent spring backwards, with the result that he cuts his
throat, for the thin edges of the bamboo are almost as sharp as a razor.

The display, as it is called, of the argus pheasant is a most interesting
thing to see. The secondary quill feathers of the male are immensely
developed, and very beautifully and æsthetically ornamented with a row
of circular spots, so finely shaded that they stand out in perspective,
like a real ball, as though drawn by a clever artist. Under ordinary
circumstances these lovely ornaments are hidden, but when the wings are
expanded they make, together, a great circular shield, which is thickly
studded with them; and this starry firmament the male, when he wishes to
make an impression, offers suddenly and with _empressement_ to the gaze
of the female. The lower feathers meet together in front of the bird’s
head, so that, in order to judge of the effect he is making, he has to
thrust it between two of them, and thus peep out at the hen. At the
same time he fans his tail and elevates it, so that the two very broad
and very long plumes which it contains nod above the soft splendour of
the wings. To see several of these magnificent birds—as large almost,
at least in their then appearance, as peacocks—contending thus for the
favours of the female, must be a most magnificent sight, to be excelled
only, perhaps, by the similar rivalry of peacocks themselves in some
tiger-haunted jungle of India. Both these birds belong to a family which
is famous for displays of this sort. They are striking enough in our own
pheasant, which, however, comes originally from the East, and rise to a
maximum, at least in Europe, in the blackcock and capercailzie. I have
myself seen both these birds exhibiting to the females, in Norway.

The cock-of-the-rock offers another striking example of the importance
of courtship amongst birds. The male of this species is, from beak
to tail, of a deep orange, or, more beautiful still, of a brilliant
blood-red colour. From the beak one may well say, for this, to the very
tip, as well as the head itself, is covered with, or rather buried in, a
magnificent crescent-shaped crest, which, by obscuring the usual contour
of that region, gives a touch of _bizarrerie_ to a _tout ensemble_
sufficiently splendid. As in the case of the argus pheasant, a little
open space is selected, the mossy turf of which soon becomes pressed
smooth by the tramplings of the birds’ feet. In it the adorned males, to
the admiration of their more sombre-coloured lady-loves, dance and spring
about, engaging, from time to time, in fierce and valorous conflicts.
Whilst not in the ring, as one may say, the birds often fly from one to
another of the neighbouring trees, to the trunks of which they sometimes
cling, all in the greatest excitement. As in all other cases of the sort,
the females are supposed to accept, by preference, those males for their
husbands, whose plumage, when thus shown to advantage, creates the most
dazzling effect.

This is the theory of sexual selection by which Darwin accounts for
most of the very beautiful colours and markings throughout nature. But
though his arguments have never been shaken, whilst the evidence on
which they are based has been most effectively supplemented,[3] yet
naturalists, as a body, seem determined to ignore both the one and the
other, and to see in the most striking patterns and conspicuous hues,
a “protective resemblance” to the surrounding landscape, which, if it
really exist for any man, must be due rather to some personal cause, such
as strong imagination or weak eyesight—or a combination of the two—than
to any objective reality. There is no animal now, in fact, however
conspicuous it may be to the eye of the savage, that is not pronounced
almost invisible by some spectacled old gentleman or another, and I feel
confident myself that, were a red or blue lion to step off a public-house
and walk in full view down the street, it would be thought to “blend
wonderfully” with the houses on either side, by these thorough going
advocates of the protective theory. Darwin, however, who has pointed out
so many cases of assimilative colouring, all of which are accounted for
on his theory of natural selection, did not believe that the tiger or
zebra were protected in this way, nor would he, probably, have endorsed
the red lion.

It is amongst the birds of paradise, however—and especially in the
case of the great bird of paradise, the loveliest, perhaps, of
all—that we see the courting antics of birds exhibited, if not in their
greatest perfection, at least in their most overpowering beauty. Here
the gathering-place, instead of being on the ground, is amongst the
tree-tops, and a tree of a specially lofty kind is chosen, which, by
virtue of its spreading head and scantiness of foliage, is well adapted
for the purpose. Here, in the early morning, the birds assemble, and
the males, which alone possess those magnificent plumes, or, rather,
fountains of feathers, that spring from beneath the wings on either side,
display them now to the best advantage, elevating them, spreading and
shaking them out, and keeping them all the while in a state of quivering,
tremulous vibration. Amidst this soft and spray-like shower, tinted of a
soft mauve and a deep golden orange, the emerald feathers of the neck and
the pale, straw-coloured ones of the head, as the bird turns it excitedly
from side to side, gleam and sparkle, whilst the wings are raised and
opened, making, as it were, a basket out of which the plume-jets spring.
In the intervals between these exhibitions, the birds fly from branch
to branch of the wide-spreading tree-top, their plumes now trailing
behind them, and looking as beautiful, almost, in another way, as they
did just before when specially exhibited. Not that there is much order
in the birds’ performances, or, rather, it is order in disorder. Though
rivals, emulous of one another’s actions, yet each of them plays its
own independent part. No two, it is probable, out of, perhaps, a score
composing the assembly, acts in just the same way at just the same time,
and thus the whole space is filled, each moment, with a varied scene of
exquisite, ethereal loveliness.

Professor Wallace—who does not, however, as it would appear, speak from
personal knowledge—tells us that, “at the time of the bird’s greatest
excitement, the wings are raised vertically over the back, the head
is bent down and stretched out, and the long plumes are raised up and
expanded till they form two magnificent golden fans striped with deep
red at the base, and fading off into the pale brown tint of the finely
divided and softly waving points. The whole bird is then overshadowed by
them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald-green throat forming
but the foundation and setting to the golden glory which waves above.
When seen in this attitude the bird of paradise really deserves its name,
and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful of
living things.” Nothing is said about the hens here, but in the following
description—the only one I know which comes from an eye-witness—they
play their part, as will be seen, and as I have no doubt they should
do in the other. The birds here seen belonged to another species of
the _paradiseidæ_—the red bird of paradise, I think, which is almost
as handsome, but of this I cannot be sure. “The two hens,” says Mr.
Chalmers, who was travelling in New Guinea, “were sitting quietly on a
branch, and the four cocks, dressed in their very best, their ruffs of
green and yellow standing out, giving them a handsome appearance about
the head and neck, their flowing plumes so arranged that every feather
seemed combed out, and the long wires (some curious shaftless feathers
characteristic of this family of birds) stretched well out behind, were
dancing in a circle round them. It was an interesting sight. First
one and then another would advance a little nearer to a hen, and she,
coquette-like, would retire a little, pretending not to care for any
advances. A shot was fired, contrary to our expressed wish; there was a
strange commotion, and two of the cocks flew away, but the others and
the hens remained. Soon the two returned, and again the dance began and
continued long. As we had strictly forbidden any more shooting, all fear
was gone: and so, after a rest, the males came a little nearer to the
dark brown hens. Quarrelling ensued, and in the end, all six birds flew
away.”

There is not, it must be confessed, much power of description shown here,
but it is from life, and at any rate the birds are not killed—a very
redeeming point indeed.




CHAPTER VI

    BIZCACHAS AND BIZCACHERAS—INTERESTED NEIGHBOURS—A PROVIDENT
    MOTHER—PRAIRIE-DOGS AND RATTLESNAKES—OWLS THAT LIVE IN BURROWS.


That strange habit which the bower-birds have of bringing all sorts of
things—such as bleached bones, shells, etc.—to the places they make,
is practised also by at least one species of mammal—the Bizcacha or
Vizcacha, namely, an animal whose home _par excellence_ is the pampas
of South America, where it takes the place of the allied prairie-dog,
or marmot, of the northern continent. It is a quaint-looking animal,
something like a rabbit, Darwin thought, but with larger gnawing teeth,
and a much longer tail. Like the rabbit, too, it is social in its habits,
and makes a burrow of huge size, with a mound piled up all around it. It
is to this mound that the bizcacha brings almost everything that it finds
lying about, which is not too large for it to drag or carry, and just
as in Australia one looks for anything one has lost in the habitations
of the bower-birds, so on the pampas the first thing to do is to search
the neighbouring bizcacheras—to use the Spanish word for a settlement or
colony of these animals.

Thus, if a Spanish gentleman should happen to drop his watch whilst
riding, or a herdsman his whip, he is not much put out about it, even if
it happened on a dark night. Next morning he rides again along the track
of his horse’s hoofs, and comes back with the watch in his pocket or the
whip in his hand.

Nobody knows why the bizcacha does this, or, to talk in a more scientific
way, what is the origin of the habit. There can be no doubt whatever
that the flowers or shells brought to the gardens or play-houses of the
bower-birds answer the purpose of decoration, and are thought pretty by
the birds. The bizcacha may have the same idea, but if so it seems funny
that no other member of his family, and, indeed, as far as I am aware, no
other mammal at all, should act similarly, or seem attracted by objects
in themselves, independently of any use they can be put to. Nor does the
bizcacha play with these things—at least I have not heard of his being
seen to do so. He just pulls them to his mound and then seems to pay no
further attention to them. Another explanation has been suggested[4]
which I think is more likely to be the real one. The bizcacha is
extremely careful in clearing the ground, not only round its own burrow,
but all about the village, as a collection of bizcacha burrows may be
called. This he can only do by removing all objects, whether growing or
merely lying about, but it is his instinct instead of dragging them away
from the village into the country at large, to drag them to his mound and
get rid of them there. Perhaps if he were to carry them off he would not
know when to stop. The mound gives him a definite place to bring them to,
and, moreover, he feels safer going towards his burrow than away from
it. However, whatever may be his reason, this is what the bizcacha does.
He is an animal that makes a mound or hill of earth, and then brings
everything he can find to that mound, and lays it on the top of it.

Though the bizcacha is not so very much bigger than a rabbit yet he makes
a very much bigger burrow to live in, and the entrance to it especially
is enormous, being five or six feet across, and deep in proportion, so
that if a man were to jump into one he would lie hidden up to the waist.
It is from the earth that is dug out of this great pit that the mound
is made, and as bizcachas make their burrows very close together, the
mound round one becomes part of that round another, so that at last there
comes to be one great mound like a low hillock, with several large pits
all over it, and this is the bizcachera, or village of the bizcachas—the
bizcacha warren as we should call it. But though it is their village and
they have made it, it is not only the bizcachas who live in it. Quite a
colony of birds and animals dwell there, some of them not at all for the
good of the rightful owners. Chief amongst the latter are the fox and the
weasel of the pampas. The fox—a beautiful, grey animal, something like a
dog in appearance—comes to the village, and having driven a pair of the
poor bizcachas out of their burrows, takes up his abode in it himself.
That, at present, is all the harm he does, for the young bizcachas are
not yet big enough to come out of their burrows, and, beyond this first
act of spoliation, he does not interfere with the old ones. But, by and
by, the young bizcachas, who have grown to be nice plump little things,
begin to leave their burrows and play about on the mound, and then day by
day—or rather night by night—the fox pounces upon them and eats them. If
the fox itself is a mother with a family of cubs to feed, the havoc she
does in the bizcachera is tremendous. The poor little village children
are chased from one hole to another, and killed, often in their very own
nurseries, in spite of the efforts of their parents to defend them—for a
pair of grown bizcachas are no match for a single fox. At length, when
all the fat little succulent things—the “_marmots d’enfants_,” as we may
call them—have been eaten off, and only the bereaved parents—who are
tough—remain, the fox—a good mother—collects her own young ones about
her, and leads them to the next village, which she hopes will be better
supplied.

The weasel, probably, behaves in much the same way as the fox, but
whether a pretty little burrowing owl that makes the bizcachera his
home—though he generally makes his own burrow—does any harm to the young
ones, I cannot, for certain, say. I should think, however, that, as he
is quite a small bird, such a meal would be beyond his strength, even
though it might accord with his inclinations. A pair of these little
owls are often to be seen sitting together, just at the entrance of one
of the bizcacha burrows, and when the bizcacha comes out he may sit
beside them, for a time, looking quite friendly, and as though he had
come to have a chat. One might fancy that tea would be brought up soon
by a servant. This, however, is mere imagination. In reality the two
species are quite indifferent to one another, as is often the case with
different animals that yet live together. Besides the owls, a lively,
pretty little bird, called by the Spaniards the minera, makes holes in
the sides of the pit, which forms the entrance to the bizcacha’s burrow,
and a little swallow uses these holes for itself, and lays its eggs in
them, when the mineras have flown away. It is like a miniature sandpit,
with owls and mineras as well as sand-martins living in it, and it would
all be very comfortable and harmonious if it were not for the fox and
the weasel. The comfort is that it is not every bizcachera that has a
fox for its landlord. Absentee landlordism is appreciated on the pampas.
Most wonderful of all, as it seems, all sorts of insects live in these
bizcacha villages, that are hardly seen anywhere else. Thus quite a
little zoetrope of varied life revolves about the habitation that one
animal has made for itself.

It is much the same with the little prairie-dog, or marmot, that lives,
as its name implies, on the prairies of North America. This little
creature is a burrower, too, and, like the bizcacha, it throws up a
mound of earth outside the burrow, on which it sits up on its hind legs
and surveys the country, just as if it were a man. The mound, however,
is a more ordinary one than that made by the bizcacha, and although the
burrows are dug pretty close to each other, each one of them seems to
have its separate mound. A great number of these—and the prairies are
sometimes studded with them as far as the eye can reach—constitutes what
is called a “dog-town” or “village”; and a very interesting thing it is
to come upon such a town, with its tens or even hundreds of thousands of
inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are always to be seen sitting up
on their dome-like mounds, like sentinels posted all about, to prevent
the city being taken by surprise.

Here, too, the city has an alien population. There are burrowing owls,
and probably foxes too, but the most remarkable animal that takes up its
abode in the burrows of the prairie-dog, or marmot, is the dreaded and
terrible rattlesnake. As in the case of the fox with the bizcacha, the
possession, here taken, is forcible, or, at least, we may assume that the
poor little marmot would resist it if it could. It would appear, however,
that the legitimate owners are not expelled by the rattlesnake, but with
their family continue to live in the same burrow—as long, that is to
say, as the family lasts, for of the relations subsisting between it and
the reptile there is now no doubt. “It was generally thought,” says the
Rev. J. G. Wood, “on the discovery of owls and rattlesnakes within the
burrows of the prairie-dogs, that these incongruous beings associated
together in perfect harmony, forming, in fact, a ‘Happy Family’ below the
surface of the ground. The ruthless scalpel of the naturalist, however,
effectually dissipated all such romantic notions, and proved that the
snake was by no means a welcome guest but an intruder on the premises,
self-billeted on the inmates, like soldiers on obnoxious householders,
procuring lodging without permission, and eating the inhabitants by way
of board. The reason for the presence of the owls is not so evident,
though it is not impossible that they may also snap up an occasional
prairie-dog in its earliest infancy, while it is still very young,
small, and tender.” At this period, however, the young would, no doubt,
be vigilantly guarded by the mother, and as the owl is quite a little
bird, it would not be likely to attack them under these circumstances.
Moreover, the existence of countless burrows, all ready-made, is quite
sufficient to explain the owl’s presence in any of them, since it is not
driven out by the owner. In an illustration of the work from which the
foregoing passage is quoted, the owl is further represented as itself
having young ones, which it is defending from the rattlesnake. Whether it
really breeds in the burrows I do not know, but with its habits I can see
no reason why it should not. For the rattlesnake, too, the burrows must
make splendid places of retirement, so that even if it were a question
of lodging only, and not board, I can see nothing strange in its going
into them. I believe myself, indeed, that this is the principal good
sought, and the other only incidental to it. Wood writes as if it was
quite an unheard of thing for two or more animals of different species
to live together, without hurting one another; but this—as no one knew
better than himself—is not the case, as we may see with the shark and
pilot-fish, or in an ants’ nest, or in the bizcacheras that we have just
been speaking about—for what harm do the swallows or mineras do to each
other or the bizcacheras? There was really nothing so very romantic—if by
that is meant silly—in the idea of the “Happy Family.” Ordinary people
were not so much at fault, nor were naturalists so very superior.




CHAPTER VII

    THE PUMA AND THE JAGUAR—TWO FIERCE ENEMIES—A STRANGE
    ATTACHMENT—A NIGHT ON THE PAMPAS—THE STORY OF MALDONADA.


But the greatest enemy that either the prairie-dog or the bizcacha has to
contend with, is not the fox or the rattlesnake, but the dreaded puma or
cougar, next to the jaguar the largest and most formidable animal of the
cat tribe that lives on the American continent. It seems strange that a
creature which kills horses and cows, as well as the wild huanaco, the
tapir, deer, and American ostrich, should think of anything so small as a
bizcacha or prairie-dog, but the puma will kill not only these, but even
small birds, and the burrowing armadillo if he happens to come across
it. More curious still, the dreaded jaguar, which one might have thought
secure from every enemy except man, is attacked and vanquished by the
puma. I have not heard of its being killed by him, indeed, nor should I
think that possible, since if the two came to a grapple the jaguar would
certainly be the stronger. What the puma does is to leap on the jaguar’s
back, claw him savagely, and then spring off again, before the tormented
beast has had time to do anything—for the puma is ever so much quicker
and more active, though not so strong as the jaguar.

Why the puma should act thus I cannot tell, but both the Indians and the
half-breed Gauchos of the pampas tell the same story, and as jaguars are
often killed that have their backs all over claw-marks, I suppose it must
be true—unless they have done it to one another. This does, indeed, seem
possible, and if it were only the male jaguars that were found with their
backs in this state I should look upon it as the explanation. But there
is no distinction of this sort, as far as I know, so I think it must be
pumas, for a male jaguar would not fight with a female one, nor would the
females be likely to fight together. The curious thing is that in that
part of America where there are no jaguars, but where the grizzly bear is
found, the puma is said to attack this huge and powerful beast—so that
we have the same kind of story told by quite different people, separated
from each other by an immense tract of country. Just as with the jaguar,
the puma is supposed always to come off victorious in his encounters with
the grizzly, and it is even said that the latter is sometimes killed by
him. I must confess, however, that I find this very difficult to believe.
The puma is immensely agile, and, like others of the cat tribe, very
muscular in proportion to its size. But a full-grown grizzly bear is
twice as large and twice as heavy as itself, and its strength must be in
proportion. How, then, does the slight-built puma overpower and kill so
ponderous an animal, clad in a shaggy coat of fur? Once seized by the
grizzly I think it would have no chance, but it is possible, perhaps,
that by springing on its back and wrenching its head suddenly round, it
might be able to dislocate the neck, as it does that of a horse. That,
indeed, is the puma’s usual method of attack, and we must remember that,
strength for strength, a horse of any size is almost as much its superior
as the grizzly bear itself. So perhaps, after all, the thing is not
quite so unlikely as it, at first sight, appears. The wonderful thing is
that the puma should attack such animals as bears and jaguars, instead
of confining itself to the more timid and peaceable creatures of the
browsing kind, as do most beasts of prey.

[Illustration: A BEAR BESET BY WILD SWINE.

A wild pig, which had been seized by a bear, rescued by its comrades.]

But if this be wonderful, what are we to say of another trait or quality,
in which this strange creature seems to stand alone amongst wild animals.
It almost reads like a fable, but it really does seem to be true that
the puma, fierce as he is, has yet a strange affection for mankind, and
that not only will he not attack a man himself, but will even prevent
other animals from doing so. There is a story told by the Gauchos of
a man who, whilst hunting on the pampas, had his leg broken by a fall
from his horse, and was left out all night. During the whole time he was
guarded, as it seemed, by a puma, who, when a jaguar drew near to attack
him, as he thought, sprang upon it, and prevented it from doing so. All
through the night the puma and jaguar fought about the man, sometimes so
near that he could see their shadowy forms through the darkness, whilst
at other times their presence and actions were betrayed only by the
fierce sounds which issued from them. These, on the part of the jaguar,
consisted of growls and roars, but the puma has a peculiar yelling cry
which, in itself, is still more terrible, and comes full of fear to all
who do not know its habits. For this dreadful sound the Gaucho kept
listening, and when it rang out, loud and shrill, he hailed it as an
assurance that the puma was victorious, or, at least, holding its own,
and took courage accordingly. But when it sank, or seemed choked and
muffled, then his heart sank with it, and nervously grasping his long,
curved knife—the only weapon that remained to him—he sat each moment
expecting the jaguar’s spring, till once more that thrilling cry—raised
as in triumph—cheered his spirits, filling him with hope. The sweetest
music—from his wife’s or children’s lips perhaps—had never fallen so
sweetly on his ears as did that savage sound. So much, in this world, are
we the creatures of circumstance, and so much are things what they mean
for us! This dreadful alternation of hope and fear, or rather of fear
relieved by hope, or weighted with despair, continued till the dawn of
morning, when both the beasts disappeared, the combat apparently having
had no decisive issue. The man was confident that he owed his life to the
puma, which, as he further related, had appeared first upon the scene,
and sat for some time near him, though without appearing to notice him.
It was not till after midnight that he first saw the jaguar, which was
crouching only a little way off, but with its head turned in the opposite
direction. Doubtless it was watching the puma, for shortly afterwards,
when it had crawled farther off and had become invisible, the dreadful
sounds of strife rose suddenly out of the darkness of the night.

There can be little doubt, I think, that the jaguar would have seized
and devoured the Gaucho had it not been for the puma; but it does not,
therefore, follow that the puma, knowingly and of set purpose, protected
the man. As its enemy, he would have been likely to attack the jaguar in
any case, and if we suppose the latter to have kept all night near the
man, because it wished to attack him, this would account for the fighting
having been always near him, too, instead of the scene of it having
gradually shifted; for the puma would have stayed where the jaguar was,
in order to fight with it. We have, of course, only the Gaucho’s word for
the truth of his story; but I think myself that if he had been romancing
he would have made up a very different one, containing much more varied
incidents, wherein he himself would have played a much more considerable
part. It looks to me like a true tale, but, as I say, it does not quite
prove that the puma stayed by the man all night, in order to take care
of him. His strange love of man might have brought him there at first,
and then all the rest would have followed as it did. That for some reason
or other, perhaps to do with his scent—we must remember how fond cats
are of valerian—the puma really does like man, and becomes quite mild in
his presence, can hardly,[5] I think, be doubted. All the Gauchos and
all the Indians—the two races of men that come most in contact with the
animal—assert that such is the case, and the very name which the Gauchos
give to the puma is “El amigo del hombre” (“the friend of man”). They say
that not only will it never attack man, but that, if attacked by him, it
will allow itself to be slaughtered without making any resistance. Why
should they assert things so unlikely in themselves, and which are in
such contrast with the known character of the puma where other animals
are concerned, and especially in regard to the jaguar, if they were
not the actual truth? The Spaniards, when they first came to America,
were not prepared for anything of the sort, and if they had wished to
invent they would have been much more likely to have invented tales of
the puma’s fierceness, and of their own skill and courage in hunting
it. Perhaps they did at first, but gradually the truth became manifest,
so that such stories no longer “went down,” as we say. Instances of the
puma’s strange attachment to mankind became more and more numerous, until
at last the matter ceased even to excite their wonder, as the strangest
things do when once they have become familiar. Now, in South America at
least, the fact is notorious, and notoriety, here as elsewhere, ought, I
think, to be accepted as proof. Moreover, nobody has the slightest fear
of the puma. There is no record of men having been seized by it, as they
often are, or, at least, as they often used to be, by the jaguar, and
even if a little girl or boy happens to be out on a dark night, nobody
is alarmed, if only pumas are supposed to be about. When the Gaucho we
have been reading about told his strange story, nobody disbelieved him,
or even thought it was anything very remarkable. If, however, it had
been told in early colonial days, before the Spaniards had left a race of
half-breed descendants, whose life is always bringing them into contact
with wild animals, and who are familiar with all their ways, in that case
it would either have been discredited or else put down to a miracle.
Whether the story of Maldonada, as told by the old Spanish chronicler,
Rui Diaz de Guzman, is true or false, and whether, if true, it is in the
nature of a miracle or not, I will let my readers decide: but here it is.

In the early days of the Spanish conquest, Buenos Ayres, which is now
a large and beautiful city, the capital of the Argentine Republic, was
only a small town, with a fort and some soldiers to guard it, and in
the year 1536 it was besieged by the Indians, so that, the provisions
being exhausted, a terrible famine set in. Eighteen hundred people died
of starvation, and the putrefying smell of their bodies, which were
disposed of hastily in shallow trenches, only just outside the town,
caused beasts to assemble from the surrounding country, so that the risk
of being devoured by them was added to that of death at the hands of the
Indians, for any who might venture beyond the palisades. Still, as the
allowance of flour on which the survivors were living had shrunk to six
ounces a day, whilst the flour itself had become almost putrid, there
were many who were content to run both these risks for the chance of
finding anything, either living or dead, which hunger might enable them
to eat, in the woods surrounding the town. Amongst these was a young
and beautiful woman named Maldonada, who, losing her way, and wandering
amongst the woods, was at last taken by the Indians, and received by
them into their tribe. A few months afterwards, however, the governor
of the town, a man named Ruiz, succeeded in ransoming her, and she was
brought back.

[Illustration: A GALLANT WILD ANIMAL.

For two whole nights an enormous puma defended the girl from the attacks
of countless wild beasts.]

Little good, however, was intended to Maldonada by this act. Upon her
arrival Ruiz accused her of having wished to betray the town to the
Indians, and, in expiation of this imaginary crime, ordered her to be
taken again to the forest, tied to a tree, and left either to starve, or
be devoured by any ravenous beast that might see her. The cruel command
was punctually obeyed, and Maldonada, bound and helpless, was left to
her terrible fate. At the end of two days, the Governor, wishing to
have his ears gratified with an assurance of her death, sent a body of
soldiers to seek for her remains. They found Maldonada herself, alive
and uninjured, and the story she told was the same as that of the Gaucho
left helpless, all night, on the pampas. An enormous puma, she said, had
appeared soon after sunset, on the day that she had been left to die,
and during the whole of that night and the following one, had guarded
her against the assaults of numberless savage beasts that had raged
around. God, she thought, had sent the puma to protect her, knowing her
innocence; and this was the view that the soldiers, sent to find her,
took too, as did also the townspeople, and, at last, the Governor, Ruiz,
himself. Maldonada, on being taken back, was proclaimed innocent, and
the war with the Indians being shortly brought to a close, she lived
the rest of her life in happiness and prosperity. Whether she thought
kindly of pumas ever afterwards, and always wore a mantle made of their
skins in recognition of the service one had done her, I do not know; but
were this recorded of her, I should see no reason to doubt the truth
of the statement. The old chronicler who tells the story says that he
knew Maldonada; but, instead of telling us anything more about her, he
contents himself with making an obvious, poor pun upon her name. From
this we may, perhaps, infer that, except when helped by a puma, she was
not a very interesting person.




CHAPTER VIII

    BEES AND ANTS—A ROBBER MOTH—ANTS THAT KEEP COWS AND SLAVES—ANTS
    THAT ARE HONEY-POTS—ANTS THAT SOW AND REAP.


The most wonderful of all insects—that, at least, would be the general
opinion—are bees and ants. As bees are so very well known, and kept by so
many people, I will not say much about them here, which will leave more
space for the ants. Of the two, bees perhaps are the finer architects,
for nothing quite so wonderful as their rows of hexagonal cells is to
be found in an ant’s-nest. “He must be a dull man,” says Darwin, “who
can examine the exquisite structure of a comb, so beautifully adapted
to its end, without enthusiastic admiration”; and he goes on to observe
that “bees have practically solved a recondite problem, and have made
their cells of the proper shape to hold the greatest possible amount
of honey, with the least possible consumption of precious wax in their
construction.” No doubt these wonderful cells are now made instinctively,
yet the bees can adapt their architecture to special circumstances, which
shows the possession of reasoning power. Thus, should a piece of the
comb fall down, they will not only fix it, by wax, in its new position,
but, what is much more extraordinary, will strengthen the attachments
of the other combs, lest they should fall too—for there can be no other
reason for such an act. Bees, again, are sometimes much annoyed by the
death’s-head moth which enters the hive at night, and devours the honey,
apparently without danger to itself, though why this should be the case
we do not know. After having suffered for some time, however, the bees
barricade the entrance by building behind it a wall of wax and propolis,
through which they make a hole large enough to admit themselves, but
which quite excludes the bulky body of the moth. Here, too, we have
reason and foresight in a high degree, as much, I think—perhaps more
so—as has ever been observed in any occasional act of an ant, devised
to meet special circumstances. For it is only in years in which the
death’s-head moth is specially abundant that the bees act in this way;
and, moreover, when it seems no longer required, they remove the barrier
they have made.

The puzzling thing is that acts like this seem to show higher
intelligence than, to judge by various experiments, one would think
either ants or bees possessed. The results, for instance, of the
experiments made by Lord Avebury in this direction, are rather
disappointing than otherwise, especially with ants, creatures so far
advanced in civilisation, as we may call it, and the ways of man, that
they keep both cows and slaves, milking the one and making the others
work for them. The cows are represented by little insects called aphides,
one species of which we are accustomed to see upon our rose trees, and
the milk is a drop of nectar which they exude from the abdomen, upon the
ants gently tapping them there with their antennæ. Various kinds of ants
milk various kinds of aphides, and some keep them in their nests, where,
indeed, they are born, their eggs being tended with the same care as
those of the ants themselves. Thus we see amongst ants a creature kept
and used regularly for a certain purpose, as domestic animals are amongst
ourselves, and this, as far as we know, is unique in the animal world.
The aphides, too, belong to a family of insects quite distinct from the
Hymenoptera, amongst which the ants are included.

Ant-slaves, on the other hand, are ants themselves, though belonging to
another species than their masters. The latter raid their nests and carry
off, without injury, the larvæ and pupæ, which they afterwards hatch out
in their own. These ants, therefore, are born into slavery, so that they
do not know their condition, if we could suppose that that would disquiet
them, and, moreover, they are not ill-used, but treated in every respect
as well as though they belonged to the community in which they have been
born. The only thing that makes them slaves is that they work for the
ants by whom they have been captured, but this they do _con amore_—ants
love working—so that there is no hardship in it. They work, however, in
varying degrees, some species of slave-making ants being accustomed to
do a certain amount for themselves, whilst others even require to be
fed, and are often carried by their slaves, who, of course, do all the
regular household business of building, feeding the young, bringing food
to the nest, etc., etc. When Huber—the great French observer of ants and
bees—placed thirty of this latter kind of slave-making ants in a box,
with some of their larvæ and pupæ and a supply of honey, but without
any slaves, “more than one half of them died of hunger in less than two
days.” The others were languid and without strength, and appeared able to
do nothing. Commiserating their condition, Huber at length gave them a
slave. “This individual, unassisted, established order, formed a chamber
in the earth, gathered together the larvæ, extricated several young ants
that were ready to quit the condition of pupæ, and preserved the life of
the remaining Amazons,” as Huber calls these slave-raiders, in allusion
to their sex. It is only the worker ants of any species who are taken
away by others, whilst still immature, to be afterwards hatched out as
slaves, for they alone would be of use. Both ants and bees, as is well
known, are divided into three different sets or castes, the males, the
perfect females, who become queens and are the founders of the community,
and the immature females or workers, who are the most interesting of the
three, and by whom the whole work of the hive or nest is carried on.

One of the most extraordinary of all ants—and therefore of all insects—is
the honey-ant of Mexico (with some adjoining regions) and Australia.
Amongst these, a certain section of the community take the place of
aphidæ amongst other ants. They live but to distribute honey to the rest,
and by reason of this, and the remarkable way in which their purpose is
accomplished, may be said to be living honey-pots. In the first place,
they are themselves fed with honey by the workers, who swallow it and
bring it up from their stomachs in the way in which a pigeon brings up
food for its young—a process which is called “regurgitation.” During
this process the abdomen of the honey-bearers begins to swell, and by
degrees becomes quite globular, and of such a disproportionate size to
the rest of the body that the latter projects from it like a piece of
stick, and is raised high above the ground. When thus fully distended it
is difficult for the insect to walk—a feat which it can only accomplish
sideways—but it has, as a rule, no necessity to do so, and only clings
motionless to the vaulted roof of the cell or chamber in which it is
enclosed. This is of a roughly circular shape, about three inches across,
and an inch or three-quarters of an inch in height. It is called the
honey-chamber, and in it a number of these honey-bearers reside—if
they may not rather be said to be stored—hanging closely together, and
looking like a bunch of currants or small amber-coloured grapes—for
their abdomens are transparent, so that the honey shows through them. It
used to be thought that these ants had no stomachs, so that the abdomen
itself made the jar for the honey. This, however, is a mistake. The honey
on being swallowed, is received into the stomach, and this by swelling
inordinately, causes the abdomen to swell too. It is interesting that
whilst the floors of these honey-chambers are quite smooth, the roof is
rough, so that the ants, fixing their feet upon the granulated surface,
can cling there more securely. We need not suppose, however, that the
ants produce this result purposely, for it is by their constantly walking
over the floors of the chambers that they become smooth and polished.
Here, then, we have the honey-jars. The workers when they are hungry
come to them, and lifting their mouths up to the mouth of the jars, the
honey from the latter is poured—or regurgitated—into them. In doing this
the honey-bearing ant—or, as she is often called, from the shape of her
abdomen, the rotund—throws her head up, and a drop of clear, amber fluid
is then seen to exude from her mouth, which is eagerly licked up by the
workers.

It is to be presumed that the latter crawl up the walls of the
honey-chambers in order to be fed by the rotunds; but I am not quite sure
whether Mr. MacCook, who kept these ants, and is the authority upon them,
ever actually saw them do this. On the other hand, he often saw them fed
upon the ground; but then, I think, he had put the honey-bearing ants
there. In his book he gives some interesting illustrations of the feeding
taking place. It used to be thought that these poor honey-pot ants were
unable to walk, and lived all their lives in one place. This, however,
is not the case. Mr. MacCook tells us that he has “frequently seen them
coming out of their chambers, ascending the galleries, and moving freely
about them.” They went sideways, and half slid and half crawled along.
Again, when he placed them on a table, they were able to move “with no
little agility.” If, however, they happened to fall from the roof where
they were clinging, which sometimes they did through people shaking them,
they were not able to get up again, but lay there helpless. It is not
always, however, that these honey-jars are full, and when they are half
or three-quarters empty they can walk very much better.

Some ants, it is now well known, are accustomed to store up grain in
their nests during the summer or autumn, so as to have a supply of food
during the winter. Long ago this habit had been recorded by Solomon, who
says, “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat
in the summer”; and again, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her
ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth
her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.” Classic
writers have also dwelt upon this interesting point in ant economy, so
that for a long time it was taken for granted not only that some ants
stored grain, but that all of them did. However, when the European
species began to be observed very carefully, this opinion was found to be
erroneous, and Huber and other investigators, having convinced themselves
that grain in these instances was not so stored, opinion began to go to
the other extreme, and the fact was denied altogether. It was supposed
that Solomon, and the ancient writers generally, had seen the ants
carrying their little white larvæ or pupæ—as anyone may do who disturbs a
nest—and that these had been mistaken for seeds.

For my part, I think that this is very likely to have been the case in
some instances, for until lately it has not been the custom to watch
insects, or indeed any animals, minutely, and it is not the business—and
often not the interest—of poets to verify matters of this kind. In the
Mishna, however, which is a collection of old Jewish writings, we find a
law relating to this grain stored up by the ants, and the ownership of
it; and anyone who had read this might have known that the thing was a
reality, since minute regulations about the possession of something can
hardly exist, unless that something exists, too. This is the law, which,
as will be seen, dealt fairly by everyone except by the ants—“The little
caves of ants, when in the midst of a standing crop, are adjudged to the
owner of the field; of those behind the reapers, the upper part is the
property of the poor, the lower of the proprietor.” Rabbi Meir, however,
decided that “all belong to the poor, since whatever is in doubt, in
gleaning, goes to the gleaner.”

Yet in spite of the strong presumption in favour of ant providence and
foresight, which this piece of ancient legislation raises, opinion was
against it, and it was not till 1829 that the question was set at rest
by Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes, who, whilst at Poonah, in India, saw and
examined these “little caves of the ants” and also the ants carrying the
seeds, not into but out of them. “Each ant,” he tells us, “was charged
with a single seed; but, as it was too weighty for many of them, and as
the strongest had some difficulty in scaling the perpendicular sides of
the cylindrical hole leading to the nest below, many were the falls of
the weaker ants with their burdens, from near the summit to the bottom.”
The ants, however, that thus fell never relaxed their hold of the grain
they were carrying, and, with a perseverance affording a useful lesson
to humanity, “steadily recommenced the ascent, after each successive
tumble, nor halted in their labour until they had crowned the summit and
lodged their burden on the common heap.” This observation was made just
after the heavy rains of the Indian monsoon. The seeds had probably got
wet, and the ants were bringing them up to dry in the sun.

Here then, at last, the truth of the ancient opinion as to ants storing
grain was vindicated; but now came another and still more wonderful
discovery. A harvesting ant—one, that is to say, that stored grain—was
found to inhabit Texas, and Dr. Lincecum, who lived for twelve years in
that country, came to the conclusion that this species not only stored
the grain, but planted it, too, so as to have a crop of seeds next
year, just as a farmer plants wheat. In an account of this ant which
Dr. Lincecum sent to Darwin, who read it before the Linnean Society, he
says: “The species which I have named Agricultural, is a large, brownish
ant. It dwells in what may be termed paved cities, and like a thrifty,
diligent, provident farmer, makes suitable and timely arrangements
for the changing seasons. When it has selected a situation for its
habitation, if on ordinary dry ground, it bores a hole, around which it
raises the surface three and sometimes six inches, forming a low circular
mound, having a very gentle inclination from the centre to the outer
border, which on an average is three or four feet from the entrance. But
if the location is chosen on low, flat, wet land, liable to inundation,
though the ground may be perfectly dry at the time the ant sets to work,
it nevertheless elevates the mound in the form of a pretty sharp cone to
the height of fifteen to twenty inches or more, and makes the entrance
near the summit. Around the mound, in either case, the ant clears the
ground of all obstructions, and levels and smooths the surface to the
distance of three or four feet from the gate of the city, giving the
space the appearance of a handsome pavement, as it really is. Within
this paved area not a blade of any green thing is allowed to grow except
a single species of grain-bearing grass. Having planted this crop in a
circle around, and two or three feet from, the centre of the mound, the
insect tends and cultivates it with constant care, cutting away all other
grasses and weeds that may spring up amongst it, and all around, outside
the farm-circle, to the extent of one or two feet more. The cultivated
grass grows luxuriantly, and produces a heavy crop of small, white,
flinty seeds, which under the microscope very closely resemble ordinary
rice. When ripe it is carefully harvested and carried by the workers,
chaff and all, into the granary cells, where it is divested of the chaff
and packed away. The chaff is taken out and thrown beyond the limits of
the paved area. During protracted wet weather,” continues Dr. Lincecum,
thus supporting the observations of Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes, “it
sometimes happens that the provision stores become damp, and are liable
to sprout and spoil. In this case, on the first fine day, the ants bring
out the damp and damaged grain and expose it to the sun till it is dry,
when they carry it back and pack away all the sound seeds, leaving those
that had sprouted to waste.”

In 1877 Mr. MacCook visited Texas on purpose to find out whether the
harvesting ants really sowed the seed, as Dr. Lincecum had reported,
for of course anyone may be mistaken. He saw a good deal of what Dr.
Lincecum had seen, but not all, which is no wonder, since he only stayed
a few weeks, whereas Dr. Lincecum had lived in the country for twelve
years. Mr. MacCook could not make up his mind upon the subject, but he
saw no reason why the ants should not sow their seed, nor has he given
any better explanation of their clearing a space and not letting anything
but their ant-rice grow upon it. There can, I think, be very little doubt
that Dr. Lincecum was right in his opinion. We need have no difficulty
in believing that some ants have fields and raise crops upon it, because
there are other kinds, which, though they do not do this, do other things
which are quite as wonderful, and demand quite as much intelligence. Mr.
Belt, too, as we shall see, in a little, believes that some ants in South
America grow mushrooms and make beds to grow them on.

This is the description which Mr. MacCook gives of the way in which a
harvesting-ant carries its grain of rice—as big almost and heavy as
itself—to the nest. “At last a satisfactory seed is found. It is simply
lifted from the ground, or, as often happens, has to be pulled out of the
soil, into which it has been slightly pressed by the rain or by passing
feet. Now follows a movement which at first I thought to be a testing
of the seed, and which, indeed, may be partially that; but finally I
concluded that it was the adjusting of the burden for safe and convenient
carriage. The ant pulls at the seed-husk with its mandibles, turning
and pinching or feeling it on all sides. If this does not satisfy, and
commonly it does not, the body is raised by stiffening out the legs,
the abdomen is curved underneath, and the apex applied to the seed. I
suppose this to be simply a mechanical action for the better adjusting
of the load. Now the worker starts homeward. It has not lost itself in
the mazes of the grass-forest. It turns directly towards the road (one of
the little roads made by the ants, as they come and go to and from their
nest) with an unerring judgment. There are many obstacles to overcome.
Pebbles, pellets of earth, bits of wood, obtruding rootlets, or bent-down
spears of grass block up or hinder the way. These were scarcely noticed
when the ant was empty-handed. But they are troublesome barriers now
that she is burdened with a seed quite as thick, twice as wide, and half
as long as herself. It is most interesting to see the skill, strength,
and rapidity with which the little harvester swings her treasure over or
around, or pushes it beneath these obstacles. Now the seed has caught
against the herbage as the porter dodges under a too narrow opening. She
backs out and tries another passage. Now the sharp points of the husk are
entangled in the grass. She jerks or pulls the burden loose, and hurries
on. The road is reached, and progress is comparatively easy. Holding the
grain in her mandibles well above the surface, she breaks into what I may
describe with sufficient accuracy as a ‘trot,’ and with little further
interruption reaches the disk (the cleared space round the nest, that is
to say) and disappears within the gate.”

The seeds, when thus brought into the nest, are stored by the ants in
long galleries, or in vaulted chambers, the floors of which have been
specially prepared for its reception. It is a very curious thing that the
stored seeds, though they often become quite moist, do not germinate, as
would be the case under ordinary circumstances, if we, for instance, were
to lay them in some cave or cellar. Were they to do so they would become
bitter, and, of course, unfit for food, so that it seems as if the ants
must have some way of stopping the process of nature. What this way is
we do not know, but if, out of a great many thousands, some of the seeds
do begin to sprout, the ants bite off the little rootlet or radicle that
then makes its appearance, by which act the germination is prevented from
going farther. It is quite as wonderful that the ants should have found
out how to prevent the seeds from growing in their nests—and do it in two
ways—as it is that they should plant it in fields specially prepared for
it to grow upon.




CHAPTER IX

    ANT ARMIES—A SNAKE’S PRECAUTION—WONDERFUL BRIDGES AND
    TUNNELS—MUSHROOM-GROWING ANTS.


We will next consider the foraging ants of such tropical countries
as Brazil and Western Equatorial Africa. To the latter the name of
driver-ants has been given, because when they set out on their invading
marches they drive every living thing, including man, before them.
Everything they seize they devour, and as they go in great numbers and
constantly open out into two or more columns so as to enclose patches of
the forest, hosts of creatures find it impossible to escape destruction.
Du Chaillu gives an interesting account of these ants, which were called
_bashikonay_ by the natives amongst whom he was living. He says: “This
ant is very abundant in the whole region I have travelled over in Africa,
and is the most voracious creature I ever met. It is the dread of all
living animals from the leopard to the smallest insect. I do not think
they build a nest or house of any kind. At any rate, they carry nothing
away, but eat all their prey on the spot. It is their habit to march
through the forests in a long regular line—a line about two inches broad,
and often several miles in length. All along this line are larger ants,
who act as officers, stand outside the ranks, and keep this singular
army in order. If they come to a place where there are no trees to
shelter them from the sun, whose heat they cannot bear, they immediately
build underground tunnels, through which the whole army passes in
columns, to the forest beyond. These tunnels are four or five feet
underground, and are used only in the heat of the day, or during a storm.
When they grow hungry, the long file spreads itself through the forest in
a front line, and attacks and devours all it overtakes with a fury which
is quite irresistible. The elephant and gorilla fly before this attack.
The black men run for their lives. Every animal that lives in their line
of march is chased. They seem to understand, and act upon, the tactics
of Napoleon, and concentrate, with great speed, their heaviest forces
upon the point of attack. In an incredibly short space of time the mouse,
or dog, or leopard, or deer is overwhelmed, killed, eaten, and the bare
skeleton only remains.”

These terrible insects travel night and day. “Many a time,” says Du
Chaillu, “have I been awakened out of a sleep and obliged to rush from
the hut and into the water, to save my life, and after all, suffered
intolerable agony from the bites of the advance-guard, who had got into
my clothes. When they enter a house they clear it of all living things.
Cockroaches are devoured in an instant. Rats and mice spring round the
room in vain. An overwhelming force of ants kills a strong rat in less
than a minute, in spite of the most frantic struggles, and in less than
another minute its bones are stripped. Every living thing in the house
is devoured. When on their march the insect-world flies before them,
and I have often had the approach of a bashikonay army heralded to me by
this means. Wherever they go they make a clean sweep, even ascending to
the tops of the highest trees in pursuit of their prey. Their manner of
attack is an impetuous leap. Instantly the strong pincers are fastened
and they only let go when the piece gives way. At such times this little
animal seems animated by a kind of fury which causes it to disregard
entirely its own safety, and to seek only the conquest of its prey.
The bite is very painful.” This latter statement it is easy to believe
from the figure given in Du Chaillu’s book of one of these driver, or
bashikonay ants. It is drawn twice the size of the real insect, but,
even so, this would make the latter at least as large as a wasp. The
head is enormous, larger than the thorax and abdomen—which make the
body—together, and from it a huge pair of curved and pointed mandibles
project and cross each other at the tips. When fairly covered with such
creatures the effect would be that of thousands of tiny pincers, all
tearing out pieces of flesh at the same time. No wonder that the negroes
who are naked, or nearly so, run for their lives. In old times, Du
Chaillu tells us, native criminals used to be tied down in the path of
these terrible ants, to be torn to pieces and devoured by them—a shocking
piece of cruelty which one is glad to know even then (more than forty
years ago) and amongst savages, was a thing of the past. This terrible
fate, however, must sometimes overtake those who are too old or ailing
to escape by their own efforts, and to assist whom there is no time, and
possibly but little inclination.

But in spite of such catastrophes, and of the danger and inconvenience
which these driver-ants cause to the negroes, they are yet, in reality,
very useful to them, since, several times a year, their huts are freed
from the vermin with which they at all times abound.

If the gorilla and elephant fly before these ants, one can understand
that snakes, however large, would also be afraid of them; and accordingly
we have a curious story told by the natives, of the anxiety felt by the
great python lest he should be overtaken by their armies, whilst lying
torpid after a meal, and of the means which he takes to avoid such a
catastrophe. Having killed his prey by crushing it in the great folds of
his body, he leaves it lying on the ground, and does not return until,
having made a circle of a mile or more in diameter, about the body, he
is assured that no ant-army is on the march. Only then does he dare to
swallow his prey and risk the dangerous period of sluggish inactivity
which is necessitated by the process of digestion. If, however, the
object of fear should be met with the python glides off with all possible
speed, leaving the booty to be devoured by the ants should they happen to
come upon it.

The habit of these driver-ants of making a tunnel as they march along,
and thus sheltering themselves from the heat of the sun, is very
remarkable, but I cannot quite understand how they drive it so deep
under the ground as Du Chaillu says. To do so must surely delay them for
a very long time, and the quicker and more expedient course would seem
to be to wait for the sun to go down, and then to cross the open space.
However, we should never assume, in natural history, that a certain
course will be pursued by any animal, simply because it is the best
one. Often, however obvious this seems, they act otherwise. From other
accounts, however, it would seem as if the ants threw up their tunnel on
the surface of the ground instead of excavating beneath it, and that,
sometimes, the structure reared by them is more of the nature of an
awning than a tunnel. The Rev. Dr. Savage, for instance, says: “If they
should be detained abroad till late in the morning of a sunny day, by
the quantity of their prey, they will construct arches over their path,
of dirt agglutinated by a fluid excreted from their mouth. If their way
should run under thick grass, sticks, etc., affording sufficient shelter,
the arch is dispensed with; if not, so much dirt is added as is necessary
to eke out the arch, in connexion with them.”

Sometimes a still more wonderful arch or tunnel is made by the ants,
for it is a living one composed of the bodies of some of their number.
These, apparently, stand in two rows upon their hinder legs, and by
interlocking their jaws and intertwining their anterior legs and antennæ
make a covered way for the workers to pass along. From this, it would
appear that certain of the ants feel the heat less than the ordinary
workers. Apparently, however, the ants only act in this way when the sky
is clouded, and when, as a consequence, one would not have expected any
covering to be necessary. Dr. Savage, who gives this interesting account
of ant body-building, as one may call it, has not been sufficiently
explicit in regard to the details and circumstances attending it.

More extraordinary even than their habit of making a living arch or
gallery, is the method which these ants employ of passing rivers. To do
this they climb a tree upon one or other of its banks, and running out
along a branch overhanging the water, let themselves down by clinging
one to another, until a rope is formed of their united bodies. This soon
reaches the water, and becoming constantly longer as fresh ants run down
and affix themselves, is swept out from the shore by the force of the
current, until at length its free end is washed against the opposite
bank. There is, now, a thin bridge of ants, like a ribbon and of immense
length, stretched slanting-wise from shore to shore, and over it the main
body of the ants ceaselessly pass, till there are no more to come. Only
the bridge itself now remains, but the ants helping to form this, on the
nearer side of the stream, detach themselves now from the tree, when the
bridge changes to a rope in the water, and this, being carried at once
down the stream, is soon washed against the further bank, to which its
corresponding end is attached.[6] As soon as this has been accomplished,
the living ants composing this organic work of engineering skill, crawl
on shore and continue their march, bringing up the rear of the column. It
has been asserted, I know—for I have read it somewhere, and well remember
the accompanying illustration—that the monkeys inhabiting the Brazilian
forests are accustomed to cross the smaller rivers that flow through
them, in the same way. As the ants do so, there seems nothing absolutely
impossible in the thing, but as years have gone by and I have met with no
reference to so interesting a fact in any work of standing, I have got to
distrust the only authority I can remember for it—a boy’s book, namely,
by Mayne Reid.

Du Chaillu, whose account of the driver-ants, or bashikonays, I have
already quoted, describes their manner of bridging streams in a slightly
different way, which, if correct, makes it still more remarkable. He
says: “When, on their line of march, they require to cross a narrow
stream, they throw themselves across, and form a tunnel—a living
tunnel—connecting two trees or high bushes on opposite sides of the
little stream, whenever they can find such, to facilitate the operation.
This is done with great speed, and is effected by a great number of ants,
each of which clings with its fore claws to its next neighbour’s body or
hind claws. Thus they form a high, safe tubular bridge, _through_ which
the whole vast regiment marches in regular order. If disturbed, or if
the arch is broken by the violence of some animal, they instantly attack
the offender with the greatest animosity.” This presents the matter in
a still more interesting light, and as it is the account of a man who
professes to have seen what he describes, it should rank, perhaps, before
the other, which, though I have taken it from a trustworthy source, was
not there given as a first-hand account. Both versions, however, may be
correct.

If streams are not sufficient to daunt the driver-ant, neither are
floods. When these occur, numbers of them rush together and cling to
one another, forming a ball-shaped mass, that, being lighter than the
water, floats upon it, till such time as the flood has retired. The
size of these balls is, for the most part, that of an orange, but they
may be either larger or smaller—tangerine orange-balls in the latter
case. The natives say that the larger and stronger ants form the outer
circumference of the globe, whilst the weakly ones—or, as they express
it, the women and children—are contained and guarded in the centre.

I have never seen the real driver-ants, not having been in any really
tropical country. In South Africa, however, I have often seen the
armies, or, as the Kaffirs call them, _impis_, of a black, stinging ant,
that seems to take their place. When these insects are disturbed in
their march, the whole column makes a hissing noise, which can be very
distinctly heard. How the sound is produced I do not know, but it is
more like a hiss than anything else, and is accompanied, if I remember
rightly, with a strong smell of formic acid. Though these black ants are
fierce and bold, so that the Kaffirs admire them, call them warriors,
and compare them with themselves, their marches are not attended with
the striking sights which belong to those of the drivers, nor have they
the wonderful habits or instincts of the latter. They are less than half
their size, moreover, and their chief weapon being a sting, the mandibles
are not extraordinarily developed. I never myself happened to be stung by
one, but have heard others complain bitterly.

The driver-ants of Africa are represented in tropical America by
the _Ecitons_—a family containing numerous species—of which we have
some interesting accounts by travellers who were, at the same time,
naturalists. Speaking of the _Eciton drepanophora_, Mr. Bates, in his
well-known _Naturalist on the River Amazon_, says: “When the pedestrian
falls in with a train of these ants, the first signal given him is a
twittering and restless movement of small flocks of plain-coloured
birds (ant-thrushes) in the jungle. If this be disregarded until he
advances a few steps farther, he is sure to fall into trouble, and find
himself suddenly attacked by numbers of the ferocious little creatures.
They swarm up his legs with incredible rapidity, each one driving his
pincer-like jaws into his skin, and, with the purchase thus obtained,
doubling in its tail and stinging with all its might. There is no course
left but to run for it.” However, it is almost as easy to “fly from
oneself” (a hard thing, Horace tells us) as from ants that have once
crawled up beneath one’s garments and embedded their jaws in one’s flesh.
Only after a halt, and special attention paid to each individual, are
these to be got rid of, and then only by degrees, since these determined
little warriors—all undecorated, and without even a thought of crosses or
promotions—are content to let their bodies be torn from their heads, as
long as they can leave the latter, with the jaws attached, sticking in
the wounds they have made.

“The errand,” continues Mr. Bates, “of the vast ant armies is plunder,
and wherever they move the whole animal world is set in commotion, and
every creature tries to get out of their way. But it is, especially,
the various tribes of wingless insects that have cause for fear, such
as heavy-bodied spiders, ants of other species, maggots, caterpillars,
larvæ of cockroaches, and so forth, all of which live under fallen leaves
or in decaying wood.” Unlike the bashikonay ants that we have been
considering, these Ecitons do not ascend trees to any great height, so
that young birds in their nests for the most part escape. Both species
consist, like other ant communities, of males, females, and workers, but
the differentiation of the latter into two castes, differing both in
size and shape from one another, is most marked amongst the Ecitons. The
members composing these two classes are known as the worker-majors and
worker-minors respectively, and whilst the latter make up the majority
of the host, and thus present the standard size and appearance, the
former are much larger, with heads disproportionately big, and greatly
lengthened jaws.

Both the African and American kinds hunt with method and system, and
each species has its own particular way of setting to work. Of that
employed by the one under consideration, Mr. Bates gives us the following
account. “The main column, from four to six deep, moves forward in a
given direction, clearing the ground of all animal matter, dead or alive,
and throwing off, here and there, a thinner column, to forage for a short
time on the flanks of the main army, and re-enter it again after their
task is accomplished. If some very rich place be encountered anywhere
near the line of march—for example, a mass of rotten wood abounding in
insect larvæ—a delay takes place, and a very strong force of insects
is concentrated upon it. The excited creatures search every cranny, and
tear in pieces all the large grubs they drag to light. It is curious to
see them attack wasps’ nests, which are sometimes built on low shrubs.
They gnaw away the papery covering, to get at the larvæ, pupæ, and
newly hatched wasps, and cut everything to tatters, regardless of the
infuriated owners which are flying about them. In bearing off their spoil
in fragments, the pieces are apportioned to the carriers with some degree
of regard to fairness of load: the dwarfs taking the smallest pieces, and
the strongest fellows, with small heads, the heaviest portions. Sometimes
two ants join together in carrying one piece, but the worker-majors, with
their unwieldy and distorted jaws, are incapacitated from taking any part
in the labour.”

The precise part in the life of the community which is played by these
great worker-majors, with the relation which it no doubt bears to their
superior size and modified shape, has long been a puzzle to naturalists.
The first idea was that they formed a soldier caste—a natural supposition
in view of their great armour-plated heads, and elongated twisted jaws.
Observation, however, does not bear out this theory. The jaws, in spite
of their size, are not so well adapted for seizing on a plane surface—the
skin, for instance, of an animal—as are those of the smaller workers;
and, moreover, these large ants seemed to Mr. Bates to be less pugnacious
than the others. “The position,” he tells us, “of the large-headed
individuals in the marching column was rather curious. There was one
of these extraordinary fellows to about a score of the smaller class;
none of them carried anything in their mouths, but all trotted along
empty-handed and outside the column, at pretty regular intervals from
each other, like subaltern officers in a marching regiment of soldiers.
I did not see them change their position, or take any notice of their
small-headed comrades marching in the column, and when I disturbed the
line, they did not prance forth or show fight so eagerly as the others.”
Mr. Bates then hazards a conjecture that these big ants may serve
indirectly to preserve the community, by being indigestible to birds, and
that their great, twisted mandibles may be effective, whilst lying in the
crops or stomachs of the latter. This seems possible, since a certain
number of unpalatable individuals in a community of ants might make birds
disinclined to eat any of them. I think, myself, however, that it is
premature to speculate on the part in life which these curiously modified
worker ants may be designed to play, until we know something more of
their home economy, and particularly of their architecture. This, it is
true, is of a very rude kind, nor do these marauding ants appear to have
any permanent place of abode. Still, they may do something in the shape
of building, and the peculiar jaws of the worker-major class suggest
that they are formed for seizing some special object, or performing some
special kind of labour.

These foraging ants show a good deal of sympathy with one another, and if
one is in distress the others will do their best to relieve him from his
embarrassment. Mr. Belt, a naturalist who spent some time in Nicaragua,
made some experiments with a view to testing these points. He took an
ant, and placed it under a stone in the line of the marching column. The
first of the marching ants that saw its plight hurried back, and soon
returned with several companions, to whom it had evidently communicated
the intelligence. Some seized and tugged the ant, whilst others bit and
pushed the stone, and, between them, the prisoner was soon freed. Other
ants Mr. Belt covered up with clay, leaving only their head or antennæ
projecting, and all were rescued in the same way. Lord Avebury has tried
similar experiments with our own English ants, but the results were not
so satisfactory. Both in sympathy and intelligence, these foraging ants
of America seem much superior to the various European species. More
experiments, however, with a greater number of species are much to be
desired.

Another ant of tropical America is the famous _sauba_ or leaf-cutting
ant. All day long these insects seem occupied in cutting out pieces of
leaves, and carrying them off to their nests. New arrivals in the country
are astonished to meet long columns of them marching down well-beaten
paths, and all carrying circular pieces of green leaf, the size of a
sixpence, held upright in their jaws. All these are marching homewards,
but beside them, empty-handed, another stream goes hurrying back to
the forest, from which their comrades are returning laden. What use do
the ants make of these leaves, after they have carried them down into
their nests? In regard to this there have been various opinions. Some
naturalists used to think that they used them as food simply, others
that they made a sort of underground roof to their nests with them;
but Mr. Belt has almost proved that what the ants really do with their
leaves, is to make them into mushroom-beds, the mushrooms—not the
leaves themselves—being used as food by the community. He found, on
excavating their nests, that they consisted of a number of chambers,
as large, and almost as round, as a man’s head. In each of these lay a
brown mass of vegetable matter, which, on examination, proved to be made
of the leaves themselves, now withered and cut into a number of small
pieces, amidst which, and holding them all together, grew a minute white
fungus—the mushrooms of the ants. Mr. Belt proved that it was not the
leaves themselves which the ants ate, because he found deserted chambers
filled with these, which, now that their manuring properties had become
exhausted, no longer supported any fungus. Yet that the ants require food
in their nests must be assumed, since they are never seen feeding outside
them; and, moreover, when they desert the nest and establish themselves
in another, they take the fungus-bearing leaves, but not the others, with
them. Clearly, then, this fungus, which they cultivate themselves, must
be their food—the ants are mushroom-growers.

Mr. Belt concludes his very interesting account of the sauba ants with
one more instance of their intelligence. “A nest,” he tells us, “was made
near one of our tramways, and, to get to the trees, the ants had to cross
the rails, over which the waggons were continually passing and repassing.
Every time they came along, a number of ants were crushed to death.
They persevered in crossing, for some time, but at last set to work
and tunneled underneath each rail. One day, when the waggons were not
running, I stopped up the tunnels with stones; but although great numbers
carrying leaves were thus cut off from the nest, they would not cross the
rails, but set to work making fresh tunnels underneath them. Apparently
an order had gone forth, or a general understanding been come to, that
the rails were not to be crossed.”




CHAPTER X

    WHITE ANTS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE—VERY WONDERFUL NESTS—“A
    PRISON AND A PALACE”—THE AARD VARK AND THE ANT-EATER—HOW ANTS
    ARE TRAPPED.


In the white ants, or termites—to use their more scientific name—we have
insects greatly resembling ants in their general plan and mode of life,
and also much like them in general appearance, but which really are not
ants at all, but belong to another order, widely distinct from them.
They are Neuroptera, and thus allied to the dragon-flies, may-flies,
grasshoppers, etc., whereas the real ants belong to the Hymenoptera, in
which the bees and wasps are included. Like the ants, the termites are
divided into males, females, and undeveloped females, or workers, which
last form two castes that work in different ways, the one in building the
nest, the other in defending it from attack—the former are the masons or
architects, the latter the soldiers. In the matter of the nest, these
white or false ants surpass all real ones, and therefore all other
insects; it is built above, instead of below, the ground, and attains
such a size, and rises to such a height, that these termite nests become
a marked feature of any landscape, and may almost be said to turn a flat
country into a hilly one. Rising in huge conical or beehive-shaped
mounds, of a red colour and with lesser mounds dotted about them, they
often support a more or less dense vegetation, upon which, in South
Africa, where they are the largest, antelopes, or even buffaloes, may be
sometimes seen browsing. The base of such a structure may be twenty yards
in circumference, the height from ten to twenty feet, or even more. The
masonry composing it is a sort of red clay, and seems, to the touch, as
hard and solid as brick; though that it is not really so, is shown by its
yielding to the stout curved claws and muscular fore limbs of the aard
vark, a creature who lives almost wholly on the termites.

Outwardly, the termite-mound is dotted with little round holes, which are
the orifices of so many passages leading into the interior, whilst the
interior itself presents the most wonderful arrangement of galleries,
halls, nurseries, cells, and chambers that exists in the insect world.
First, comes a well-aired, empty attic, situated in the crown of the
dome, or, rather, the peak of the sugar-loaf, to take the more typical
shape. Beneath it, with a passage between them, is a nursery where, on
shelves round the walls, the young termites are hatched. Beneath this,
again, is a wide hall supported by lofty pillars, and, lastly, upon
the ground floor, a royal chamber, shaped like a beehive, in which the
king and queen—being respectively the father and mother of the entire
colony—are confined. Around this palace-prison, as it may be called, are
clustered the much smaller cells of the workers, from which, as from the
other compartments, a number of tunnels, or galleries, lead to the outer
circumference of the mound. From the floor[7] of the termitary—as the
nest is sometimes called—holes perforate the earth, becoming larger as
they descend; but these do not represent any addition to the architecture
of the building, being merely the pits from which the materials that have
gone to make it, have been extracted. Except the royal cell, the whole
of this great edifice—equally remarkable in regard to its size and its
architecture—is reared by the worker termites: but this, as being the
foundation-stone of the whole, must necessarily, it would seem, be the
work of the two founders, there being no one else to help them till after
the hatching of the eggs.

Both the male and female are at first winged—as is the case with the real
ants—but after the marriage flight they voluntarily break them off, as do
these, and then set to work to found a colony. Whether the two entirely
immure themselves in the cell, or chamber, referred to, or whether they
only partially do so, and are assisted afterwards by the workers yet
unborn, I cannot state, inasmuch as I have not watched the founding of a
nest myself, and such authorities as I have been able to turn to, though
writing as observers, say nothing on this head. Evidently they don’t
know, but they don’t tell you that, either. However, be this as it may,
the royal pair are, at some point in the earlier part of their career,
enclosed in a compartment which may, at first, be roomy, but which, in
this case, rapidly becomes, by the swelling of the queen’s body, now
stored with thousands of eggs, only just able to contain them. The queen
herself, in fact, whose abdomen has now become a long, white cylindrical
object, like the blown-out finger-stall of a white kid glove, almost
fills the space with this alone, her head and thorax being, in comparison
with it, of as contemptible dimensions as are those of a bean-stalk,
compared with its bean. Yet, besides herself, there is room not only for
the male, but for some of the workers, which are very small, and enter
the cell through a line of small holes, running round it, longitudinally,
in the centre. Through these holes the king and queen are fed by the
workers, which have probably bored them, since they but just admit their
own bodies.

This, however, is the least part of their duties. Very soon the queen
begins to lay her eggs, and continues to do so day and night, without
intermission, at the astonishing rate of from sixty to eighty thousand in
the twenty-four hours. All are carried out by the workers, and deposited,
eventually, in the nursery which they themselves have prepared for them.
Since, however, the very workers which do this have first to be born, it
seems evident that the earlier eggs must for some time lie where they
fall, and perhaps be afterwards stored somewhere else, whilst the nursery
is a-making. The great size that the nest becomes seems to suggest that
it is the gradual work of many generations of termites, brought forth by
successive queens. It must, however, have had a beginning, and it is
this beginning, as made by a single royal pair, that I have here been
considering. It is quite possible that nobody may yet have watched it, or
both watched and written about it. Probably it is most difficult—perhaps
impossible—to do so; but it is irritating to read that the nest is
founded in this way, and find not so much as an allusion to these obvious
difficulties. It is quite as incumbent, I think, on those who watch
creatures, to say what they have not been able to find out, as what they
have.

The worker termite is about the size of a house-fly, the soldier much
larger, with a flat head, enormously large in proportion to the size
of his body, and long, curved jaws. These, and the thorax, are of a
yellowish brown colour, and have a smooth, polished appearance, whereas
the abdomen is a good deal lighter, and soft-looking. Only the soldiers
fight. “They stand,” says Professor Drummond, “or promenade about, as
sentries, at the mouths of the tunnels. When danger threatens, in shape
of true ants, the soldier termite advances to the fight. With a few
sweeps of its scythe-like jaws, it clears the ground, and whilst the
attacking party is carrying off its dead, the builders, unconscious of
the fray, quietly continue their work.” The latter, besides building the
wonderful colossal nest, feeding the king and queen, and storing the
eggs, as described, bring food to the nest, and feed and attend to the
young, in all their stages. Besides the king and queen that have founded
the termitary, other males and females are kept and attended to in it,
by the workers, and these, should anything happen to the sovereigns, are
ready to reign and lay eggs in their stead.

White ants are enormously destructive, and a great pest to civilised
man, wherever the two come in contact. Their food is, for the most
part, vegetable, but they are ready to destroy, if not to eat, almost
anything. Their habit is to bore into any solid substance, and eat out
its interior, leaving it hollow, with its outer surface, represented
by a thin shell, intact. Such an object may be a chair, perhaps, or a
table that was once, and still continues to look, of massive build. Now,
however, should it be sat upon, or laid as usual, it collapses as though
made of tinder. White ants have established themselves, to some extent,
in Southern Europe, even in Southern France, where they have done great
mischief. The navy-yard in Rochefort was, in part, destroyed by them,
and their ravages at the Prefecture of La Rochelle have been minutely
described by M. de Quatrefages. They extended even to the archives. “One
day it was discovered that the archives of the Department were almost
totally destroyed, and that without the slightest external trace of any
damage. The termites had reached the boxes in which these documents were
preserved, by mining the wainscoting; and they had then leisurely set to
work to devour these administrative records, carefully respecting the
upper sheets and the margin of each leaf, so that a box which was only a
mass of rubbish, seemed to contain a pile of papers in perfect order.”
I do not know if a similar misfortune has ever occurred at any of the
French schools. A sudden discovery that all the class-books were in the
condition described must have caused great lamentations amongst _les
élèves_.[8]

Like ants, the termites, or white ants, have many enemies, but all of
these, save one (at least in Africa) are content to seek them after they
have issued from their stronghold. Innumerable birds make prey of the
males and females, during their marriage flight, fowls leap into the air
to catch them, when flying low, whilst toads, frogs, lizards, and some
of the smaller insect-eating mammals show their appreciation of their
soft, succulent bodies, whenever they alight on the ground. But one
large, strange creature there is that, specialised for their destruction,
assaults them in their fortress, and lives almost wholly upon them. This
is the aard vark, or earth-hog, as the Boers of South Africa call him, an
uncouth, naked-looking animal about the size of a pig, with tremendous
claws, great, muscular, bowed fore legs, a proboscis-like snout, and
long, narrow ears like a donkey’s. This gargoyle-like creature lies
hidden during the day, as though shunning, then, to reveal itself; but
when semi-darkness, by giving new, weird shapes to familiar objects, has
made earth more in harmony with its portentous appearance, it issues
forth and proceeds, in course of time, to an inhabited termite mound.
Jumping up against this—now, perhaps, in the pale moonlight—it digs
its curved claws into the hard, baked crust, and bowing in its strong
forearms with a mighty effort, tears a hole in the nest’s side, and lays
bare its interior. The indignant and ever-valiant soldiers rush out
through the ruins, prepared to grapple with any foe of any shape. But
the gristly snout and thick, hard skin, though but scantily clothed with
coarse hair, are impervious to all their attacks, whilst from the tubular
mouth is shot forth constantly, and withdrawn again, a long, thin,
worm-like object, which, licking amidst the wreck of halls and galleries,
sweeps thousands back with it, in each retreat. By morning the once proud
edifice may be a mere shell, from which the destroyer, filled to satiety
with its whilom inhabitants, now walks slowly away, to lie asleep and
digesting them, till the following evening calls him to another meal.

The part which the aard vark plays in South Africa is taken in South
America by the great ant-eater, or ant-bear, a creature about the same
size, or even larger, and, if possible, of still more extraordinary
appearance. It is something of the same general shape, but thinner and
narrower, the fore legs are even more bowed, enormously powerful, and are
armed with four curved claws so extremely long that the animal has to
walk on them, for they turn inwards, instead of outwards like a dog’s.
The snout is like a very long tube—next to the elephant’s, perhaps, it
is the most elongated of any in the animal kingdom—and out of it a
tongue of corresponding length is projected, which is always moist with a
glutinous liquid, emitted from two large glands situated just below its
root. Its body is covered with long, coarse hair, which is especially
thick on the back, and becomes longer towards the hindquarters, till on
the tail, which is immense, it is like a great flowing mane. This huge
tail, which is not only long, but broad, can be turned right over the
animal’s back, so as to make a great umbrella, or canopy, under which it
is said sometimes to walk. Whether it really walks with it held in this
way, I do not know. I have not seen it do so at the Zoological Gardens;
but there it is under cover, and the ant-eater is said to put its tail
to the use of a real umbrella. When it sleeps, however, it, as it were,
curls itself up in it, and is thus concealed, or perhaps protected from a
sudden assault.

Waterton says of the ant-eater: “Without swiftness to enable him to
escape from his enemies, without teeth, the possession of which would
assist him in self-defence, and without the power of burrowing in the
ground, by which he might conceal himself from his pursuers, he still
is capable of ranging through these wilds in perfect safety, nor does
he fear the fatal pressure of the serpent’s fold, or the teeth of the
famished jaguar. Nature has formed his fore legs wonderfully thick and
strong and muscular, and armed his feet with three tremendous, sharp
and crooked claws. Whenever he seizes an animal with these formidable
weapons, he hugs it close to his body and keeps it there till it dies
through pressure or through want of food. Nor does the ant-bear, in the
meantime, suffer much from loss of aliment, as it is a well-known fact
that he can go longer without food than, perhaps, any other animal,
except the land-tortoise.”[9]

Waterton also tells us that “the Indians have a great dread of coming in
contact with the ant-bear; and after disabling him in the chase” (for
they esteem his flesh a dainty) “never think of approaching him till he
be quite dead.” It is with good reason that they are thus cautious, for
were they not so, their life might pay the penalty, as the following
account will show: “An Indian, living near Rorainea, was hunting in the
forest to the north of that mountain, with some others, armed with his
long blow-pipe. In returning home, considerably in advance of the rest
of the party, it is supposed that he saw a young ant-eater, and taking
it up in his arms, was carrying it home, when its mother gave chase,
overtook and killed him; for when his companions came up, they found him
lying dead on his face, in the embrace of the ant-bear, one of its large
claws having entered his heart. In the struggle he had managed to stick
his knife behind his back into the animal, which bled to death, but not
before the poor fellow had succumbed to its terrible hug. It was evident
that he had only heard the ant-eater coming when it was close upon him,
and, in turning round to look, his blow-pipe got caught across the path
in front of him, then, as he turned to run, it formed a bar to his
progress, and he fell over it as the animal seized him. So firmly had the
animal grappled him, that to separate it from the corpse, the Indians had
to cut off its fore legs.”[10] Such a mishap as this, however, must be of
extremely rare occurrence.

A very different creature to the ant-bear or the ant-hog (aard vark)
is the ant-lion. In its mature state it is like a dragon-fly, to which
order of insects (for it is an insect) it belongs, but whilst still in
the larval or caterpillar condition it looks something like a fat spider
with six, instead of eight, very feeble legs, with the last pair of
which, only, it is able to move, but only slowly, and backwards instead
of forwards. It is, therefore, quite unable to chase and catch an ant,
and yet on ants and other equally active insects it manages to prey. To
do so it employs a stratagem which has long been known and marvelled at.
“Depressing,” says Wood, “the end of its abdomen, and crawling backwards
in a circular direction, it traces a shallow trench, the circle varying
from one to three inches in diameter. It then makes another round,
starting just within the first circle, and so it proceeds, continually
scooping up the sand with its head, and jerking it outside the limits
of its trench. By continuing this process, and always tracing smaller
and smaller circles, the grub at last completes a conical pit, and then
buries itself in the sand, holding the mandibles widely extended. Should
an insect, an ant, for example, happen to pass near the pitfall, it will
be sure to go and look into the cavity, partly out of the insatiable
curiosity which distinguishes ants, cats, monkeys, and children, and
partly out of a desire to obtain food. No sooner has the ant approached
the margin of the pitfall than the treacherous soil gives way, the poor
insect goes tumbling and rolling down the yielding sides of the pit, and
falls into the extended jaws that are waiting for it at the bottom. A
smart bite kills the ant, the juices are extracted, the empty carcase is
jerked out of the pit, and the ant-lion settles itself in readiness for
another victim.”




CHAPTER XI

    AQUATIC ARCHERY—THE ANGLER-FISH AND THE CUTTLEFISH—INSECT
    ARTILLERY—EELS THAT GIVE ELECTRIC SHOCKS.


In the ant-lion that we have just been talking about it might be
thought that the summit of strategy, as employed by one animal to prey
upon another, had been reached. Inasmuch as the archer-fish uses only
the weapon with which Nature has provided it, and does not add to its
efficacy by any artifice other than that of simple stalking—as it
constructs nothing, in a word—perhaps its instinct is not really so
extraordinary as that of the insect in question. But there is something
so bizarre in it, so striking to the imagination—the idea is so pretty
and quaint—that when one first reads about it—for only the far-travelled
few are lucky enough to see it—it impresses one even more.

This wonderful little fish—for it is not more than six or seven inches
long—is a native of Java and other parts of the Indian Archipelago. It
is of a curious appearance, the body being much compressed—as though it
had been flattened out sideways—and its dorsal fin is spiny, like that
of the perch, but set much further back, so that it almost touches the
tail. The head is pointed, with the lower jaw or lip projecting beyond
the upper one, but the most distinctive feature is the eye, which is
extremely large and round, so that it imparts a look of strange staring
surprise, to which, no doubt, the creature is a stranger. The surprise
is not on the part of the fish, but on that of any insect of moderate
dimensions which may happen to be resting on a leaf or flower overhanging
the water, and not more than four or five feet above it. The archer-fish,
observing it there, swims as near as it can underneath it, and then,
approaching its mouth to the surface of the stream, whilst it hangs
stationary with pulsating fins, squirts, all at once, out of it a little
shower of water-drops, which, striking the insect—bee, fly, moth, or
grasshopper—knocks it off into the river. As it falls, the successful
marksman lowers its head, and poising itself for a moment, after a few
backward strokes, darts on the floating spoil, and devours it.

The aim is remarkably sure, nor is the feat a slight one, seeing that
the drops are projected to some eight or ten times the length of the
fish. By this curious sort of archery, or, rather, water-fire—for the
drops fly out, as from the muzzle of a little live gun—an easy living
is procurable. _Toxotes jaculator_ (that is its Latin name) is not,
like other fish, dependent on the chance of an accidental immersion.
Swimming quietly along, under banks heavy with tropical foliage, it
peers hopefully up into that flowery firmament, from which its manna
is to fall. The keen eye, armed with a sight in proportion to its
uncommon size, examines each leaf, each petal, each bending stem or
pendent, swaying creeper—the fringe of a world unknown beyond it—and
carefully estimates the distance at which an insect buzzes or settles.
Anything beyond six feet or so is a bright, particular star, which it
were hopeless to attempt—but within that distance the fairest things are
attainable; up spurts the glistening shower and down with it, like Iris
on her rainbow, the radiant being comes. It is a pretty, clean sort of
shooting, without noise, wounds, or blood, much superior to our own.

Several little fishes, besides the one to which in especial the name
of archer has been given, practise this curious and, except for
themselves, unique art. But they are all nearly related—all belong to
the Acanthopterigious family of Squamipennes or Chætodontidæ—for those
are the sort of names that they call them in scientific works. One of
these other kinds is a favourite with the Chinese in Java, who keep it in
jars, and feed it with flies or other insects, which they place on their
edges for the little archers to knock off. Possibly there may be some
other animals, besides these fishes, which obtain their prey by shooting
water at it, but I do not, myself, know of any before we come to man.
The Australian savages chase bees to their hives, by encumbering their
wings with cotton or something similar, and they first catch the bees by
filling their mouths with water, and squirting it out over them. Thus we
find in man the nearest approach to the archer-fish, and it is to him,
too, that we must look for a parallel, artificially brought about, to
the natural art of another of the great fish family, viz. the angler or
sea-devil.

This wonderfully provided creature has an enormous head, on the top of
which grow three long filaments, two forward, and close together, and
the third a good deal farther back. The front filament of all, bends
forward and seems to dangle from its end, in front of the angler’s huge
mouth, a little silvery tuft, or piece, of something, so that the whole
has a wonderful resemblance to a fishing-rod and line, with a baited hook
at the end of it. The owner of this curious arrangement lies along the
bottom of the sea, near the shore, almost hidden in the sand, and when a
small fish, attracted by the shining appendage, comes to nibble at it,
makes a rush and engulfs, rather than seizes, it in its cavernous jaws.
The object, which thus plays the part of a bait, is really an expansion
of the filament itself. The creature is thus provided with a natural
fishing-rod, which, however, is designed only to attract the prey about
the bait, and not to hook and haul it up. In this way the game is lured
within the angler’s reach, and the actual catching of it is done by the
mouth, in the ordinary way.

In addition to this natural ruse, or, rather, as a supplement to it, the
angler-fish is said purposely to stir up the sand, so as to dislodge
the marine worms or other creatures which dwell there, which then float
about in the water, so that they play the same part that ground-bait
does when thrown in around the float. The discoloured water, full of
living creatures or inorganic particles, brings numbers of fish there,
to feed on them, whilst the silvery filament swaying and dancing in the
middle of the cloud, becomes to each one the more particular attraction.
The angler-fish is fairly common, about our own shores. It grows to a
length of some three or four feet, and appears to consist of but head
and tail—so huge is the size of the former, into which the body seems
to be absorbed. The wide mouth is set with sharp teeth, and suggests,
when opened, a ravenous voracity, which is, indeed, the angler’s chief
characteristic.

As has been remarked, the principles on which the two foregoing artifices
are based, have been applied by man, in an essentially similar manner, to
meet the exigencies of his own affairs, but I am not sure whether this
is equally the case in regard to another and well-known device which is
employed by the cuttlefish. This creature, which, as will be seen in a
later chapter, sometimes grows to an enormous size, though popularly
called a fish, is not really one. It is a mollusc, and belongs to the
most perfectly organised family of that extensive order of beings—viz. to
the cephalopods. This is a word which, in English, means the head-foots,
and as a descriptive term it is properly employed, since the limbs of
the cuttlefish—which can be used either as arms or feet—grow from the
orifice of the mouth, and so may be considered, equally with the latter,
as belonging to the head. These limbs are the well-known tentacles, and
in number may be either eight—which makes their possessor an octopod—or
ten, by which it becomes entitled to the rank of a decapod. In the latter
case, two of these organs have become specially modified, being much
longer than the other ones, and enlarged at their ends, upon which alone
the suckers are situated. On the remaining eight—or on all the eight in
the case of the octopods—the suckers run along the whole length of the
limb, from base to tip, being disposed in two or more rows, upon the
inner surface of it. They are circular discs, and if we wish to picture
them and the office which they perform, we cannot do better than imagine
ourselves with eight long lips, each of which is provided with so many
little miniature mouths that can suck very hard, but not bite or swallow.
In the centre of this wonderful lip arrangement is our big mouth—the real
one—only slightly changed, so that the teeth are represented by a great
horny beak, shaped like a parrot’s and quite as effective. As for the
rest of us—to continue the illustration—all our four limbs have gone, so
that there is only our body, which is now like a large sack or purse.
Changed in this way, we can no longer lead the life that we have been
accustomed to. We live in the sea, now, and are usually at the bottom of
it, holding on to rocks or stones with some of our sucking tentacles,
and often getting our soft, unarmed bodies into holes and crevices, the
better to protect them. Our long lip-arms are always waving about in the
water, and when we are hungry we throw them round anything that we care
about eating, suck on to it with all our little mouths, and bite and
swallow it with our big one. We need not go very far to supply our wants.
Our waving tentacles look very like the seaweeds that we live amongst, so
that fish, crabs, starfish, and all sorts of other living creatures are
constantly swimming up against us, and when we like them and are hungry,
we always treat them in this way. The shell of the crab must be hard that
we cannot crack with our great parrot beak, and the fish must be clever
that can avoid our embraces, since the faster it goes the faster we go
with it. We hug it till it stops, and then eat it—we do not understand
letting go.

Such and so strange a creature is the cuttlefish, but perhaps the
strangest, or at least the most interesting, thing about it, is that
device that it practises, and which I began by alluding to. In its body
there is a sort of bag, containing a fluid from which ink and the pigment
known as sepia are prepared, and which is of a deep brown colour. This
bag or gland has an opening near the end of the body, through which the
fluid can be ejected into the sea, which then becomes discoloured. There
is another opening near the creature’s mouth, and through this water
can be expelled by it, in the same way but with greater violence. When,
therefore, the cuttlefish is alarmed, and wishes to “lie low,” it spurts
out the water with such force that its body flies backwards, and, at the
same time, empties the contents of its ink-bag, thus making for itself a
cloudy sanctuary, into the midst of which it disappears. After a time the
water clears again, but the cuttlefish, in all probability, is nowhere to
be seen.

It would be difficult to think of anything more _rusé_ than this, within
the limits of the animal kingdom; but certain beetles play a trick which
is quite as ingenious, and perhaps even more remarkable. These are
the bombardier beetles, as they are very appropriately called, little
creatures not more than the third of an inch long, and with nothing very
remarkable about their appearance. When, however, they are pursued by
some larger beetle, or other insect, of carnivorous habits, all at once,
just as they seem on the point of being overtaken, they fire off a gun,
and the pursuer rolls head over heels. That, at least, is what it looks
like. There is smoke and a sudden bang that one can just hear, and it
seems as if the big beetle had been shot. What really happens is this:
the bombardier beetle discharges from a gland in the posterior portion
of the abdomen, with which it is furnished, a very acid fluid, which, by
a chemical process, when it meets the air, volatilises into smoke, with
a slight explosion. Whether it is the explosion or the acid properties
of the fluid, or some disagreeable smell it has, which upsets the
beetle that is in pursuit, I am not quite sure. If the latter, then the
bombardier beetle is something like the skunk, an animal we shall have
something to say about later on, but I think it is the actual explosion,
which, though weaker, acts in the same way as an explosion of gunpowder
does. Whatever may be the reason, the effect is very remarkable, and
in this sudden discharge by the little beetle, with the consequent
instantaneous collapse of its enemy, we see one of the most ingenious
of Nature’s devices for protecting her little children against her big
ones. To look at, it is perhaps the most wonderful of all, for it is just
like real artillery—smoke, an explosion, and then over rolls somebody—a
regular battlefield.

Angling, dyeing, archery, artillery—where will it end? If it does
not stop soon it will get to electricity; and, sure enough, in the
gymnotus—a large eel that inhabits the rivers of Brazil and Guiana—we
have a creature with an electric battery inside it, with which it can
deliver shocks so powerful, that they are capable of killing a man or
stunning a horse. I do not know if the alligators that live in the
same rivers with it—for instance, the Orinoco—ever attack this eel. It
would be an interesting thing to see one do so, but the probability is
that the alligator knows what the gymnotus is, and never touches it
except by accident. This, however, must sometimes occur, but what the
result would be in the case of so sluggish a reptile, I cannot say. Of
course, it is only the big eels that give such severe shocks as these.
The gymnotus grows to six feet in length, and one of this size must be
a more dangerous creature, if one happens to run up against it, than a
man-eating tiger or a rogue elephant. Its habits are sluggish, as one
might expect, for it has no need to get out of the way of anything, and
it is a good deal easier for it to kill its prey by lying still in the
mud, and allowing it to touch it, than it would be to pursue a fish, for
instance, and rub up against it in the water.

To receive the shock it is necessary that the creature, whatever it may
be—in most cases, probably, a fish—should touch the eel’s body in two
places, for otherwise the electric circuit will not be completed, and
there will be no discharge. Merely to poke the eel, therefore, with one
finger would do one no harm, whereas to catch hold of a large one might
even cause death. Yet in spite of the dangerous power it possesses,
the torpedo is eaten by the natives of the countries in which it is
found, for it is fat and succulent, and its electric battery, if once
it can be got rid of, does not affect its taste, which is excellent.
Once caught, this is not a difficult thing to do. It can be cut out,
though care must be taken in the way above-mentioned, since the shock
can be communicated not only by a direct seizure of the creature, but
indirectly through any connecting substance held in the hand. But how
are the eels to be caught? The method employed by the Indians is to make
them exhaust their batteries by delivering a series of shocks, after
which they remain for a long time innocuous, till re-stored with the
electric energy. When, therefore, any large shallow pool is discovered,
in which gymnoti are likely to be lying—such being often produced by the
overflowing of rivers and subsequent withdrawal of their waters—a troop
of half-wild horses are collected about it, and then, with cries and
blows, urged to enter. A wild and horrible scene of confusion instantly
ensues. The alarmed eels dart hither and thither amongst the legs of the
horses, discharging their batteries, and the horses, when struck, leap
into the air, and, if the shock has been violent, fall down stunned,
amongst the rest. Others, less injured, but mad with pain and terror,
lash out with their heels, or gallop wildly about, no longer avoiding
their fellows, and seeming to have lost the sense of direction. Dashing
together, one horse is flung down by another—others fall over them—they
lie struggling in heaps. Many break back, or reach the further shore,
but each time that they do so, and strive to leave the pool, they are
driven into it again by the Indians, and shock after shock continues to
be poured in amongst them. Each one, however, is weaker than the last,
till, at length, no more effect is produced, and the scene, though still
wild and disorderly, becomes partially relieved of its horrors. Then, and
not till then, are the terrified animals—all those, that is to say, that
are capable of doing so—allowed to leave their inferno, after which the
Indians enter it, and secure the now powerless eels, many of which have
been more or less injured by the trampling of the horses’ hoofs. Such is
the account given by Humboldt, which was given to him by the Indians.
It is right to add that it has not yet been confirmed, so that many now
hold it to be untrue, and think that the great naturalist and traveller
must have been imposed upon. One professor, who writes very learnedly of
the gymnotus, and other electric fishes—for there are some other ones—is
so sure of this, that he thinks it high time this story of Humboldt’s
were forgotten. Well, I tried to forget it, but I found it was too
picturesque. So I have remembered it, and forgotten the professor’s own
treatise, instead—which was much the easier thing to do.




CHAPTER XII

    PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN NATURE—SPIDERS THAT LOOK LIKE ANTS—A
    TRAP TO CATCH A BUTTERFLY—FALSE DEVOTEES—LEAF, STICK, AND
    GRASS-RESEMBLING INSECTS—“CUCULLUS NON FACIT MONACHUM.”


In previous chapters we have seen how spiders are preyed upon in a
peculiar way, and for a special purpose, by various species of wasps,
and how, in a more general manner, they fall victims to ants. There
are spiders, however, who escape both wasps and ants, as well as other
enemies, against which they are not strong enough to contend, not by
running away, merely, or concealing themselves, which are ordinary
methods, but by another plan not quite so common in nature, which some
people think is only resorted to by ourselves. We, for instance, if we
have committed a robbery or anything of that sort, and it is known that
we did it, disguise ourselves like somebody else—it does not matter
who—so as to get to Spain or America, or anywhere we think best, without
being recognised. Or sometimes we do the disguising first, and get the
money in that way, dressing up to resemble some person that we pretend to
be, or someone in his or her class of life—the nobility mostly—and living
in the way that they would do, so that we take people in right and left,
and they trust us in a way that they would never think of doing if they
knew that we were only poor, honest people who paid our way, and made
no sort of dash or show. Now this is just what some animals, especially
insects, do, only whereas we have to dress up for each occasion, and can
assume different disguises, they are always disguised in the same way,
and whereas we know what we are doing, and why we are doing it, they know
nothing at all about it, which last gives them a great advantage, since
even the finest acting does not quite come up to nature. Some creatures,
in fact, are cheats all their lives through. Their “whole life is a
lie,” as one of the characters in one of Scott’s novels said once, a
long time ago, and as thousands of very different sorts of characters in
very different kinds of novels, have been saying to or of one another or
themselves—or words to that effect—ever since.

And now for examples, which is the only way of getting to understand
anything, unless it is very simple indeed. To begin with spiders. There
are some that look exactly like ants, so that anyone seeing them for
the first time would think that they were ants, and would only find out
that they were not, but spiders, by degrees, and perhaps not at all if
he were not something of an entomologist. Ants, like all other insects,
have six legs, whereas spiders, which are not insects at all, have eight.
But the spider, by holding up one of its anterior pair of legs, either
the first or the second pair, and bending or pointing them to suit
the kind of ant it resembles, makes them look like a pair of antennæ,
springing not from its body but from the head. The head itself looks much
more like an ant’s than a spider’s, and this is still more—or still
more remarkably—the case with the body, which is lengthened in various
degrees, and shaped in various ways, in accordance with that of the model
on which the make-up is founded.

But this is not all, or enough. However much the spider might look like
the ants that it lived amongst, yet if it did not move in the same kind
of way that they do it would be detected, and in consequence devoured.
Spiders do not walk or run about like ants, not, that is to say, with
the same sort of mannerisms that they have. Some of them jump, which is
a thing that ants never do, and all ants, when in search of booty, move
in a funny little zigzagging way from side to side, which gives them a
greater chance of finding things than they would have by going straight
forward. Now it is just in this way that some of these ant-like spiders
habitually walk, and they do not jump any more than the ants themselves,
even though they may happen to belong to a family of jumping spiders.
Again, when they eat anything, instead of sitting still, to do it, which
is what spiders generally do, they keep pulling the morsel, which is
generally some live thing, about, as though to divide it into parts, to
be carried to the nest separately, which is what ants often do; and all
the while they keep moving the two legs which look like a pair of antennæ
just in the way in which it is proper for antennæ to move, sometimes
tapping their prey with them, and at other times waving them about. No
wonder then that the ants are taken in, for, to the boot of all these
resemblances, the spider is of the same size and colour as themselves.
The result of it all is, of course, that not an ant of them ever thinks
of molesting the spider. He would be a nice tasty morsel for them if they
only knew it, and as he is soft and they are hard, they would have no
difficulty in overcoming him, even if it were only one to one, instead
of one to twenty or more. But as they only see one of themselves running
about—and, for my part, I think the spider must feel like an ant, as well
as look like one—it never enters their head to attack him, or even not to
be polite, for ants of the same nest are very polite to one another.

But here all sorts of questions arise, which, as far as I know, have not
yet been answered, and I think that the ways of these spiders ought to be
more closely observed. Ants of the same nest, indeed, are quite friendly
one with another, but this is not the case if they belong to different
nests, whilst there is nothing but hostility, as a rule, between ants
of different species. Moreover, one ant can always tell, by some means
which we do not yet quite understand, whether another one belongs to
its own community or not, and if it does not there is generally a fight
between them, unless one of the two runs away. It would seem, therefore,
as if, for its disguise to be of much use to the spider, it would have to
keep not only with one species, but with one special community of ants,
and even then it ought to be found out, unless it lives with them as a
parasite in their nest, as some insects and other creatures do. Is this
the case, or does the spider take care not to come into actual contact
with the ants, so that just by looking like one at a little distance,
it is left alone? But, even so, it would be only one species of ant
that would be inclined to let him alone, and as other species would be
hostile to the one he resembled, one can imagine inconveniences as well
as benefits arising through the disguise. For the above reasons I think
it would be very interesting to find out a little more about the habits
of these ant-resembling spiders. Of course if they preyed upon the ants
they resembled, the thing would be easy to understand. But this, as has
already been said or implied, is not the case.

Other kinds of spiders are protected in the same way by resembling
different kinds of things, which are not good to eat, and as, in this
way, they are saved not only from ants, but from all sorts of other
creatures, as well,—from all those, for instance, that prey upon
ants—this seems to me a much better kind of disguise. One of these
spiders lives in Madagascar, and has the most peculiar-shaped body
that one can imagine. At the top it runs up into a sort of pyramid,
starting from a rounded base and being higher at one side than another,
whilst round about it there are several smaller pyramids, or spikey
protuberances, quite babies compared to the large one. On a table,
perhaps, or in that horrid thing, a cabinet, it might be difficult to say
what this spider was intended to look like, but when it sits motionless,
according to its habit, on the branch of a tree, it is impossible to
distinguish it from one of those woody knots which often form themselves
on the bark, and which the eye rests on without particularly noticing.
Another kind, common in Wisconsin, lives upon the cedar trees, which are
a common feature—and a very picturesque one—of the country. They are
covered with lichens, and so much does this spider, in its coloration and
markings, resemble a lichen, itself, that when it sits still amongst them
the eye is unable to pick it out from its surroundings.

But all this is as nothing compared to a Javanese spider, the whole of
whose energies seem bent to make itself into a living facsimile of so
mean an object as a bird-dropping. To do this, it lies on its back upon a
leaf, over some part of which it has previously spread a film-like web,
which itself plays a part in the deception. “Such excreta,” says Mr.
Fobes, the discoverer of this wonderful spider, and who was, himself,
taken in by it, “consist of a central and denser portion of a pure white
chalk-like colour streaked, here and there, with black and surrounded by
a thin border of the dried-up, more fluid part.” The filmy web spread
irregularly over the leaf, presents this latter appearance, whilst the
spider itself, having a chalky-white abdomen and black legs, which, as
it lies, are crossed over it, exactly resembles the solid mass in the
centre of it. In the previous cases that we have been considering, the
resemblance is of a protective nature—this, at least, is what seems
more specially aimed at—but here the design is darker and deeper. Many
butterflies—creatures typical of beauty generally—as if resolved to
carry on the allegory, are accustomed to feed upon ordure. One of them,
fluttering through the leaves of the tropical forest, perceives, as she
thinks, a rich banquet spread out before her, and descending, in all
her radiant and ethereal beauty, to enjoy it, is caught and feasted on
herself.

Here, then, we have an aggressive, as well as a protective,
resemblance—for, no doubt, the two are combined—of which principle we
have another example in a certain mantis of India, which resembles,
in a manner equally deceptive, if not quite so perfect, a more
attractive object, namely, a flower. Most of us have seen pictures of
the ordinary green praying mantis, a curious kind of insect, allied
to the grasshoppers, that has received its name owing to its habit
of sitting motionless with the fore part of its body raised, and its
fore legs extended, as though it were praying. Really, however, it is
waiting for its prey, which, when it approaches, it cuts to pieces by
pressing together, as though it were shutting a knife, the flattened
and blade-like joints of the legs it has held out so holily; first,
of course, having got the victim between them. The mantis in question
does not look quite like the praying one. Instead of rearing itself
upright, it sits flat on the leaf, and its body is not green, but pink.
Being rounded, it passes for the centre of a flower, whilst the legs,
which diverge from it at different angles, and are flattened in the
most extraordinary manner, bear a still more striking resemblance to
the petals. Sitting thus, a flower amongst flowers, it is approached by
many insects which, too late, discover the real nature of that somewhat
strange-looking blossom.

Here, then, we have a flower-insect. Stick-insects—walking-stick insects
as we call them—or grass-insects, are more common. They are especially
abundant in Central Africa. Anyone who sees one of these creatures for
the first time is infallibly taken in by them, though he may have read
about them often, and made up his mind not to be. He is strengthening
himself, perhaps, in this resolution, at the moment when, having at last
got to the country where they abound, he happens to be brushing away,
with his hand, a small wisp of hay or dry grass that he sees clinging to
his coat. But that wisp of hay is the very insect he has set himself to
recognise, but which now, even when his native servants point it out to
him and tell him what it is, he cannot for the life of him make out to
be anything but what it looks like. It is just a slight stem of yellow,
withered grass, from which six still slighter pieces hang, at intervals,
in pairs. Bend the stem as you will, and twist the bits that hang from
it how you like, they all stay just as you put them, as long as they
have anything to rest against. But if you take the thing, at any point,
between your thumb and finger, and hold it in the air, then the other
parts of it will either remain stiff or dangle down, just as you would
expect them to do, if it were a piece of grass that you held. The insect
seems jointed everywhere, so that, what with this, and the thinness and
ridiculous length of its body and all its legs, it does not even look
like a healthy growing grass, but only a long, thin bit that has first
been broken off, then broken again, in all sorts of places, and, finally,
crushed up, squeezed and crumpled together in the hand. Yet the insect
which it really is, has a head, eyes, antennæ, thorax, abdomen, and all
the internal organs like any other one, and it breathes, sleeps, eats,
and digests upon just the same principles. There are thousands of these
wonderful grass-insects, and almost as many different species of them.
All about, wherever the grass springs up in patches, amidst the forests
of equatorial Africa, they form, as it were, a sort of second animal
crop, living amongst the vegetable one and indistinguishable from it.
When they leap from one stem to another, then, all at once, they are
seen; but the instant they alight they become invisible again, vanishing
under one’s very eyes, whilst one looks at them, as if by magic. What is
most wonderful is that as the tintings of the true grasses change with
the season, so do those of the false ones that cling to them. From the
bright, vivid green of the fresh spring crops, through the later darker
greens, and the golds and reds of autumn, all is mimicked, the one change
keeps pace with the other, but whether it is a sequence of different
imitative creatures—like the rotation of crops—or whether it is not the
species, but only their colours, which change, does not appear to be
certain, though, probably, it is the latter.

Other insects imitate mosses or lichens, whilst a still greater number,
perhaps, are the counterparts of all kinds of leaves—from the fresh
young green ones to those which are sere and yellow. To these belong the
mantises which we have just been talking about, besides a whole host of
locusts and grasshoppers. One of these latter was seen by Mr. Belt, in
Nicaragua, standing perfectly still in the midst of an army of foraging
ants, numbers of which kept passing over its body, and would at once have
torn it to pieces, had they had the smallest idea that it was not what it
pretended to be. This locust had wings, like others of its family, and
could easily, by their aid, have got away from the ants. This, however,
would not have saved its life, for the air and surrounding trees were
full of birds that were busily engaged in catching such insects as the
ants put up. Knowing, therefore, that it would only be flying from danger
to certain death, it preferred, or, rather, its instinct taught it, to
stay and brave the former, which it might do with a very fair chance,
though not quite a certainty, of success. That there was no choice in the
matter we may, I think, assume, because with all these creatures that
imitate still life, there is a strong instinct to be still themselves
whenever there is cause for alarm—and indeed generally, as long as moving
can be dispensed with. This is, indeed, a part of the deception, since it
is obvious to the meanest capacity of bird or predaceous insect, that a
leaf, for instance, that walks about, cannot really be a leaf.

Neither can it, when it, all at once, comes off its stalk and begins to
fly about, in the shape of a butterfly, which is what happens, sometimes,
in India and the Malay Archipelago, as we shall immediately see. In
these countries there is a butterfly that belongs to the same family as
our own purple emperor, and, as far as the upper surface of its wings
is concerned, it is a purple emperor, and so looks like one, when it
flies. But as soon as it settles, it becomes a leaf, for then it raises
its wings above its back, in the way butterflies do, so that only their
under surface is seen, which is as like a dry brown leaf as anything
that is not one can be. The shape is exact, from the extreme point, or
tip, of the upper wing, to the little swallow tail at the end of the
lower one, which last just touches the stem that the butterfly clings
on, and makes the stalk of the leaf. Between the tip and the stalk there
runs a well-marked dark line, which answers very well for the leaf’s
mid-rib, whilst on each side of it thinner lines are traced, representing
the lateral veins. The slender legs of the butterfly, as it sits on the
stalk, are hardly to be seen, and its head lies just hidden between
the margins of the wings. The leaves of the bush on which it has gone
down are of the same shape and colour as itself, for it takes care not
to settle amidst surroundings with which it would not be in harmony. A
bird, therefore, that has pursued this brilliant blue butterfly into a
bush, where it disappears, is completely baffled; and so, too, is a grave
scientific gentleman with a butterfly-net in his hand.

The above, I believe, is the best example known of a butterfly that
escapes its enemies by looking like a leaf, or any other inanimate
object; but there are others where the take-in is of a still more curious
and unexpected kind. Certain butterflies have bitter juices in their
bodies, and for this reason are let alone by birds and other enemies. As
a consequence, other butterflies belonging to quite different families,
have taken to mimicking them—just as if _they_ were leaves or sticks or
grasses—so that, being mistaken for them, they are let alone too. If they
were not so mistaken, they would be eaten at once—or at least whenever
they could be caught—for their juices are very nice indeed. What seems
still more extraordinary is that, in some cases, the nasty butterfly
is mimicked only by the female of the nice one, and not by the male.
Thus there is a butterfly in Africa, the male of which is a beautiful
swallow-tail, but the female has no tails to her wings, and both in shape
and colouring she is just like another butterfly, not nearly so handsome,
and which is not a swallow-tail at all. What can be the reason of this?
What can account for this favouritism in Nature?—for that is what it
seems like. Why should only the nice-tasting female be protected, and
not the equally nice-tasting male? But the male, it appears, can fly
faster, and he is not bothered by having to lay eggs, like the female.
The female, with eggs in her body, is heavier than he, and whilst she is
laying them she has to sit still. This is the explanation generally given
for a fact so remarkable. I confess that I don’t feel quite satisfied
with it, but it is difficult to think of a better one. At any rate, there
are the facts. Butterflies mimic each other, and pretend to belong to
families which they really don’t belong to—just as adventurers do.

But it may be said, how can one tell which is which, or, if two
butterflies look exactly alike, how can we tell that they do belong to
two families, and not to one and the same? But if one dissects a leaf-,
or a walking-stick-insect, one does not find that it is like a leaf, or a
piece of twig, inside, and just in the same way, though the difference is
not so great, the two butterflies that look so much alike, are found to
differ, on dissection. The internal organs of the mimicking kind have not
been changed in the same way that its colouring and shape have been—for
that would have done it no good—and then, again, it is not quite exactly
like the other one; there is some difference, a little more, perhaps,
than that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, which would be enough for an
entomologist, when he had the two on a table, to be able to tell.

It is not only amongst insects that these curious cases of beneficial
resemblance are to be found, that creatures live, as it were, a false
life, and are not what they seem to be. The device, indeed, is not so
frequently resorted to in the case of any other order of animals, and
when it is, it is not, as a rule, so marked—not of such a definite nature
as with insects, and some other of the smaller class of creatures,
but still the principle is there. We have seen the case of the mantis
pretending, as it were, to be a flower. There is a certain lizard that
does much the same thing, for the skin at the angle of its mouth, on each
side, is puckered up into a little red flower, just like one that grows
in the sand, where it lives. Insects, thinking to come to the flower,
come to the lizard’s mouth instead, and are soon gobbled up. Insects
are things which often fly into manifest danger, but still, if they saw
the lizard they would be less likely to come to the flower. But now
this lizard’s body is exactly the colour of the sand that it lies in,
so that it can hardly be seen, and this sort of general resemblance is
much more common amongst birds and mammalia than the more special ones
that we have been considering. I do not, indeed, know any case of one
quadruped escaping destruction, by being mistaken for another, or for a
rock or tree, but amongst birds there are just a few instances of this.
In the Malay Archipelago, for instance, there are some loud, noisy birds
which are called “Friar-birds,” because some of the feathers on their
necks curl up over their heads, like a friar’s cape or cowl. They have
powerful beaks and claws, which they know how to use, and, as they fly
about in flocks, they are very well able to take care of themselves.
There are different species of these friar-birds on each of the larger
islands, and in each of these islands—flying in the same flock with
them—is a bird of a quite different family, and as timid and retiring as
the others are bold and aggressive. Orioles these attendant birds are,
and the typical oriole is as different from a friar-bird in appearance as
it is in disposition. But these particular ones resemble them so exactly
that they have been mistaken for friar-birds by scientific gentlemen,
with the two together in their hands, and have even got mixed up with
them in scientific works—flying with them still, through those dry, dead
leaves, as though they were the living forests of their native land. Thus
in a great scientific French book, called _Voyage de l’Astrolabe_, an
oriole of Bouru is both described and figured as a friar-bird, keeping
up the joke, or the fiction, to the very last. However, as far as that
is concerned, I have no doubt that the oriole thinks he really is a
friar-bird, or, at least, feels as if he was one, which would come to
much the same thing.

When first these cases of imitation, or mimicry as they are called,
began to be noticed,[11] nobody could tell what to make of them. It
seemed plain that one animal could not purposely make itself like another
one—or like a twig or a flower—in the way that an actor dresses up to
represent some character on the stage. But how, then, had such marvellous
resemblances been brought about? Chance seemed quite out of the question,
but nobody had any better explanation to give. The whole thing was a
mystery. Gradually, however, the subject came to be better understood.
One thing was clear: that the animal—or one of the animals—presenting
this extraordinary likeness was always benefited by it. At last came
Darwin, who explained everything by natural selection, the principle of
which is this, that as no two individuals of any species are born quite
alike, some must be born with some sort of an advantage over others, and
as these would live longer, and leave a greater number of descendants to
inherit this advantage—whatever it might be—all living creatures must,
gradually, be getting better and better adapted for the kind of life they
have to lead. Supposing, therefore, that two different creatures, living
in the same country, had some slight resemblance to one another—and
this would not be wonderful—then if this resemblance was an advantage
to one of them, it would gradually get more and more like the other,
because those individuals that were less like it would get killed off
sooner, whilst the others would live longer and leave a greater number
of offspring, to carry on the likeness. Those orioles, for instance—to
take our last example—which least resembled the friar-birds, would get
soonest killed by hawks and kites, whilst those that most resembled them
would be most let alone, and so they would lay more eggs, and rear more
young birds, and of these young orioles, some would be even more like
the friar-birds than their parents, and so it would go on. The gradually
increasing resemblance would be like a portrait that was always being
painted and painted, and having finishing touches put to it, without
ever being quite finished—an eternal sitter with an eternal artist
in front of him; for the sitter, too, would change as time went on,
and as he did, so would his portrait have to. This is how Nature, the
great artist, paints her portraits, so that when, in speaking of these
cases, we say that one creature mimics another we really mean something
quite different. Still, mimic, we are told, though it conveys a wrong
meaning, is the best word to use, because with it we can express this
wrong meaning in so many different ways, having at our disposal “the
convenient series of words—mimic, mimicry, mimetic, mimicker, mimicked,
mimicking.” So we should not call something that is white, white, if,
with more flexibility, we could describe it as black—and this, indeed,
with the converse, is a principle very much in vogue. The curious thing
is, however, that when the likeness is between some creature and a plant
or inanimate object, scientists do not say that the former mimics the
latter, but that it resembles it. They can put up with the right word
then, but not, it appears, in the other case. Yet there is no essential
distinction between the two, and the process by which each has been
brought about, is identical. So, as one butterfly, say, does really
resemble another, but does not really mimic it, why cannot learned
gentlemen use the right word here too, instead of speaking a language
which neither accords with the fact, nor expresses their real meaning?
Even if it does come more pat to describe a thing badly, is it not,
nevertheless, better to describe it well? So I say, with Hotspur—

    “Oh, while you live tell truth and shame the devil.”

For my part I think it is only permissible to use the word “mimic,” in
this relation, in order to give a vivid impression, not indeed of the
thing, but of what the thing seems to be—to arouse interest in it, in
fact, which is why I have done so here. But when the process is known the
word had better be dropped—at least, in works that really profess to be
scientific. This, of course, does not.




CHAPTER XIII

    SPIDERS AND THEIR WEBS—TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS—SPIDERS THAT EAT
    BIRDS—AQUATIC SPIDERS—BORN IN A DIVING-BELL.


Though we have already had something to say about spiders, they are such
interesting creatures that we may as well devote a few pages more to
them—especially as the web, which is their most salient peculiarity, has
as yet hardly been mentioned. The beauty and ingenuity of this wonderful
fabric has always aroused the interest and admiration of mankind, and
will doubtless continue to do so, as long as spiders and men exist
together on the earth. Our own common garden or geometric spider is as
good a web-spinner, perhaps, as any that exists, or, if not, it is at
least as good as any that I can think of at the moment. Everyone is
familiar with the general appearance of the web and the mathematical
regularity of its outline, whilst all who have watched its construction
must have been astonished at the skill displayed by the spider, both in
the weaving and placing of it. It is composed of two separate parts,
the first, or framework, consisting of a number of stout, yet delicate,
cables, which radiate outwards from a common centre, whilst around them
a finer thread, quite distinct in its structure, is wound spirally,
in wider and wider circles, the last of which makes the circumference.
The quality of the thread, composing these two divisions of the web, is
as distinct as the parts themselves, for whereas “the radiating lines
are smooth and not very elastic, the spiral one is thickly studded
with minute knobs, and is elastic to a wonderful degree, reminding the
observer of a thread of india-rubber. It is to the little projections
that the efficacy of the net is due, for they are composed of a thick
adhesive and viscid substance, and serve to arrest the wings and legs
of the insects that happen to touch the net.”[12] “As the radii,” says
Mr. Blackwell (a great authority on British spiders), “are inadhesive,
and possess only a moderate share of elasticity, they must consist of a
different material from that of the viscid spiral line, which is elastic
in an extraordinary degree. Now, the viscidity of this line may be shown
to depend entirely upon the globules with which it is studded, for if
they be removed by careful application of the finger, a fine glossy
filament remains, which is highly elastic, but perfectly inadhesive. As
the globules, therefore, and the line on which they are disposed, differ
so essentially from each other, and from the radii, it is reasonable to
infer that the physical constitution of these several portions of the
net must be dissimilar. An estimate,” continues Mr. Blackwell, “of the
number of viscid globules distributed on the elastic spiral line, in a
net of _Epeira apoclisa_, of a medium size, will convey some idea of the
elaborate operations performed by the Epeira in the construction of
their snares. The mean distance between two adjacent radii, in a net of
this species, is about seven-tenths of an inch; if, therefore, the number
seven be multiplied by twenty (the mean number of viscid globules which
occur on one-tenth of an inch of the elastic spiral, at the ordinary
degree of tension), the product will be 140, the mean number of globules
deposited on seven-tenths of an inch of the elastic spiral line. This
product, multiplied by twenty-four, the mean number of circumvolutions
described by the elastic spiral line, gives 3,360, the mean number of
globules contained between two radii; which, multiplied by twenty-six,
the mean number of radii, produces 87,360, the total number of viscid
globules in a finished net of average dimensions. A large net, fourteen
or sixteen inches in diameter, will be found, by a similar calculation,
to contain upwards of 120,000 viscid globules, and yet _Epeira apoclisa_
will complete its snare in about forty minutes, if it meet with no
interruption.”

And yet, in the execution of these beautiful and elaborate webs,
the fine threads of which are placed with such nicety, and at such
regular distances one from another, that they have procured for their
manufacturers the specific title of “_geometric_,” the spider is guided
entirely by the sense of touch. This is proved by the fact that when
confined in total darkness it will spin webs as truly as by daylight;
but the test is hardly necessary, since, as the eyes of the spider are
situated on the front part of its head, whereas the threads issue from
the spinnarets at the extremity of its body and are guided by the hind
pair of legs, sight, it is evident, could hardly aid in the process.
Does reason, therefore, enter into the process of web-making, or is it
merely an instinctive one? This being a difficult question to answer,
instead of doing so I will quote the minute and interesting account given
by Thompson in his _Passions of Animals_ of how the spider spins its web
under ordinary conditions, premising, however, that, in almost every
point, different people, who all write as though they had been witnesses
of what they describe, appear to differ in their opinion. This remark
applies also to the structure of the thread itself, for whilst Wood and
Blackwell, as we have just seen, say that this differs essentially in the
two parts of the web, Kirby and Spence, who are followed by Professor
Romanes, believe it to be one and the same. Büchner, too, speaks of
the “high degree of elasticity” of the radii as against the “moderate
share” of it, which is all that Blackwell allows them, and so on—ample
encouragement this, surely, to observe spiders for ourselves, since
whatever we may think, there is sure to be someone respectable to agree
with us.

Thompson’s account is as follows: “The web of the garden spider—the most
ingenious and perfect contrivance that can be imagined—is usually fixed
in a perpendicular or somewhat oblique direction, in an opening between
the leaves of some plant or shrub; and as it is obvious that round its
whole extent lines will be required to which those ends of radii that
are farthest from the centre can be attached, the construction of those
exterior lines is the spider’s first operation. It seems careless about
the shape of the area they are to enclose, well aware that it can as
readily inscribe a circle in a triangle as a square; and in this respect
it is guided by the distance or proximity of the points to which it can
attach them. It spares no pains, however, to strengthen and keep them in
a proper degree of tension. With the former view it composes each line
of five or six, or even of more threads, glued together; and with the
latter it fixes to them from different points a numerous and intricate
apparatus of smaller threads; and having thus completed the foundation
of its snare, it proceeds to fill up the outline. Attaching a thread to
one of the main lines, it walks along it, guiding it with one of its
hind legs, that it may not touch in any part and be prematurely glued,
and crosses over to the opposite side, where, by applying its spinners,
it firmly fixes it. To the middle of this diagonal thread which is to
form the centre of its net, it fixes a second, which, in like manner,
it conveys and fastens to another part of the lines including the area.
The work now proceeds rapidly. During the preliminary operations it
sometimes rests, as though its plan required meditation; but no sooner
are the marginal lines of the net firmly stretched, and two or three
radii spun from its centre, than it continues its labour so quickly and
unremittingly that the eye can scarcely follow its process. The radii,
to the number of about twenty, giving the net the appearance of a wheel,
are speedily finished. It then proceeds to the centre, quickly turns
itself round, pulls each thread with its feet, to ascertain its strength,
breaking any one that seems defective, and replacing it by another.
Next it glues immediately round the centre five or six small concentric
circles, distant about half a line from each other, and then four or
five larger ones each separated by the space of half an inch or more.
These last serve as a sort of temporary scaffolding to walk over, and to
keep the radii properly stretched, while it glues to them the concentric
circles that are to remain, which it now proceeds to construct. Placing
itself at the circumference, and fastening its thread to the end of one
of the radii, it walks up that one towards the centre to such a distance
as to draw the thread from its body of a sufficient length to meet the
next. Then stepping across and conducting the thread with one of its hind
legs, it glues it with its spinners to the point in the adjoining radius
to which it is to be fixed. This process it repeats until it has filled
up nearly the whole space from the circumference to the centre with
concentric circles, distant from each other about two lines. It always,
however, leaves a vacant interval around the smallest first-spun circles
that are nearest to the centre, and bites away the small cotton-like
tuft that united all the radii, which being held now together by the
circular threads have thus, probably, their elasticity increased; and in
the circular opening resulting from this procedure it takes its station
and watches for its prey, or occasionally retires to a little apartment
formed under some leaf, which it also uses as a slaughter-house.”

The lair thus formed is connected with the web by means of a thread
along which the vibrations caused by the struggles of any captured insect
are carried, thus apprising the spider, who, if angry, rushes out to
seize her victim. It is a very amusing thing to strike a tuning-fork on
some hard substance, and then touch the net with it. The spider, full of
excitement, darts towards the area of disturbance, but is bewildered at
finding nothing, where the bag seemed so obvious. She may be thus lured
out several times in succession, but at length does not come, showing
that she can adapt her psychology to an experience which must be for her
altogether unprecedented. I have compared her, on these occasions, with a
sceptic at a _séance_, when something had unmistakably and unaccountably
happened.

More interesting, perhaps, even than the making of the web, is the way
in which the spider will sometimes weight it in order to make it steady
when a high wind is blowing. There is no doubt about this, as it has been
observed by many persons on as many different occasions. I will therefore
quote an account at second-hand, as it was given to the late Mr. Wood by
one of his friends who was accustomed to watch spiders in his verandah.
“One day,” says Wood, “a sharp storm broke out and the wind raged so
furiously through the garden that the spiders suffered damage from it,
although sheltered by the verandah. The mainyards of one of these webs,
as the sailors would call them, were broken, so that the web was blown
hither and thither, like a slack sail in a storm. The spider made no
fresh threads, but tried to help itself in another way. It let itself
down to the ground by a thread and crawled to a place where lay some
splintered pieces of a wooden fence thrown down by the storm. It fastened
a thread to one of the bits of wood, turned back with it, and hung it
with a strong thread to the lower part of its nest, about five feet from
the ground. The performance was a wonderful one, for the weight of the
wood sufficed to keep the nest tolerably firm, while it was yet light
enough to yield to the wind and so prevent further injury. The piece of
wood was about two and a half inches long, and as thick as a goose quill.
On the following day a careless servant knocked her head against the wood
and it fell down. But in the course of a few hours the spider had found
it and brought it back to its place. When the storm ceased, the spider
mended her web, broke the supporting thread in two, and let the wood
fall to the ground.” What, it may be asked, could a man have done more?
If people were really governed by evidence in their opinions on a great
many subjects—for that they are is one of the greatest fallacies in the
world—this one case would be sufficient to establish the reasoning powers
of all animals standing not lower in the scale than spiders, whilst
other instances as good lower down would take it up to them in the same
way. But one really believes according to one’s wishes, and it is quite
surprising that this fact—which can be verified by anyone—is not more
generally recognised than it is.

Wonderful as are the webs which are spun by many spiders for the purpose
of entrapping their prey, the houses which some of them make and live
in, are, perhaps, even more extraordinary. The trap-door spiders inhabit
various parts of the world, but are found in most abundance, or, at
least, have attracted most attention, in the island of Jamaica. They, all
of them, make a long tunnel or gallery, going down at a steep slant into
the earth, and round the sides of this they spin a close web, which makes
a strong, durable lining. This lining is double, and whilst the inner
layer is soft and smooth like silk, the outer one, in which the spider
lives, is so rough and flaky that it both looks and feels more like
felt, or rough paper, or the bark of a tree, than a substance usually so
delicate as the web of a spider. This roughness, however, is just what
is required, since it enables the spider to run up and down its little
tube, or tunnel, with the greatest ease. But the most wonderful part of
this ingenious dwelling is the trap-door, at its entrance, from which the
spider takes its name, and by which it has become famous. This, also, is
woven by the spider, and is one in substance with the tube, to which it
forms a little door, or lid, which fits its orifice as exactly as does
the lid of a neatly made box. Like a box, too, it is attached to the tube
by a hinge, the web, at the jointure, being spun in such a manner that we
may well give it this name. Before the spider can either enter or leave
its tube, the lid of it has to be lifted, and both the creature and its
dwelling become, then, conspicuous objects. Once in or out, however,
the lid drops, and as it fits into, as well as over, the orifice, there
is then no break in the surface of the ground. Still, if the lid were
made only of web, it would be discernible by close observation, since a
little round patch of another material would be, as it were, let into the
ground. The spider, however, as if fearing this, covers the exterior of
the lid with earth which it brings from near about, and by the use of a
gummy secretion which it has the power of exuding, causes to adhere to
it. The lid, therefore, becomes practically a part of the surrounding
earth, from which, when no longer raised above its surface, it is
impossible to distinguish it.

If, however, in spite of these artifices, its dwelling should be
discovered, the spider, ascending to the mouth of the tube, pulls upon
the lid so as to prevent, if possible, its being raised. Mr. Moggridge,
who made a study of trap-door spiders, and has written a work upon
them, says: “No sooner had I gently touched the door with the point of
a penknife than it was drawn slowly downwards with a movement which
reminded me of the tightening of a limpet on a sea-rock, so that the
crown, which at first projected a little way above, finally lay a little
below the surface of the soil. I then contrived to raise the door very
gradually, despite the strenuous efforts of the occupant, till at length
I was just able to see into the nest and to distinguish the spider
holding on to the door with all her might, lying back downwards, with her
fangs and all her claws driven into the silk lining of the under surface
of the door. The body of the spider was placed across, and filled up the
tube, the head being away from the hinge, and she obtained an additional
purchase in this way by blocking up the entrance.” When a trap-door
spider uses its claws like this to pull down the lid of its tube, they
make little holes all round the edge of the inside of the lid. They can
be seen, if one looks, quite plainly, and look as if the points of little
pins had been stuck into the smooth surface of the web.

Some trap-door spiders are of a large size, and when they lift up the
lids of their tunnels, and look cautiously out, they have quite a
formidable appearance. During the night, they leave their home, and hunt
about for insects of various kinds. As soon as they have caught one
they carry it into their dens and devour it there at their leisure. The
Rev. Mr. Wood gives an amusing description of this spider’s actions.
“New-comers,” he says, “into the country which the trap-door spider
inhabits, are often surprised by seeing the ground open, a little lid
lifted up, and a rather formidable spider peer about as if to reconnoitre
the position before leaving its fortress. At the least movement on the
part of the spectator, back pops the spider, like the cuckoo on a clock,
clapping its little door after it quite as smartly as the wooden bird,
and, in most cases, succeeds in evading the search of the astonished
observer, the soil being apparently unbroken, without a trace of the
curious little door that had been so quickly shut.”

Some tropical spiders are of very great size, so that, in Brazil,
children sometimes tie one end of a piece of string round their waist,
and lead them about as if they were dogs. This does not mean, of course,
that they are quite so big as dogs—even little ones—but the legs of a
very huge mygale, as these monsters are called, might have a spread as
big as a man’s hand, and the body would be then, perhaps, not so very
much smaller than a mouse’s. That the webs made by such immense spiders
as these should be strong enough to hold a small bird, and that, when
caught, the bird should be eaten as flies are by spiders here at home,
does not seem so very remarkable—in fact, it is just what one might
reasonably expect.

[Illustration: CURIOUS PETS.

Brazilian children tie one end of a piece of string round the waist of
Mygales and lead them about as if they were dogs.]

But naturalists, for the most part, are a very unimaginative, sceptical
set of men, with whom not to believe a thing, if it is, in the smallest
degree, striking or picturesque, is a sort of virtue, in which they hug
themselves as long as they can. Accordingly, when Madame Merian and
Palisot de Beauvois told them that these large spiders really did eat
birds, they all set their faces against it, and were determined not to
credit an account derived from the reports of natives, who, of all people
in the world, were thought the least likely to know anything about the
animals which lived in their own country. It is strange how this idea—or
some other one which comes to practically the same thing—prevails. It is
as strong to-day as ever, yet in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, what
the natives say turns out to be true. At last some European happens to
see, once, what they have seen and known all their lives. Then, perhaps,
the natives are believed, but only, as it were, in the wake of the one
European, who gets more credit for finding they were right than they do
for having always told the truth. The one European, in this instance,
was Mr. H. W. Bates, who, in his well-known work _The Naturalist on the
River Amazon_, gives the following account of what he saw: “At Cameta I
chanced to verify a fact relating to the habits of a large hairy spider
of the genus Mygale, in a manner worth recording. The species was _M.
avicularia_, or one very closely allied to it. The individual was nearly
two inches in length of body, but the legs expanded seven inches, and the
entire body and legs were covered with coarse grey and reddish hairs.
I was attracted by a movement of the monster, on a tree-trunk; it was
close beneath a deep crevice in the tree, across which was stretched a
dense, white web. The lower part of the web was broken, and two small
birds—finches—were entangled in the pieces; they were about the size of
the English siskin, and I judged the two to be male and female. One of
them was quite dead, the other lay under the body of the spider, not
quite dead, and was smeared with the filthy liquor or saliva, exuded by
the monster. I drove away the spider and took the birds, but the second
one soon died.”

Several spiders have taken to a more or less aquatic life. One of
these—the raft-spider—makes, as its name implies, a sort of raft of dry
leaves, sticks, etc., which it fastens together by means of its web, and
then launches itself on the water, where it is blown about as the wind
listeth. When an aquatic insect comes to the surface of the stream, or
when a moth or fly falls into it, the spider runs along the water, and
seizes it, after which it returns to its raft; or it will run down the
stems of the water-plants, and seize what it finds clinging to them,
returning with them, or when it requires a fresh supply of air, as
before. If threatened with any danger it crawls underneath its raft, and
there remains until all is safe again.

Still more ingenious are the _façons d’agir_ of the water-spider, which
weaves a nest like a diving-bell against some sub-aquatic plant, and
fills it with air from above, by carrying down bubbles that cling to the
hairs of its body. It used to be thought that this air had exuded from
the stems of the plant itself, and so filled the nest affixed to them,
but the naturalist Bell, so long ago as 1856, proved that this was not
the case, and that the spider brings down its own air, by experiments, of
which he gave the following interesting accounts:—

“No. 1. Placed in an upright cylindrical vessel of water, in which was a
rootless plant of Stratiotes, on the afternoon of November 14th. By the
morning it had constructed a very perfect oval cell, filled with air,
about the size of an acorn, on this it has remained stationary up to the
present time.

“No. 2. November 15th. In another vessel, also furnished with Stratiotes,
I placed six Argyronetræ (water-spiders). The one now referred to began
to weave its beautiful web, about five o’clock in the afternoon. After
much preliminary preparation it ascended to the surface, and obtained
a bubble of air with which it immediately, and quickly, descended, and
the bubble was disengaged from the body and left in connection with the
web. As the nest was on one side, in contact with the glass, enclosed in
an angle formed by two leaves of the Stratiotes, I could easily observe
all its movements. Presently, it ascended again, and brought down
another bubble, which was similarly deposited. In this way no less than
fourteen journeys were performed, sometimes two or three very quickly
one after another; at other times with a considerable interval between
them, during which time the little animal was employed in extending and
giving shape to the beautiful transparent bell, getting into it, pushing
it out at one place, and amending it at another, and strengthening its
attachments to the supports. At length it seemed to be satisfied with its
dimensions, when it crept into it, and settled itself to rest, with the
head downwards. The cell was now the size and nearly the form of half an
acorn cut transversely, the smaller and rounded part being uppermost....
The manner,” continues Bell, “in which the spider possesses itself of
the bubble of air is very curious, and, as far as I know, has never been
exactly described. It ascends to the surface slowly, assisted by a thread
attached to the leaf or other support, below, and to the surface of the
water. As soon as it comes near the surface, it turns with the extremity
of the abdomen upwards, and exposes a portion of the body to the air,
for an instant, then with a jerk, it snatches, as it were, a bubble of
air, which is not only attached to the hairs which cover the abdomen, but
is held on by the two hinder legs, which are crossed at an acute angle,
near their extremity, this crossing of the legs taking place the instant
the bubble is seized. The little creature then descends more rapidly and
regains its cell, always by the same route, turns the abdomen within it,
and disengages the bubble.”

To its home thus ingeniously constructed the water-spider brings whatever
prey it catches. Here too it lays and arranges its eggs, which are in
due time hatched, so that, though an air-breathing animal, it is both
born and passes the earliest days of its life beneath the surface of the
water—a curious apparent, though not a real, contradiction.




CHAPTER XIV

    BEAVERS AND THEIR WORK—THE DAM AND THE POND—PRACTICE WITHOUT
    PRINCIPLES—A USEFUL TAIL—HOW BEAVERS CUT DOWN TREES.


The beaver may be said to occupy amongst mammals the place that ants do
amongst insects. Wood says of him: “Of the Social Mammalia, he takes
the first rank, and is the best possible type of that group. There are
other social animals, such as the various marmots and others; but these
creatures live independently of each other, and are only drawn together
by the attraction of some favourable locality. The beavers, on the other
hand, are not only social by dwelling near each other, but by joining in
a work which is intended for the benefit of the community.” As everyone
knows, the beaver is an aquatic animal, as is sufficiently indicated by
his appearance. He has a dense, woolly coat, which, as in the case of the
otter and the still more water-loving seals, is protected by an outer
covering of long, smooth hairs, which are of a reddish brown colour.
The toes of the hind feet are webbed, whilst the tail is broadened out
into the shape of a paddle, the blade of which, however, lies flat on
the water, so that it is not used by the animal as we would use a scull
or a paddle, but with an upward and downward motion. When the beaver
moves his tail laterally—that is to say from side to side—as he is very
well able to do, it cuts the water, after the manner and with the same
effect that a scull does when worked by a seaman at the stem of the boat,
instead of in the rowlocks as we use it.

[Illustration: OTTER AND SALMON.]

This tail of the beaver is a very wonderful organ, and by far the most
conspicuous feature about the animal. The late Mr. Morgan, who made a
study of beavers and their habitations, says of it: “It is nearly flat,
and covered with horny scales of a lustrous black. These scales, which
are such in appearance only, cover every portion of the surface, both
above and underneath. Its principal uses are to elevate or depress the
head, while swimming, to turn the body and vary its direction, and
to assist the animal in diving. It is also used to give a signal of
alarm to its mates. When alarmed in his pond, particularly at night,
he immediately dives, in doing which the posterior part of his body
is thrown out of water, and as he descends head foremost, the tail is
brought down upon the surface of the water, with a heavy stroke, and deep
below it with a plunge. The violence of the blow is shown by the spray,
which is thrown up two or three feet high.”

Elsewhere the same authority says: “Whilst watching upon their dams
at night I have been startled by this tremendous stroke, which, in
the stillness of the hour, seemed like a pistol-shot. I have heard it
distinctly for half a mile, and think it can be heard twice or three
times that distance, under favourable conditions.” That must have been a
splendid thing to hear—that sudden, startling blow—in the dead silence of
the night, and in the loneliness of the North American wilderness; in the
Hudson’s Bay territories perhaps—the headquarters of the beaver—where,
for hundreds of miles around, there would be no other white man, or even,
perhaps, an Indian, within a very great distance. Any other beaver that
happened to be about at the time—at any rate, all those that were living
in the same pond—when they heard that sound of alarm would go down too in
the same way, so that there would be cracks like pistol-shots all about.
That would be a concert worth listening to.

But now, what is this pond of the beavers which is referred to by Mr.
Morgan in the above passage of his book, _The American Beaver and his
Works_—a most interesting work, which should be read by anyone who wants
to know all about beavers? It is made, or rather caused, by the beavers
themselves, and this brings us to the dam, which is their principal
work, and which they construct for the express purpose of having this
pond to live in. They are animals who simply cannot do without water,
and as the streams on which they take up their abode are often small
and shallow, it is of the greatest consequence to them that they should
never run dry—which in a drought or dry summer they might easily do.
To prevent this, having first selected a part of the stream where the
water is not more than two or three feet deep, they bring earth from the
adjacent banks and lay it down in mid-stream. Soft earth of a clayey
consistency is preferred, for this, penetrated as it is, and partially
held together, by roots and other vegetable fibres, is not at once washed
away by the force of the water. The beavers have thus time to add to and
strengthen the dam, and the better to effect this object they lay sticks
and brushwood upon it, which they then press down into the mud with their
feet. To these stones are added, and then more earth and sticks, till at
last the crest of the dam appears above the surface of the water, and
begins to rise higher and higher. It may attain, at last, to a height of
six feet, or even more, above the level of the stream, whilst the length
of some dams is as much as two hundred, or even three hundred feet.
The stream itself, at the point where the dam intersects it, may only
be a few yards in breadth, but as the mass of the flowing water cannot
penetrate the solid embankment of mud and sticks which the beavers have
made, it broadens out and begins to make a way on either side of it.
The beavers, however, to prevent this, keep lengthening the dam, and in
this way, as the stream can no longer flow in its channel, and can only
get by the obstacle placed in its way, very slowly, by spreading out and
flooding the surrounding country, the result is that a great pond or
basin of water is formed on the up-stream side of the dam, and this the
beavers have all to themselves. Of course, when the water is checked in
its flow, it begins to rise against the dam that confines it, and as only
a small quantity percolates through, it sinks and runs away in a much
smaller volume, on the other side of the obstruction. When a flour-mill,
which is to be worked by water-power, is erected by the side of one of
our small streams, exactly the same principle is employed, a dam being
built across it, from bank to bank, and the water running off by a
side-channel.

Beavers, however, existed long before there were any millers, and
moreover, they make better dams than our millers do, or, at least, they
construct them upon more scientific principles. The mill-dam runs, as a
rule, straight across the stream, but the beavers curve theirs a little
up into it, so that the water does not rush against it so violently as
it would if it were straight, but flows smoothly off upon either side.
This is how we make our sea-dams—at least when it is possible—and where
any structure has to resist a great force of water, as, for instance,
the buttresses of a bridge across some large river, it is always shaped
like this, only more so; that is to say, we turn the curve into an acute
angle and present a sharp edge, instead of a rounded surface, to the
impetuous rush of the stream. In this way the water is cut in two, as if
by a knife-blade, whereas, if the masonry presented a broad surface for
it to rush against, the first flood might wash the strongest bridge away.
Practical experience seems to have led to the beaver’s employment of the
principle, though probably he has no very clear ideas as to what the
principle is. He could not “formulate it”—as we say—and to say the truth,
neither could I myself at this moment.

Besides the first, or great dam, the beaver sometimes makes a smaller one
lower down the stream. This smaller dam is perhaps a more interesting
structure even than the principal one, from the point of view of the
beaver’s intelligence. The pond which is formed above it by the now
diminished stream, is too small to be of much use to the animal, but by
increasing the height of the water behind the great dam, it diminishes
the pressure of the stream against it, on the other side, so that there
is less fear of the dams bursting. This, too, is by a principle which
I should find it difficult to formulate myself—and it can hardly be
supposed that the beaver knows anything about it. The surprising thing is
that, somehow, practically, he has found it out—that is to say, he knows
how to apply it, without having any idea of what he is doing. In carrying
the mud and sticks to the water, the beaver walks, it would seem, upon
his hind legs, and in placing and working them together, he generally
also assumes the upright attitude. The massive tail, by acting as a base
or fulcrum, on which the animal can lean back, enables it to do this
with the greatest ease. The toes of the forefeet are not webbed, as are
those of the hind ones, nor do they aid in swimming, being then pressed
against the body, but are used more as hands, at least for the purposes
of architecture. With them the beaver scoops up the mud, and holding it
between them or pressed against his throat, walks upright to his dam
like a little mannikin in a brown fur coat. It used to be thought that
the broad, naked tail served the beaver as a trowel, for the laying and
plastering of the mud. This was not so entirely an error as one generally
reads it is, since Mr. Morgan tells us that “he uses his tail to pack
and compress mud and earth, while constructing a lodge or dam, which he
effects by heavy and repeated down-strokes,” and he adds, truly enough,
“that it performs, in this respect, a most important office, and one not
unlike some of the uses of the trowel.” This shows that there was really
something in the old idea, but it was imagined also that the beaver,
besides using his tail as a trowel, actually prepared mortar with it,
from mud. This was a fable, but there was much more truth in the general
statement, of which this was only an item, than in the learned _ex
cathedrâ_ denial, which denied everything—and so it very often is. As we
have seen, both wood and mud enter into the construction of the beaver’s
dam, besides stones, which do not play so important a part. I have called
the wood “sticks” because that is the word usually employed in America,
where beaver-dams are often called “stick-dams.” But these sticks may be
of a considerable size, so that we should often rather call them logs,
or, at any rate, branches. Branches, gnawed into various lengths, is what
they really are, and to obtain them the beaver, which is a rodent, and
armed with two enormous chisel-like teeth in each jaw, is accustomed to
cut down trees, often of a surprising size, when its own is taken into
consideration.

Two or more beavers—according to Mr. Morgan—generally assist in the
cutting down of a tree. “Although,” he says, “I have not succeeded in
witnessing the act, I have obtained the particulars from Indians and
trappers who have. The usual number engaged in the work is but two of a
pair; but they are sometimes assisted by two or three young beavers. It
thus appears to be the separate work of a family, instead of the joint
work of several families. When but two are engaged they work by turns,
and alternately stand on the watch, as is the well-known practice of
many animals while feeding or at work. When the tree begins to crackle
they desist from cutting, which they afterwards continue with caution
until it begins to fall, when they plunge into the pond, usually, and
wait concealed for a time, as if fearful that the crashing noise of the
tree-fall might attract some enemy to the place. The next movement is
to cut off the limbs, such as are from two to five and six inches in
diameter, and reduce them to a proper length, to be moved to the water
and transported thence to the vicinity of their lodges, where they are
sunk in a pile as their store of winter provisions. Upon this work the
whole family engage with the most persevering industry, and follow it up,
night after night, till the work is accomplished.”




CHAPTER XV

    BEAVER “LODGES”—PRIMITIVE BEAVERS—INDIAN BEAVER STORIES—AN
    ARABIAN NATURALIST.


The last chapter left off just as we were coming to the family life of
beavers; so to this and the houses in which they live, with other matters
growing therefrom, we will devote the present one. Little round huts is
what the houses look like, but in America they are called “lodges”; so,
as everything we know about beavers comes from that country, we will use
the American word. The “beaver-lodge,” then, is shaped something like
a beehive, but flatter and broader at the base, and the walls and roof
are very thick—from four to five feet, as a general rule, but sometimes
even thicker. It is made of a mass of poles and sticks, the shoots and
branches of which the beavers gnaw off, and then strip away the bark.
They press and interweave them together, and plaster them with mud, much
in the same way as they make their dams. They thus become fairly solid
structures, but still, as the mud cannot get into all the interstices
of the sticks, they are sufficiently porous to answer the purposes of
ventilation. Inside, the lodge consists of a circular chamber, the floor
of which is formed of mud, which is soon pressed hard and worn quite
smooth by the feet of its occupants.

These consist of a pair of beavers and their young, and sometimes the
young of one or more of these, but the Indians say that it is rare to
find more than twelve beavers living together, in the same lodge, because
the lodge is not large enough to accommodate more than that number
comfortably. From two to five young beavers are born at one time, and
when they are two years old, by which time they are almost full-grown,
they are not allowed to continue any longer in the parent lodge, but have
to go out into the world, to find mates and make lodges for themselves.
This, at least, is what the Indians say, and no doubt it must be so, in
the greater number of cases. Still as a family of five young beavers,
with the two parents, would only make seven in all, and as sometimes
more than seven beavers are found living together in one lodge, it seems
plain that in these cases some of the young beavers must have stayed in
the home circle a little longer, and brought their mates there to live
with them. Probably the numbers are in accordance with the size of the
interior chamber, for if a beaver felt uncomfortable in his lodge, he
would, no doubt, leave it, as we should leave our house or lodgings, but
without giving any notice. As I say, the floor of the beaver-house is of
mud, but round the outer border of it, next to the wall, the beavers lay
down grass, which they use, both to sleep on and also to make nests for
their young. The latter are nourished, for six weeks, by their mother,
after which, and for the rest of their lives, they live principally on
bark. It is not the thick bark, at the base of the trunks of trees, that
beavers like, but that which clothes the smaller limbs, for this is both
tenderer and more nutritious. This is one great reason for the cutting
down of trees, so that the beaver was, no doubt, a tree-feller before
he came to be a dam-builder, for food comes first, both with men and
animals, and houses and engineering works afterwards.

It might be thought that, as there are trees to be felled both in summer
and winter, the beaver, though he does not hibernate, would find no more
difficulty in procuring food in the one season than in the other, so
that it would not be necessary for him to store up a supply of it, for
winter consumption, either in his lodges or at the bottom of his pond. In
reality, however, there are difficulties, and “they are compelled,” says
Mr. Morgan, “to provide a store of subsistence for the long winters of
the north, during which their ponds are frozen over, and the danger of
venturing upon the land is so largely increased as to shut them up, for
the most part, in their habitations.” Mr. Morgan does not tell us what
these dangers are, but no doubt he is referring to various predaceous
animals, such as lynxes, pumas, gluttons, and particularly wolves, all
of which, by reason of their own difficulties in procuring food, become
more ravenous in the winter, and would, no doubt, hail a beaver, away
from his lodge, with delight, and hasten to supply his temporary want,
with an interior chamber of their own. “In preparing for the winter,” Mr.
Morgan continues, “their greatest efforts in tree-cutting are made. They
commence in the latter part of September, and continue through October
and into November the several employments of cutting and storing their
winter food and of repairing their lodges and dams. Part of this winter
supply the beaver, as we have seen, brings into his dwelling, and for
this purpose he makes a special entrance to it, which facilitates his
doing so. Beaver-lodges are always situated on the edge of the water, and
it is by diving under water that the beaver goes in and out of them. The
lodge enters the water at one point, and, within the space conterminous
with it, there are two or more entrances, which open out beneath its
surface at a sufficient depth for the water not to be frozen during the
winter; since, if this were the case, the inmates would perish, the walls
being, at this time, too hard and solid even for a beaver’s teeth. These
entrances are made,” says Mr. Morgan, “with great skill and in the most
artistic manner. In new lodges there is generally but one, but others
are added, with their increase in size, under the process of repairing,
until in large lodges there are sometimes three or four. These entrances
are of two kinds, one straight and the other sinuous. The first we shall
call ‘the wood entrance,’ from the beavers’ evident design to facilitate
the admission into their chamber of the wood-cuttings upon which they
subsist, during the season of winter. These cuttings are of such size
and length that such an entrance is absolutely necessary for their free
admission into the lodge. The other, which we shall call ‘the beaver
entrance’” (not a very good name, I think, as the wood does not enter by
itself) “is the ordinary one for the exit and return of the animal.” As
far as I can understand from reading Mr. Morgan’s book, the floor of the
lodge is extended down, from the point where it touches the water, in a
slanting line to the bottom; but whether the wall goes down all the way
with it, and whether the entrances run right through the wall or only
just underneath it, is not very easy to make out, either from the plates
or the description. They apparently come up through the floor of the
lodge, though even that is not quite easy to make out from the plates,
though these are evidently intended to make things very plain. My own
opinion is that nobody will quite know what a beaver-lodge is like, or
how its entrances are arranged, until he has seen it for himself.

Some beavers make a trench all round their huts, and let the water from
the pond run into it. Then they make one passage out into the water of
this trench, and another into that of the pond. Mr. Wood, in speaking
of the beaver-lodges, tells us that “they are nearly circular in form,
and much resemble the well-known snow-houses of the Esquimaux, being
domed, and about half as high as they are wide, the average height being
three feet, and the diameter six or seven feet. These are the interior
dimensions, the exterior measurement being much greater on account of the
great thickness of the walls, which are continually strengthened with
mud and branches, so that, during the severe frosts, they are nearly as
hard as solid stone. All these precautions, however,” he goes on to say,
“are useless against the practised skill of the trappers. Even in winter
time the beavers are not safe. The hunters strike the ice smartly, and
judge by the sound whether they are near an aperture. As soon as they
are satisfied, they cut away the ice and stop up the opening, so that if
the beavers should be alarmed they cannot escape into the water. They
then proceed to the shore, and by repeated soundings trace the course
of the beaver’s subterranean passage, which is sometimes eight or ten
yards in length, and by watching the various apertures are sure to catch
the beavers. This is not a favourite task with the hunters, and is never
undertaken as long as they can find any other employment, for the work is
very severe, the hardships are great, and the price which they obtain for
the skins is now very small.” I heartily wish it were nothing, for then
this most interesting and intelligent animal would not be in danger of
extermination, as I fear it is now.

The greater number of men and women are, unfortunately, quite callous
in regard to what is done to wild animals. They do not see that it is
a crime to rob a _being_ of its life—only a _human_ being; though the
distinction, nowadays, is one without a difference. To read, first, of
what the beavers do, and then of what we do to them, ought to upset one
more than the fall of a ministry, or people in one’s pew—but it doesn’t.

Besides his lodge, or hut, the beaver has his burrow, and there are some
beavers which only use their burrows to live in, and do not make a hut
at all. The European beaver is now, unfortunately, almost extinct, at
least in civilised Europe, but where it does still exist it is not often
known to practise house-building. It could hardly have done so in ancient
times, since Pliny, the Roman naturalist, who describes its habits, says
nothing about this one. He would have done so, we may be sure, had he
known of its existence, and as he was a most eager inquirer, and beavers
were common enough in Europe then, he could have had no difficulty in
finding out all about them, even if he had not been able to study them
for himself. The European beaver, therefore, is in the same state as
those American beavers which do not make huts, but just as these latter
are exceptional in America, so a few beavers here have been seen making
huts, like the American ones. The habit, no doubt, has been gradually
evolved, and may have begun by some beavers driving their passages so
far through the bank in an upward direction, that at last they broke
through the surface, and had to be covered in. It is a curious fact that
man, in very early times, lived in caves, and after that made a sort of
house underground—a burrow, in fact—so that his habitations may have gone
through the same process of development as have those of the beavers—only
with him it has been carried a little farther.

Beavers that do not build houses are called by the French-Canadian
trappers _paresseux_, or idlers. Such individuals do not make dams
either, for they live by large and deep rivers, whose course it would be
impossible for them to stem. In the banks of these rivers they make their
burrows, and live a more or less solitary life. I have just stated my own
views in regard to these primitive animals, but the Indians have another
way of accounting for them, which has nothing to do with evolution or
development. Their idea is that, after a certain time, the young beavers
are expelled from the family lodge by their parents, who wish them to
marry and have children. If, however, they fail to do this, their parents
receive them back into the lodge again, but make them, as a punishment,
do all the work of repairing the dam. On the following summer they are
sent out again to marry, but if again unsuccessful in their wooing, they
are not received a second time, but are expelled from the community, and
become “outcast beavers.” Thus, according to the Indians—and their story
is, or was, confirmed by the trappers—there are both outcast beavers and
slave-beavers. Ants, as we know, make slaves, and it would be curious if
beavers, which so much resemble ants in their social habits, joined to
their great architectural and engineering skill, were to imitate them,
also, in this the most remarkable of their institutions. We cannot, with
the example of ants before us, say that this is impossible; but no real
evidence of it, as far as I know, has been adduced, unless we take the
belief of the Indians as such; Indians, like other savages, are close
observers of animals, but then, like other savages, they have all sorts
of wild legends and fairy-tales about them, as well.

But this fairy-tale of the slave-beavers—if we consider it as such—is
told not only by the Indians, but by another and very different people
who live right away from them, and whom they could never, in old times,
have seen, unless, indeed, the Arabs discovered America. Six or seven
hundred years ago, an Arabian author, named Kazwini, wrote a work called
the _Wonders of Creation_, and in it he says, “The beaver (kundur) is a
land and water animal that is found in the smaller rivers of the country
Isa. On the banks of these he builds a house, and in it he makes for
himself an elevated place, in the form of a bench; then on the right
hand, about a step lower, one for his wife, and, on the left, one for his
young ones, and, on the lower part of the house, one for his servants.
His dwelling possesses, in the lower part, an egress towards the water,
and another higher one towards the land. If, therefore, an enemy comes
on the water side, or the water rises, he escapes by the egress leading
to the land; but if the enemy comes on the land side, by that which
leads to the water. He nourishes himself on the flesh of fishes and the
wood of the _chelendech_ (? willow). The merchants of that country are
able to distinguish the skins of the servants from those of the masters;
the former hew the _chelendech_ wood for their masters, drag it with
their mouths, and break it in pieces with their foreheads, so that, in
consequence of this office, the hair of the head falls out on the right
and left side. The merchants, who are aware of this fact, recognise in
the hair of the forehead, thus rubbed off, the skin of the servant. In
the skin of the master this mark of recognition is wanting, as he employs
himself with catching fish.”

We do not quite know where the “country of Isa” lay, but beavers, at
that time, were common not only in Europe, and the more northern parts
of Asia—as Siberia—but southwards, in Asia Minor, as well, as far as
to the river Euphrates. It is probably the beavers in these southern
parts, which were nearest to his own country, that this Arabian writer
was thinking of, and we see that he makes the animal build a house. The
probability is that, over such a vast extent of country, the habits of
beavers differed a good deal, as perhaps they do now, in the places where
they still remain.




CHAPTER XVI

    BEAVER-CANALS AND BEAVER-MEADOWS—ANTIQUITY OF
    BEAVER-WORKS—BEAVERS AND RAILWAY COMPANIES—WHITE BEAVERS.


We have seen the beaver as a dam-maker and a house-builder, but we have
not yet considered him as a maker of canals. This we will now proceed
to do. In the construction of the dam and lodge, a great quantity of
wood is, as we have seen, required, and when the trees do not grow very
thickly, those on the edge of the pond are soon cut down and made use
of, and gradually, as more and more fall, the beavers have to go farther
and farther away from the water, in order to procure fresh timber. To
transport this felled timber, overland, to the pond becomes a more and
more laborious task, and at last an impossible one, many of the logs made
use of being of considerable, or even of great size, when compared with
that of the beaver itself. To overcome this difficulty, the beaver sets
to work and excavates a trench or cutting in the ground, about three feet
wide and as many deep. Commencing it at the brink of the pond, he carries
it on to the spot where the trees he covets are growing, and when these,
in their turn, have been cut down, he lengthens it till it reaches
others, and so on, following the trees as they gradually recede from the
neighbourhood of the pond. Of course the water runs up into the channel
thus excavated, so that now, when the beaver has cut up his logs, he has
only to float them down the canal that he has so cleverly excavated. This
he does by swimming with them in his mouth, or pushing them in front of
him with his paws and nose; the water (though there is no current to
help) offers very little resistance, and it is now quite an easy matter.
Both the trappers and the Indians call these cuttings canals; and canals
they are, it is obvious, just as much as those we make for barges to ply
on. According to the size of the pond, and the scarcity or otherwise of
the trees near its banks, will be the number of the canals made from
it by the beavers. A pond figured in Mr. Morgan’s book has five, at
different points, all round it, and some might have a great many more. It
is wonderful the length to which some of these canals extend. One that
Mr. Morgan speaks of was close on six hundred feet, and there are some
that are longer.

Beavers live together, not in large numbers, as used to be supposed, but
two or three families in the same pond. Such ponds, however, continue
to be inhabited by the descendants of such families, from generation
to generation, and as the dams are always being repaired and extended
by them, and the canals lengthened, they at last become works of
considerable magnitude. No one who first saw one of these great, ancient
beaver-dams would suppose it to be the work of comparatively small
animals, or, indeed, of any animal at all, except man. As for the canals,
their banks soon become covered with moss and vegetation, so that they
look like natural sluggish streams, oozing through the flat, marshy
land. Mr. Morgan, speaking of them, says: “When I first came upon these
canals, and found they were christened with this name, both by Indians
and trappers, I doubted their artificial character, and supposed them
referable to springs as their producing cause; but their form, location,
and evident object showed conclusively that they were beaver excavations.”

Again, in considering these wonderful works of a quadruped from the
point of view of the intelligence required for their production, the
same writer says: “In the excavations of artificial canals, as a means
for transporting their wood by water to their lodges, we discover, as it
seems to me, the highest act of intelligence and knowledge performed by
beavers. Remarkable as the dam may well be considered, from its structure
and objects, it scarcely surpasses, if it may be said to equal, these
waterways, here called canals, which are executed through the low lands
bordering their ponds, for the purpose of reaching the hard wood, and of
affording a channel for its transportation to their lodges. To conceive
and execute such a design presupposes a more complicated and extended
process of reasoning than that required for the construction of a dam,
and although a much simpler work to perform, when the thought was fully
developed, it was far less to have been expected from a mute animal.”
However, I am not sure that I follow Mr. Morgan here. To make a dam must
have required as much intelligence as to make a canal, if we suppose that
the beaver first said to itself, “I will put an obstacle in the way of
the stream, and thus by checking the flow of the water, and causing it
to flood its banks, I shall have a nice large pond to live and play in.”
That, surely, would have been just as clever as for it to have said or
thought, “I will make a waterway from the pond to the trees, and then I
shall be able to float my logs down by water instead of having to drag
them over the land.”

[Illustration: BEAVERS TREE FELLING.

When the tree is about to fall the beavers make a dash for the water to
escape the unwelcome attentions of their foes, which will be attracted to
the spot by the crash of the falling tree.]

But I think myself that the beaver never had either of these ideas
in its mind—at least not at first—but that it found out by a lot of
little accidents—or, as we say, through practice—the advantages of
both proceedings, and then acted accordingly. I see, for instance, in
the plates which Mr. Morgan gives of the beaver-ponds, with the canals
running out of them, that there are some little waterways which are not
marked as canals. These, I suppose, must be meant to be natural, and
whether they are or not, it is almost certain that there would be some
shallow and elongated depressions in the ground round the pond, into
which the water in it would run. It would be quite natural for the beaver
to take advantage of these, and, in pulling large logs of wood into them,
he would have found that they moved more easily when the ground near
these little channels was muddy and sloppy. But simply by pulling and
tugging at them there, he would have been making the ground muddier and
sloppier, and so, having found out, by accident, the good he was doing,
he might have gone on doing it on purpose, and thus, little by little,
have got to making a canal. Now, perhaps, he knows exactly what he makes
it for, and works just as one of our own engineers would, but even of
this we cannot be quite sure. However, this is a book about facts, so I
will leave these speculative questions for someone else (or for nobody)
to decide.

There is one other thing that the beavers make, besides their dams, their
lodges, and their canals, and that is their meadows; but beaver-meadows,
as they are called, are not the result of design on the part of the
animal, but only the necessary consequence of its actions in other
respects. Their appearance, and the way in which they are caused, are
thus described by Mr. Morgan: “Where dams are constructed,” he tells
us, “the waters first destroy the timber within the area covered by the
ponds. When the adjacent lands are low, they are occasionally overflowed
after heavy rains, and are at all times saturated with water from the
ponds. In course of time the trees within the area affected are totally
destroyed; and in their place a rank, luxuriant grass springs up. A level
meadow, in the strict and proper sense of the term, is thus formed;
although much unlike the meadow of the cultivated farm. At a distance
they appear to be level and smooth; but when you attempt to walk over
them, they are found to be a series of hummocks, formed of earth and
a mass of coarse roots of grass rising about a foot high, while around
each of them there is a narrow strip of bare and sunken ground. The
bare spaces, which are but a few inches wide, have the appearance of
innumerable watercourses, and through them the water passes when the
meadows are overflowed.”

These meadows, though not designed by the beavers, are yet useful to
them, for, as Mr. Morgan says: “In addition to the nutriment which the
roots of these grasses afford to the beavers, the meadows themselves
are clearings in the wilderness, by means of which the light as well as
the heat of the sun is let in upon their lodges.” Of course, when land
that was once dry becomes overflowed with water, when peculiar-looking
meadows appear, that were not there before, when canals wind about
through them, and when trees that were formerly abundant grow thinner
or even disappear, a considerable change takes place in the appearance
of the country; and so numerous, till lately, were beavers in North
America, that a very large extent of territory may be said to be the
work, not, indeed, of their hands, but of their paws and teeth. Sometimes
the Indians have been alarmed at the number of trees cut down by these
animals, thinking they would not have sufficient fuel for their own
encampments, but here, I think, they must have feared without cause,
since beavers and trees have both been plentiful in the country from time
immemorial.

On one occasion, however, by making a dam across a small stream running
parallel with one of the principal railway lines of Canada, the beavers
produced an accumulation of water against the railway embankment. As
it was feared that the line might be flooded, or the earth supporting
it weakened, with possible disastrous consequences, a cutting was made
through the centre of the dam, thus lowering the water to its original
level. The beavers, however, were accustomed to repairing their dams,
and did so in this instance. The company again cut the dam, the beavers
again repaired it, and this conflict between an animal and one of the
chief commercial enterprises of the country continued, till the dam,
having been fifteen times cut through, was at length abandoned by its
architects. This shows, certainly, great perseverance on the part of
the beavers, but it shows also that they are capable of learning by
experience. Why the dam should be always cut through, they could not,
probably, conceive, and experience had hitherto taught them that the
proper way of dealing with a breach was by repairing it. It now taught
them that there were some breaches which it was no good to repair, and
perhaps it took them no longer to learn, or, rather, to infer this, than,
under similar circumstances, it would have taken ourselves. A general
will often try many assaults upon a fortified place before he comes to
the conclusion that it is too strong to be taken.

As has been mentioned before, incidentally, the beaver belongs to
the order of rodents or gnawing animals, of which our most familiar
examples are the rat and the mouse. He is the second largest animal of
the order, the first being the great capybara of South America, which
creature weighs as much as 90 or even 100 lbs. The beavers, when full
grown, may weigh as much as 50, but it is rare for one to attain this
size. Though usually of a reddish brown, black beavers are sometimes met
with, and white ones, though extremely rare, are not absolutely unknown.
Traherne in his _Journey to the Northern Ocean_ says: “In the course of
twenty years’ experience in the countries about Hudson’s Bay, though I
have travelled six hundred miles to the west of the sea-coast, I never
saw but one white beaver-skin, and it had many reddish and brown hairs
along the ridge of the back. The sides and the belly were of a glossy,
silvery white.” Prince Maximilian, too, who also travelled in North
America, says that he “saw one beautifully spotted with white,” and that
“yellowish white and pure white ones are not unfrequently caught on the
Yellowstone.” This, however, was a long time ago. Not only white beavers,
but brown ones too are getting rare now.

Beavers are nocturnal, so that it is not so easy to see them working at
their dams and lodges as it might otherwise be. However, it would not be
very easy, even if they worked in the day, for persecution has made them
extremely shy and wary, and perhaps has even had something to do with
their habits in this respect. On land the beaver is somewhat awkward,
and not at all fast, so that, though he is able to gallop, an ordinary
dog could soon run him down. The water is his more natural element, and
here he is easy and graceful. His sight, at least in the daytime, is
not very good, but his smell and his hearing are most acute. Upon the
latter sense he relies so much that he will often choose out some little
hillock or rising piece of ground, where he will sit up on his hind legs
like a sentinel, listening attentively. Then, says Mr. Morgan, his best
biographer, “he will retire, but only to return at intervals, and repeat
the observation until satisfied whether or not danger is near.” With this
interesting trait we will take our leave of this most interesting and
badly treated animal.




CHAPTER XVII

    SEALS AND THEIR WAYS—BREEDING HABITS OF THE
    SEA-BEAR—SEA-ELEPHANTS—THE WALRUS AND THE POLAR BEAR—MATERNAL
    AFFECTION UTILISED—A WINTER SLEEP IN A SNOW-HOUSE—A DANGEROUS
    INTRUSION—BREAKFAST WITH AN ALLIGATOR—THE CROCODILE AND THE
    TROCHILUS.


If the beaver has been to some extent structurally modified in relation
to its water-loving habits, we have in the seals a group of marine
carnivorous animals whose ancestors, as we plainly see, must at one time
have been terrestrial, but whose limbs and bodies have become almost
entirely adapted for an aquatic existence, and who are never found far
from the vicinity of the water. They lie, however, on the rocks or ice
to rest, and at certain seasons of the year repair to remote, but,
unfortunately, not inaccessible islands, for the purpose of bringing
forth their young. Seals are most numerous in the arctic and antarctic
regions, and to render them impervious to the great cold of these
latitudes their bodies are covered with a thick, dense fur, which, as
with the beaver, is of two kinds, forming an upper and an under coating.
The under fur of some species is very much sought after, and to obtain
it, vast multitudes of these poor animals are, every year, slaughtered
under circumstances of great barbarity. As the value of sealskin is far
more artificial than real, inasmuch as there are few ladies who could
not be quite warm enough without wearing it, it is to be hoped that as
they become aware that almost every jacket represents a seal that has
been skinned alive, they will cease to make these cruel purchases, and
thus save millions of innocent and interesting creatures from perishing
off the face of the earth.

These fur-bearing seals—or sea-bears as they are called—are polygamous,
and their breeding habits when assembled on their far-off island
nurseries are very curious and interesting. The male sea-bears—or bulls
as they are called—are very much larger than the females—in fact, they
weigh almost six times as much. They are, therefore, able to seize them
in their teeth, and lift them about almost as easily as a cat does its
kittens, and each bull gets for himself, in this way, as many females or
cows as he can, and guards them on a certain spot of ground, which he
looks upon as his own, and from which he never stirs. If he were to stir
from it he would be attacked by some of the bulls round about, into whose
territory he would have to intrude—for they are all packed very closely
together. Each bull does his best to keep his harem of cows to himself,
but they all try to steal from each other’s harems, and thus fights
between the bulls are continually taking place. They bite fiercely at one
another, and the whole air is full of the loud, harsh roarings which they
utter. Sometimes two males will each seize hold of the same female, and
then they both pull and tug at her, until sometimes—as neither will relax
his hold—the poor animal is almost torn in half. The bulls fight most on
first landing on the island, and before the harems have been got together
by them. Afterwards things grow quieter, but each bull is continually
occupied in guarding his harem.

One of the most interesting accounts of the breeding habits of the
fur-seal is given by a Mr. Elliott, who spent a long time at their
breeding stations, off the northern coasts of Alaska. He says: “It
appears to be a well-understood principle among the able-bodied bulls
that each one shall remain undisturbed on his ground, which is,
usually, about ten feet square, provided he is strong enough to hold
it against all comers; for the crowding in of fresh bulls often causes
the removal of many of those who, though equally able-bodied, at first,
have exhausted themselves by fighting earlier, and are driven, by the
fresher animals, back farther and higher up on the rookery” (“rookeries”
is the name given to these seal-breeding stations, though it does not
appear to me to be a very good one). “Some of these bulls,” continues
Mr. Elliott, “show wonderful strength and courage. I have marked one
veteran who was among the first to take up his position, and that on the
water-line, where, at least, fifty or sixty desperate battles were fought
victoriously by him with nearly as many different seals, who coveted his
position, and when the fighting season was over, I saw him covered with
scars and gashes, an eye gouged out, but lording it bravely over his
harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddled together on the same spot he
had first chosen.”

As to the fighting itself, Mr. Elliott says it “is mostly or entirely
done with the mouth, the opponents seizing each other with the teeth, and
clenching the jaws. Nothing but sheer strength can shake them loose, and
that effort almost always leaves an ugly wound, the sharp canines tearing
out deep gutters in the skin and blubber, or shredding the flippers
into ribbon-strips. They usually approach each other with averted heads
and a great many false passes, before either one or the other takes the
initiative by gripping; their heads are darted out and back as quick as
a flash; their hoarse roaring and shrill, piping whistle never ceases,
whilst their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage, fur
flying in air and blood streaming down—all combined make a picture fierce
and savage enough, and, from its great novelty, exceedingly strange at
first sight.” Sooner or later one of the two combatants proves stronger
than the other, and when this becomes sufficiently apparent, the weaker
of the two withdraws. Instead of pursuing him, as might have been
expected, the victorious bull stays where he was, fans himself with one
of his hind flippers, as though so much exertion had made him hot, and,
with a satisfied chuckle, seems to rejoice in his victory.

An older writer who visited the islands more than 170 years ago, and who
calls the sea-bears sea-cats, says: “When two of them only fight, the
battle lasts frequently for an hour. Sometimes they rest awhile, lying
by one another; then both rise at once, and renew the engagement. They
fight with their heads erect, and turn them aside from one another’s
stroke. So long as their strength is equal, they fight with their fore
paws; but when one of them becomes weak, the other seizes him with his
teeth, and throws him upon the ground. When the lookers-on see this,
they come to the assistance of the vanquished. The wounds they make with
their teeth are as deep as those made with a sabre; and in the month of
July you will hardly see one of them that has not some wound upon him.
After the end of the battle they throw themselves into the water to wash
their bodies.” This account differs in some particulars from that of Mr.
Elliott, who says nothing about the seals fighting with their flippers
or entering the water afterwards. The latter hardly seems likely, as the
females would be then left unguarded; but perhaps, the actions of the
seals differ a little, according as it is early or late in the season.
This latter informant, who was a Russian, tells us that the females who
may be present at such conflicts always follow the victor. At the time
when he lived, these poor sea-bears were not persecuted in the way they
are now. People hardly ever went to their breeding islands then. It is
pleasanter to think of these strange, fierce battles raging amidst ice
and snow, in the far-off lonely regions of the north, without anyone to
see or interfere with them, than amidst human surroundings of not at all
a pleasant character—for the men who skin the seals alive for ladies are
amongst the most brutal and debased of mankind. There is always more of
the romance of natural history when animals are not interfered with.

The fur-bearing seal is only one of many species belonging to the
family. Some of them are very large animals, the largest being the great
elephant-seal or sea-elephant, a creature which sometimes measures as
much as thirty feet in length, and fifteen or eighteen feet round the
largest part of the body, so that it is much larger and heavier than
the real elephant. They are polygamous, like the animals we have just
been speaking about; and it must be a still more wonderful thing to
see such huge creatures fighting. This the males do with the greatest
fury; but the first descriptive word upon our title-page receives a
better illustration in the love and devotion which they show towards
the females. They will not desert them when they are in any danger, and
this fact, so much to their credit, is taken advantage of by the brutal
seal-hunters, who attack the females first, and the males, who remain
with them, afterwards. Were they to reverse the process of destruction,
the harem belonging to any male that was killed would immediately take
to the sea and disappear. Whilst he lives, however, they connect their
safety with his presence, and so continue to crowd about him until he
breathes his last. My authority for this statement is the Rev. J. G.
Wood, but I have not been able to find anything bearing upon it in the
accounts of those having personal experience of the habits of these
animals, which I should have liked to have done. If true, then we have
here a striking instance of affectionate solicitude in an animal, as
contrasted with that callousness and deadness of sympathy on the part of
man, which the slaughter of beasts always and necessarily produces.

The sea-elephant is enormously fat, and the boiling of its fat down
into oil, with the subsequent sale of this, is the industry with which
its slaughter is connected. Some time ago this industry was not known,
and some years hence it will have ceased with the life of the species.
The world, therefore, will have gained nothing permanently by the oil,
whereas it will have lost for ever an interesting and wonderful creature.
The sea-elephant is a denizen of the southern seas, and used once to be
very plentiful on the coast of California and Mexico. Now, however, owing
to the persecution to which it has been subjected, one is scarcely ever
to be seen there.

Next, perhaps, to the sea-elephant in size, comes the great morse, or
walrus, of the arctic and antarctic oceans. The principal peculiarity of
this huge seal—the sea-horse as it is sometimes called—is the pair of
long tusks, reminding one of those of an elephant, which it carries in
its upper jaw. The length of these tusks is about a foot, and sometimes
they weigh ten pounds apiece. The Esquimaux use them in the making of
fish-hooks—for the fish-hooks of all savages are very different-looking
articles to our own, and made in a very different way, though the
principle is the same. But what does the walrus itself use them for?
Wielded by an animal of such vast size and strength, they must, no doubt,
be formidable weapons of offence, but they cannot be used to give a
direct thrust forward, as the elephant uses his tusks, since they hang
down from the jaw instead of projecting horizontally beyond it. Were
one male walrus, however, to succeed in rearing his head over the neck
or shoulder of another, he could inflict, it is evident, a formidable
wound by stabbing downwards with his two curved ivory stilettoes. It
would seem, however, that it is mostly as an aid to the procuring of
its food that the walrus uses its great tusks. With them it digs and
scrapes amongst the sand and shingle on the bottom of the sea, along the
coast, thus stirring up various molluscs and crustaceans, on which it
principally feeds. In climbing up upon the rocks or slippery shores, too,
it finds its tusks useful to hook on with, as has been related by various
eye-witnesses and denied by various professors.

The regions where the walrus dwells are equally the abode of the white,
or polar, bear, and it is possible that these two great creatures
sometimes come into collision. Not that the walrus would ever interfere
with the bear, but, in spite of its size, the converse may sometimes be
the case, when the latter is pressed by hunger. In such an encounter I
should think, myself, that the walrus would have the best of it. With
his thick skin and still thicker blubber underneath it, he could hardly
be very much injured by the teeth and claws of the bear, whereas a dig
of his own tusks might well put the latter _hors de combat_, or even
terminate his existence. For large and strong as a polar bear is—and he
exceeds even the grizzly in size—he is inferior in both these particulars
to the vast bulk and huge, though unwieldy, strength of the walrus.
Doubtless he is aware of this fact, nor have I ever heard of such a
combat being witnessed. Still, as I say, it might occur, and then what a
sight it would be! What mighty blows and buffets! what horrible growlings
and roarings!—the bear, no doubt, reared on its hind legs, striving to
tear at the throat or neck of the walrus as the most vulnerable part.
The great seal, however, swinging its huge head from side to side, would
shake off, each time, the grasp of its shaggy assailant, and at length
seizing an opportunity to which the methods of the latter would perhaps
have contributed, might transfix his neck or shoulder with a terrific
downstroke of its tusks; crushing him at the same time on to the ice or
hardened snow, now all bloodstained with the conflict. But we will not
pursue further an imaginary picture.

But though they can defend themselves when the necessity arises, walruses
are not of a combative disposition. They go in herds, the members of
which are much attached to each other, so that an attack upon any one
arouses the resentment, and may even provoke the retaliation, of the
rest. When tamed, too, walruses have shown themselves as affectionate
towards human beings as any dog could be. One brought alive from
Archangel to St. Petersburg, in 1829, became deeply attached to its
keeper—a lady, Madame Dennebecq by name.

One might expect that an animal thus capable of forming friendships would
also show great parental affection. Accordingly we find this quality
highly developed in the walrus, and the usual sportsman has given the
usual account of how he witnessed it. A female, in this case, being
wounded, placed her right fore fin or flipper about the body of her young
calf, and endeavoured to shield it from the harpoon, against which its
years were no protection, by the constant interposition of her own body.
The terror of the calf, with the look of anxiety upon the mother’s face,
accompanied with a reckless disregard of her own danger, were, we are
told, most affecting, but did not, unfortunately, affect the result,
both the poor animals being slaughtered. Walrus-hunters do not often let
their feelings get the better of them, they prefer to get the better of
the walruses, through _their_ feelings, which are tenderer. Thus, having
caught a young one, they induce it to grunt, when the herd come to its
assistance and are shot or harpooned.

It is, however, to its habit of going in herds that the walrus owes much
of its safety. Even though half famished, a polar bear would hardly
venture to attack one—even if only a young one—under these circumstances.
Indeed, though so large an animal, the polar bear contents himself, for
the most part, with the smaller kinds of seals, which he catches when
they are asleep on the ice—perhaps, sometimes, even in the sea: for he
is a wonderful swimmer, though not shaped quite so much like a fish as
is a seal, and with feet only, and not flippers, to swim with. So much
is said about the great size and strength of the grizzly bear that one
might think it was the largest of all the bear family, but this is not
the case. The largest of all bears are the polar bears, and this proves
that they get quite enough to eat, even though they live in the cold,
bleak north, where there are no great forests full of birds and monkeys
and all manner of creatures; no plains or prairies with antelopes, or
bisons, or herds of wild horses or zebras bounding over them, but only
desolate icefields or dreary wastes of snow. Life, indeed, in the far
north or south, is poor in species, but it is—or, at least, it was,
until civilised man came there to make it a solitude indeed—abundant in
individuals. The ice has its own herds in the shape of numberless seals
that lie upon it asleep or resting, enjoying what sun there is, during
the short summer. Even in the winter, as these creatures must have air to
breathe, they are accustomed to come out of the sea through holes in the
ice, which they manage to keep open by constantly coming up in the same
place, and so always breaking the ice, before it has time to get thick.
The polar bears watch at these seal-holes, as they are called, and seize
the seals as they come up, or else they wait till they have crawled out,
and stalk them as they lie asleep.

[Illustration: A BRAVE MOTHER.

The wounded walrus endeavoured recklessly to protect her young calf from
the harpoon.]

In this way the male polar bear, at any rate, seems able to keep himself
in food during the winter, but the female is said to hibernate, and this
she does in a very interesting and peculiar way. Where it is all ice
and snow, there are no caves for her to retire into, but she makes a
cave by utilising the materials around her in the simplest possible way.
She simply lies down in a snowstorm, and lets all the rest take care of
itself. Her weight presses down the soft snow she is lying on, and she is
soon covered up by the flakes falling upon her. She now lies in a little
cave, for, by moving and rolling, she presses the snow away from her back
and sides, so that she has a comfortable space, and does not feel cramped
and confined. If it were earth that had been flung over her, she would be
pressed down by its weight and soon suffocated, but it is different with
the soft yielding snow. Neither is she cold, for the heat from her body
warms the little cave that she lies in, just as if she were a stove; and
as the hot breath from her nostrils rises up, it thaws the snow just
above them, and makes a hole by which it escapes, and through which she
is able to breathe. Here, then, in her little vaulted chamber, with its
breathing-hole in the ceiling, the she polar bear lies snugly asleep,
all through the cold, dark winter, and when the summer comes and the sun
begins to melt the snow, out she gets, with a good appetite, all ready to
catch a seal.

I am not sure if the winter sleep of the polar bear is a heavy or a
light one, or whether the Esquimaux, who live in these arctic regions,
are bold enough to interfere with it if they happen to come upon its
sleeping-place. The brown bear of Siberia, however, is sometimes attacked
whilst hibernating, and this is a very dangerous thing to do, for this
species—unlike the black bear of America—sleeps lightly, and is very
fierce when disturbed. The way employed is for one man to descend into
the bear’s cave, at the end of a rope, the other end being held by two
or three men, who stand at the cave’s mouth. The man who goes in has a
torch, or a candle, fixed into his cap—at least I think I have somewhere
read this account—so that he can both see before him, and carry his gun
in both hands. When he sees the bear lying asleep he creeps cautiously
up, and putting the muzzle of his gun against the side of the animal’s
head, pulls the trigger. As soon as the men outside hear the roar of the
gun in the cave, they pull on the rope, and the assassin starts running
at the same time. If he stumbles or falls, he is pulled along the ground,
and in this way may avoid the rush of the bear, supposing the shot has
not killed it. If the muzzle of the gun has been well placed, it ought,
of course, to be a certain thing, but the bear may wake first, or move
just at the critical moment, or it may be difficult, in the dark cavern,
only dimly illumined by the flickering light of the candle, to see in
what position it is lying. All this has to be risked. Still, on the
whole, the chances are a good deal against the bear, and if its cavern—or
hibernaculum, to use the technical word—is once found, it is pretty sure
to be killed, even though it may, sometimes, kill a man or two first.
I forget, now, exactly where I have read this account, but it was in a
trustworthy book, I feel sure, so I hope it is correct in the main, even
though I may have forgotten some of the particulars.

Bears are the largest animals that hibernate, unless some very big
crocodiles or alligators may be considered to be larger still; and,
perhaps, as these giants attain a length of twenty or even thirty feet,
they may weigh as much or more. These creatures generally sleep in
holes under the river-bank, but the alligator of tropical America will,
sometimes, bury itself in the mud of a swamp, which may then dry up
altogether, so that an encampment, or even a hut, may be raised upon
it. In time the rains fall, the ground begins to grow moist again, and
someone lying in his hammock, or just sitting down to breakfast, may be
startled, all at once, by a great alligator rising up beneath him, out of
the mud that makes the floor of his hut.

It is not this alligator, but the crocodile of Egypt and the Nile, that
has long been famous for its friendship with a little bird, which, when
he lies on the shore, may be seen not only running all about his body,
but sometimes even inside his mouth, which the reptile holds purposely
open for him. One snap of the great jaws, and the bird would never more
be seen, but this snap is never made. The reason is that the bird is of
great service to the crocodile, by freeing it from certain small animals
which fix themselves on its body, or even within its jaws. On the other
hand, the bird is very glad to get these creatures to eat, so that the
friendship on both sides is based upon utilitarian principles. Herodotus,
who visited Egypt over 2,000 years ago, relates as follows concerning
this intimacy: “It is blind in the water (!) but very quick-sighted on
land; and because it lives for the most part in the water, its mouth is
filled with leeches. All other birds and beasts avoid him, but he is at
peace with the trochilus because he receives benefit from that bird.
For when the crocodile gets out of the water on land, and then opens
its jaws, which it does, most commonly, towards the west, the trochilus
enters its mouth and swallows the leeches: the crocodile is so well
pleased with this service that it never hurts the trochilus.”




CHAPTER XVIII

    CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS—DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES—AN UNFORTUNATE
    PECCARY—AN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER—LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLES.


The most interesting thing I know about crocodiles and alligators—and
this is a remark which applies to a good many animals—is the way in
which they procure their food. This they do mostly, and by preference,
in the water, but they have, also, a habit of lying in wait upon the
mud of river-banks, until some animal approaches sufficiently near to
be within their reach. Lying sunk in the mud, and of the colour of mud
themselves, they may well be mistaken for a log or drifted tree-trunk,
for they make no movement, and seem to be quite inanimate. Only their
eye, if one happens to catch it, proclaims that they draw the breath
of life. A wild pig, or some other animal fond of rooting in the mud,
sees the long, black, shapeless object, and bestows upon it, at first,
a scrutinising glance. “Looks like a log,” is probably its internal
comment; “still, from time to time, I’ll keep my eye upon it.” It does
so, but as the supposed log is always precisely in the same place and
position, it becomes strengthened in its first conclusion, and soon
ceases to think anything more about it. By this, in the course of
grubbing and grazing—for there may be reed-beds, or other delectable
patches, scattered about over the mud—our pig—one of a scattered herd—has
got somewhat nearer to the long, dark object, and with occasional
deviations and wanderings away into safety, continues, on the whole, to
get nearer still. It is by mere chance that he does so. There is no need
to, any other direction would do as well, but fate is upon him, he is
the foredoomed one, the “one more unfortunate,” the one to “be taken”
amidst the many to “be left”—some for another time. Looking up, suddenly,
with the fresh-turned mud upon his nose, he is surprised to see the log
right beside him, so near that he might jump on the top of it, were he so
minded, and—and by the jaguars!—he _is_ so minded. He will do it, he has
run down logs before, he rather likes it; sometimes, too, by ripping up
the bark one may get at something—that upon a log which he thought, not
long ago, in his overwariness, might get at him. The recollection gives
piquancy to the situation. He brings all four legs together, and rises in
a light, elastic spring. In the very moment of doing so—a second or so
before, perhaps, but the motion cannot be arrested now—he notices that a
change has come over the supposed log. It has moved; nay, it is moving.
One end of it, the longest, thinnest end, the tail end—oh, heavens! _the
tail_—is gliding away in a curve, till now its tip almost touches the
further side, not of a log, but of a gigantic alligator, whose head, with
grinning jaws, is at the same time raised, and whose greeny, baleful eye,
falling, like death, upon the deceived animal, seems to claim him for its
own.

What can he do? All too late the fraud is revealed to him; no log, but a
cruel saurian that has, all along, been waiting for its prey. What can he
do now?—poor miserable, cheated pig, so happy but a moment before, and
now—— He would stop himself if he could, but he is in mid-air and cannot
check the impetus. On he must; but even so—even in mid-air thought may
be active. Our pig’s brain is working. He has escaped from as great a
danger. He remembers that time with the jaguar. Courage! even now. Come
down on the alligator’s back, that he must do, but the instant he touches
it he will spring lightly up again, and far away on the other side.
Then—there is hope yet. One more spring, a race, and a scamper, and——
But the tail of the alligator is by this time bent round as tight as it
will go—it has not taken long—and suddenly, like a bow when the arrow is
loosed, it flies back, and then with a mighty swing comes round in the
opposite direction. It meets the flying body of the pig, not directly,
but with a tremendous sideway blow; there is a heavy, dull sound, a
squeal, choked suddenly as for want of breath, and hurled obliquely from
its original course, the luckless and now almost inanimate creature falls
in a dead heap, some yards beyond the saurian’s head. Recovery from such
a blow would be in any case doubtful, but the pig has no time to recover.
With a sudden, swift rush the alligator is upon him, and seizing the
body by the skin, which it holds puckered up between its front teeth, it
shakes it furiously, as a terrier would a rat, and then half drags, half
pushes it before it, as it crawls through the mud, to the water’s edge.
The herd, alarmed by the sudden commotion, yet scarcely knowing what
has happened, scatter at first, then rush all together and stand still,
gazing from a safe distance at the suddenly revealed monster. Then,
lowering their heads and whisking their tails in the air, they dash in
wild gallop from the scene of the catastrophe.

The pig that has thus fallen a victim is most likely to have been the
little South American peccary, for this habit of lying in wait upon
the actual shore, and then striking suddenly with the tail, seems more
developed in the American alligators than in the crocodiles of the Old
World. The force of such a blow, when delivered by an alligator of any
size, is tremendous, sufficient, says somebody, writing to one of the
papers, to break the leg of an ox like a pipe-stem. According to this
account, one of the fierce bulls, common in Florida, was attacked by an
alligator, and his bellowings brought four other bulls to his assistance.
Two, if I remember, had their fore or hind legs broken, but the other
three succeeded, between them, in goring their enemy to death. It was an
exciting story. I cut it out, and still keep it somewhere—I would quote
from it if I knew where. As it is, it would take me a long time to find
again, even if I knew in what paper to look for it, for though I think it
was in the _Field_ I am not quite sure—it was several years ago. However,
there was nothing in it which seemed to me at all impossible, or even
unlikely. I am not quite sure, now, how the fight began. It would seem as
if the bulls must have found the alligator some way from the water, or
probably he would have succeeded in throwing himself into it. Perhaps the
bulls attacked him first, or perhaps he served the first one in the same
way that that other alligator did the pig.

The more usual plan, however, adopted by these great amphibious reptiles
for seizing their prey, is to lie just under the bank, in the water,
with only their eyes and the breathing-holes of their nostrils above
it, so that they are quite invisible amidst the sedge or rushes, which
commonly fringe the shore. If an animal—an ox for instance—comes down
to drink where they lie—and they are clever enough to select a good
drinking-place—they spring up and seize it by the muzzle, and then,
joining their strength to their weight, and with some powerful backward
strokes of the tail, in the water, they endeavour to overbalance it,
and make it topple down the bank. Whether they are successful, or not,
will depend on the size and strength of the animal thus seized, and
still more on how much it may be taken at a disadvantage. A powerful ox
or a buffalo—except, perhaps, the giraffe, the two largest animals that
are at all likely to be attacked—will, often, drag its assailant up the
bank, retreating backwards, and succeed, at last, in getting free from
the terrible jaws. But should it stumble, or make a false step, which is
very likely, the chances will be greatly against it. Its own weight adds,
now, to the drag of the crocodile upon it; it slides or rolls down the
incline, and, once in the water, all is soon over—it is dragged beneath
the surface and drowned.

All the crocodile family are hatched from eggs, and although the parent
is so large—perhaps twenty or thirty feet long—the eggs it lays are no
larger than those of a goose. Consequently, the young crocodiles and
alligators, in spite of their great mothers who try to look after them,
are preyed upon and devoured by a great number of creatures, birds,
fishes, various mammals, and even sometimes their own fathers. But when
they become large and strong, there is only one wild animal I know of
that cares to interfere with them, and that is the savage jaguar of South
America. How large an alligator has to get before the jaguar is afraid
to attack it, I do not know, but as Mr. Bates disturbed the creature at
his meal on one, which, he thought, had left the water to lay its eggs,
I suppose it was a fair size. Why Mr. Bates does not, himself, tell us
how large it was, and why he says nothing more upon such an interesting
subject—only just that he frightened the jaguar and found the remains
of the alligator—I really don’t know; but it is an irritating way which
travellers sometimes have. They generally go on to talk of something
not nearly so interesting, and never turn back to what you would like
to hear more about. This particular alligator had left the river-bank,
and crawled up into the forest which was some distance away from it.
This would have given the jaguar a great advantage, and perhaps it is
only under such circumstances that even he would venture to attack an
alligator of any size, since, if the latter could get to the water, all
his efforts would be in vain.

When the jaguar attacks the alligator, he is said to spring on its
back, and then tear, with all his might, at the root of its tail. This,
possibly, is with the idea of paralysing that member, thus rendering
it incapable of those mighty sweeps from side to side which are more,
almost, to be feared than even the great armed jaws. The fear of both
these weapons may deter the jaguar from clawing the throat of the
saurian, for were it to be jerked off in the latter’s struggles, it
would be more exposed to either than if it fell farther back. But why
not disembowel the creature, since that could be done—or attempted—from
almost equally far down the back? However, as far as I am aware, we have
no real evidence as to the _modus operandi_ employed by the jaguar on
these occasions, nor do I know anyone who has come nearer to witnessing
such a scene than Mr. Bates, who, however, was just too late.

Besides alligators, the jaguar, like the common cat, is fond of a meal of
fish, but unlike “the poor cat i’ the adage,” he is not afraid of wetting
his paws to get it. Such, at least, is the story told by both natives and
white men in South America, according to which he will climb out on the
branch of a tree but just overhanging the waters of some forest river,
and lie crouched there, with his paw suspended in air, till a fish swims
by near the surface, when he dexterously jerks it up and catches it in
his mouth. In Darwin’s _Journal of Researches_ a picture is given of a
jaguar thus employed, and when one sees it, one, of course, thinks that
there will be a good description of it, with, perhaps, an anecdote or
two. But the same disappointment is in store for us as in the case of the
jaguar and alligator in Mr. Bates’ book, for the grand picture has hardly
two lines of letterpress; which has vexed me so that I should call it
unfair if I were quite sure Darwin had had nothing to do with it.




CHAPTER XIX

    JAGUARS AND PECCARIES—A FOREST DRAMA—STRENGTH IN
    NUMBERS—RETALIATION.


The little peccary that we have been speaking about is the wild boar of
America—especially of South America—and though it is tiny compared to
the Indian wild boar, and sometimes gets into trouble, as we have seen,
yet it is a fierce and dangerous animal, and, generally, knows how to
take care of itself. Its principal enemy is the jaguar, the largest,
and, perhaps, the most destructive, of the cat tribe, after the lion and
tiger of the Old World; feared by every animal that scours the plains,
or glides through, or sports amongst, the trees of the great forests,
in which it is equally at home with the monkeys; feared, too, by man
himself. Except the puma and the great grizzly bear of the north, all
living things whose size makes them worthy its attention stand in dread
of this ferocious and destructive beast. That is why I have made the
peccary swear by the jaguars, instead of by the gods, as people used to
once, in the days of old; for what would a pig be likely to know about
the gods? No more than the ancient Greeks did. He might swear by the
alligators, though, sometimes, but not so often, as, on the whole, wild
pigs in America suffer more through jaguars than alligators; so they
would think them the strongest, and respect them accordingly.

I have said that the peccaries, though small animals—they are not more
than about three feet long—are both fierce and dangerous. They are
dangerous because they go in herds, and when any animal—such as a puma
or a jaguar—threatens them, they form in a semicircle with all their
heads turned outwards towards their foe, making an unbroken row of
little sharp, curved tusks for him to leap upon, if he is so rash as
to attack them. In that case he would, probably, never come from their
midst again. They would surround him, squealing with rage, and though
several of their number would, no doubt, fall victims to his teeth and
claws, the rest—as many as could get near him—would soon have ripped him
to pieces with their tusks. This need not be wondered at, since in India
one wild boar alone is sometimes a match for the mighty tiger, and the
two have been found lying dead together, the tiger almost disembowelled
with the terrible slashing cuts delivered by the boar, and the latter
with his back or neck broken. True, the Indian wild boar is himself a
mighty beast, standing sometimes four feet high or more at the shoulder,
and with tusks very much longer, even in proportion to his size, than
are those of the peccary. Still, a herd of peccaries is worse than the
largest single boar that ever stood, and all their tusks together are
more effective still.

[Illustration: BESIEGED.

The peccaries drove the large jaguar in terror up into the tree trunk.]

Occasionally, therefore, even the fierce jaguar itself, with all its
sinewy strength and lithe agility—armed, too, with the weapons of its
tribe, the long canine teeth and hooked, retractile claws—falls a victim
to the fury of these fierce little pigs, when banded together in herds.
Quite recently, as I understand, a party of travellers found themselves
present, as spectators, at one of these tragedies of the wilderness, of
which wild nature is so full, but which are so seldom witnessed by man,
even by savage man. In a clearing of the forest they came, suddenly,
upon a huge jaguar, maintaining with difficulty a precarious foothold
on the highest point of a fallen tree-trunk; to which it clung like a
shipwrecked mariner on the mast of a sinking vessel, whilst, all around,
there tossed and raged and bristled the living waves of a tempestuous sea
of peccaries. Though just beyond the reach of his foes, the jaguar was
not so much so, but that individuals of the herd, by leaping into the
air, could sometimes strike their tusks against the tree, so near to his
feet as to oblige, or, at any rate, to cause him to move them; nor did
the fierce beast, though growling horribly, dare to strike at them in
return, for fear of slipping on the smooth wood, from which the bark that
would have offered him a securer footing, had long ago rotted.

As it was, the embarrassed, yet still savage, tyrant of the forest
slipped more than once, and was only enabled by desperate agility to
recover its vantage ground, in time to avoid the fierce leaps of a dozen
or more of the peccaries. The latter sometimes leaped upon the trunk,
and ran along it as far as to a certain branch, which, by dividing the
narrow causeway, presented an obstacle which it was beyond their utmost
efforts to surmount. When they essayed to do so, they invariably fell
amidst their comrades below, and as the attempt was renewed again and
again, there was, for some time, a constant stream of ascending and then
falling pigs, which presented a comic appearance, in strange contrast
to the serious nature of the drama enacting. It would, generally, have
been impossible for any one peccary to return, after reaching the branch
in question, on account of those behind; but this none of them tried to
do, but uniformly endeavoured to pass the branch by a leap round one or
other side of it, in which they as uniformly failed. The branch itself,
being not much more than a stump, ending in a sharp point at the place
of breakage, was of no use to the jaguar, who, isolated on a narrow
yard or so of horizontal fallen timber, cast many a longing glance at
stately trees surrounding him on every side, and not far off, could he
only have leaped clear of the circle of white, gnashing tusks. In this
position matters remained for a considerable time, during the latter
part of which the peccaries stood much more still, as though resolved
to maintain a dogged siege, yet filling the air continually with their
fierce squealing grunts, which mingled in a horrid manner with the no
less savage growlings of the jaguar. The whole, we are assured, made a
never-to-be-forgotten scene, and produced a corresponding effect upon
the interested observers, who for some reason—perhaps because they were
not naturalists—were content, on this occasion, to watch nature without
interfering with her.

At length the end came. The jaguar, who had for some time been stretched
out, clinging to the trunk, made a slip with one hind foot, which for
a moment, with the leg, hung down; and a peccary, leaping up at it,
inflicted a slight gash. This seemed to determine the jaguar, for getting
to its feet on the trunk, with a fierce roar, he took a rapid glance
round the ring, and fronting the part where it seemed thinnest, crouched
and then leaped suddenly out—a tremendous bound; but he did not succeed
in clearing the circle. He fell amongst his enemies, several of whom,
with fierce squeals, leaped up at him, and gashed him whilst yet in the
air. For a moment it seemed as though he would struggle through; the next
he was down, and the herd closed over him like the sea upon a yellow
sandbank. From the mêlée came choked roars, and sometimes agonised as
well as angry squealings, which, no less than the violent heaving motion
above a certain central point, showed that a desperate struggle was still
going on. But the jaguar was never seen again—only the wild tide of
pigs, straining and struggling against each other, each eager to become
a personal agent in the common act of death, the outer ones leaping on
the backs of their companions in their anxiety to get within striking
distance, whilst, ever and anon, one would appear struggling up from
the confused tumbling mass at the centre of action, as though to avoid
suffocation or urged by unbearable pain. These had to run down over the
rest, and so join the outer circle, so closely were they packed; whilst
one that appeared badly wounded was, for some time, tossed about on the
unstable platform of its friends’ bodies, whilst lying struggling on its
side.

At length all was over, though it was long before the jaguar ceased
to struggle, and still longer before the peccaries trotted off. On
repairing, then, to the scene of the occurrence, the fortunate spectators
of it found eleven dead or dying peccaries, lying in an irregular circle
on the ground, and, scattered amidst them, the shredded skin and torn
and mangled carcase of the jaguar, which as an anatomic whole might be
said to have disappeared; with such vindictive ferocity had its small
but savage enemies continued to assault it, long after life had become
extinct. The account, if I remember, goes still farther than this, but,
not having it at hand, I will not risk repeating inaccurately a statement
which might seem to some, very remarkable. One should, however, remember
that our domestic pigs are omnivorous, or nearly so, and it would not be
particularly surprising if they inherited this quality from their savage
ancestry.

This incident of the peccaries and jaguar affords a good illustration of
the familiar adage that union is strength, for individually the boldest
of these fierce little pigs would fall an easy prey to their redoubtable
enemy, as may be gathered from the havoc he was able to make amongst
them, even when surrounded and almost smothered by their numbers. It
may be said, however, that under similar circumstances a tiger could,
probably, account for several of the big wild boars of India, though he
may occasionally be driven off, or even wounded to the death, by one
alone. The pressed mass of bodies, unable through their own numbers to
retreat or guard themselves, must offer fatal facilities to the teeth and
claws of a creature capable of using them with effect, almost up to the
moment of death itself. It is conceivable, therefore, that even a single
full-grown male peccary might, for some time, hold a jaguar at bay, if he
were not taken by him unawares. This, however, the jaguar almost always
contrives to do; and indeed it is essential that he should, and also have
a stronghold to retreat to, since it is but seldom that a peccary is
found alone.

The jaguar’s stronghold is a tree, and his _modus operandi_, when a herd
of peccaries come trotting through the forest, as follows. Stealing
cautiously through the underbrush, he marks the direction in which the
herd are going, and then climbs a tree in their line of march. Crawling
out upon one of the lower boughs, he waits till one passes underneath
it, and then, leaping on its back, dislocates the neck by a rapid wrench
round of it with his paw, and bounds into the tree again, leaving it dead
on the ground. The ill-fated animal’s companions rush up, excited and
irritated, and vengefully surround the tree. The jaguar, however, within
the ample domain of a large forest tree—for such he will have chosen—is
entirely at home, and being, moreover, hardly discernible amidst the
foliage and creepers, has seldom to stand a long siege. The restless
little pigs, tired of inactivity and not having their anger whetted by
the sight, and near proximity, of their enemy, soon go off, leaving
their dead companion where it was slain; upon which the jaguar descends,
and feasts upon it at his leisure. This is the account given by the
inhabitants of Brazil and Central America of the way in which the jaguar
procures a dinner of pork, nor, since it is in itself probable and in
accordance with the habits of the animal, is there any reason to doubt it.

It need not be supposed, however, that the peccary must always pass just
under the chosen bough, so that the jaguar can leap directly down upon
it. This, no doubt, would be the ideal state of things, but it is not
always, or, indeed, often, that things come up to one’s ideal. Failing
this, no doubt, the jaguar would drop to the ground as near the peccary
as he could manage, and develop a closer intimacy afterwards. A rapid
bound or two, and with a growl or murderous roar, the “yellow peril”
would be upon him, nor would his own pigtail avail him aught—caught
unawares, all would soon be over. Still, even under these less favourable
conditions, a wary member of the herd might, sometimes, save itself by
making a dash to its nearest companions, or even, perhaps, in the case
of a stout old boar, by resisting till these had run up. In wild nature
there is continual competition between the attacking species and the
one attacked by it, both attaining, by this means, to the perfection of
aptitude in opposed directions.




CHAPTER XX

    THE GREAT CACHALOT OR SPERM-WHALE—HOW THE BULLS FIGHT—A BATTLE
    OF MONSTERS—GIANTS THAT EAT GIANTS—ENORMOUS CUTTLEFISH—THE
    KRAKEN A REALITY—DISAPPOINTED PROFESSORS.


A slight digression arising out of the subject took me away from the
seals, or rather from the cetaceans, or whale tribe, which come next to
them in that orderly sequence by which land animals pass, gradually,
into water ones. Now, therefore, I will resume the thread. One of the
very largest, and, in the sense of our title-page, most romantic of
these great creatures is the sperm-whale or cachalot. He may grow to
seventy-six feet long, with a girth round the hugest part of him of quite
thirty-eight feet. Or say, rather, that he has been known to grow to that
size. What he may sometimes grow to who can say? Just as there are, or
have been, elephants standing twelve feet from the ground, though, as a
rule, this largest of the pachyderms does not attain to much over ten
feet, so _amongst_ the giants of the deep, there are, no doubt, giants
too, though, owing to their rarity, the chances are against the look-out
man, in the crow’s-nest of a whaling-ship, ever setting eyes on one.
Why should not one imagine so, since with much greater facilities for
observation, and much more variety, probably, in the subject of it,
one might walk about the streets of London all one’s life, without ever
seeing a man seven feet high? Yet there _are_ men seven feet high—yes,
and eight feet or nine feet, or at least there have been—and so, perhaps,
in the vast ocean solitudes that they inhabit, there may, here and there,
be a great bull cachalot of eighty or ninety feet long—perhaps even a
hundred feet.

But take him at his more ordinary figure—fifty to seventy feet or
so—and what a gigantic monster he is! In appearance, from the point
of the nose—where he seems to have been sawn through—to the middle of
the back, he is like an enormous black tree-trunk. From here the body
tapers, or rather slopes steeply, to the tail, where first a shape
is observable—that, namely, with which we are familiar in the tail,
or caudal fin, of almost every fish. Unlike the latter, however, the
tail or “_flukes_” of the cachalot—as well as every other whale—lies
flat-ways in the water, with its two points shooting out at right angles
to the two sides, instead of to the back and belly of the creature. The
difference is like that between the way a plank floats on the water, and
the way in which the keel of a boat cuts through it. It seems curious
that there should be such a difference here between the whale and the
fish tribe, seeing that in each the tail has been gradually developed
to meet the requirements of a similar mode of life. This being so, one
might have supposed that the plan of the tail would have been the same
in each, on the principle that one way—as represented by the whole class
of fishes—must be better than any other. Apparently, however, this
is not the case, since cetaceans, on the whole, swim as well and as
swiftly as fish. The tail in their case, and not the two hinder limbs,
as with seals, has been modified into a fin, and it is curious that in
the beaver, where it has also been modified to a considerable extent, in
this direction the expansion has likewise been lateral and not vertical.
We see the same thing in the case of many crustaceans, and throughout
nature this principle of attaining the same end by a variety of means is
apparent. This should teach us that it is a great mistake to think, as
people often do think, that the particular way in which any animal does a
certain thing is the only, or best way, in which it might conceivably be
done. Even a man—if a clever one—might think of some improvement in the
structure of most animals, in relation to their habits of life. Only he
could not carry out these improvements. Nature alone can do that, and in
her own time and way she is always ready to do so.

With this great tail of his—for it is in proportion to his own size, and
sometimes eighteen feet from point to point—the cachalot, like other
whales, can deliver the most tremendous blows, curving it at first, as
does the crocodile, away from the object of its animosity, and then
causing it to leap back with an impetus in which the natural force of
the recoil is increased a hundredfold by the hearty goodwill which the
creature, whose strength is enormous, puts into it. These dreadful
blows are dealt with great sureness of aim, and, considering the size
of the instrument inflicting them, with wonderful rapidity. Beneath
their flail-like vigour and fury the sea foams and spouts, the air is
rent by a succession of thundering roars, like the sound of artillery,
whilst about the mighty causer of all this vast commotion, the waters
heave mountainous, the white waves break, the spray leaps, hisses, and
flies till, huge and rock-like as the mass is that forms the centre of
the area of disturbance, it is almost lost amidst the turmoil that its
own energies have raised. Such scenes may be witnessed when two bull
sperm-whales contend for the favours of one or more females, for, in
opposition to the general rule prevailing amongst the cetaceans, these
huge creatures are polygamous, each full-grown male collecting together
a harem, with which he roams the deep, and which is of greater or lesser
extent, in proportion either to his prowess as a fighter, or his personal
attractions.

It is not with the tail only, however, that these battles are maintained.
The cachalot belongs to the toothed order of whales, and his lower jaw,
which is extraordinarily thin and slight, in comparison with the upper
one and huge snout above it, is furnished with some fifty thick, curved,
and bluntly pointed fangs, each one of which fits into a corresponding
socket of the upper jaw, which latter, contrary to what one might expect,
is toothless. These teeth, in old males, attain a weight of from two to
four pounds apiece, and being composed entirely of ivory, form handsome
as well as curious objects, upon which sailors are fond of exercising
their skill in carving. They are to be seen, sometimes, upon the cottage
mantelshelves of retired old salts, or on those belonging to the parents
of younger ones, having been brought home to them from one of their
son’s trips. Thus furnished, the jaws of the cachalot are a formidable
weapon, even when used against each other, nor does the absence of teeth
from the upper one seem much to diminish their effectiveness. For some
reason, however, possibly because it is easier, or more effective, to
bring the teeth down than to strike them up, the sperm-whale, before he
makes a bite, is accustomed to turn on his back, as does a shark, and
in this position he has often been known to crush a whaling-boat with,
incidentally, a man or two that was in it, between his jaws. With what
effect, therefore, they can be used against the softer substance of any
denizen of the deep that may have the temerity to attack their owner, may
be imagined.

Singly, unless it be the sea-serpent—for whose existence there is a
large and ever-increasing body of evidence—there is no fish or aquatic
mammal that has the least chance with him, but as a sword-fish and two
killers were observed, on one occasion, to unite their efforts for his
destruction, it is possible that the principle of combination may be
sometimes more largely, and, perhaps, successfully employed. On the
occasion in question it was certainly not successful. The sword-fish
struck first, aiming for the heart, but, with a quick movement, the whale
interposed his head, striking the weapon sideways, and then, rolling over
and sinking himself beneath the aggressor, ere the latter had recovered
from the shock of the impact, gaped upwards with distended jaws, which,
closing like a scissors, on either side of the long, thin body, cut it
completely in half. Meanwhile the two killers had dashed in on either
flank, but sweeping suddenly, amidst cataracts of foam, his enormous
tail into the air, the mighty cachalot delivered with it a blow that
stretched one of them dead on the sea, and then turning like a mountain
in the water, pursued the other, now flying for its life. Here against
three lesser giants—the sword-fish alone was some sixteen feet long—the
issue of the combat was soon decided, but how many mighty strokes must be
delivered, how often, yet unavailingly, must the vast jaws open and the
huge teeth tear and rend, before one of two well-matched cachalots has
defeated the other. Not infrequently, the under jaw of sperm whales that
have been harpooned is found wrenched and twisted out of the straight
line—sometimes to a remarkable degree. Such injuries can only have been
received in fighting, and they are a proof of the fury with which such
combats are waged.

Himself a monster, the cachalot feeds on other monsters of the deep, as
huge, almost, and still more monstrous-looking than himself. It has long
been known that some parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans are inhabited
by cuttlefish of a size sufficient to make them at least an annoyance,
if not an absolute danger, to man. Captain Cook, in his first voyage,
fell in with the floating body of one of these creatures, which, judging
from the parts that were brought home and placed in the Hunterian Museum
in London, must have attained a length of at least six feet, measuring
along the body to the tips of the tentacles. Another, a larger one, was
sighted by the French voyager Peron off the coast of Tasmania. This is
described as rolling over and over in the water, but whether alive or
not, is not distinctly stated. It was, however, taken on board, and, on
measurement, the arms, or tentacles, alone, were found to be seven feet
in length. They were eight in number—the usual complement of the group to
which this species belongs, and which is thence called _octopus_—and had
the appearance of so many writhing and hideous-looking snakes.

Here, then, were ascertained facts, and if Nature could have been held
back by the discreditings and head-shakings of learned professors, who
piqued themselves on sobriety of judgment, these ample measurements
would have remained the limit of her capacity, as far as cuttlefish were
concerned. Here, indeed, in a parrot-beaked, sack-bodied cephalopod,
with eight waving tentacles, seven feet long and as many inches in
circumference at the base, we had a being—it might even be called a
monster—quite capable of seizing, drowning, and even of afterwards
devouring the most expert and stalwart of the Polynesian pearl-divers.
What more was wanted? Why would people keep on talking about and even
seeing cuttlefish of much greater size, by which discoveries professors
themselves ran the risk of having, ultimately, to give their sanction
to, or even to make, statements which, in spite of all their names and
titles could do to make them look sober, would still smack a little of
imaginative wildness? However, the thing continued—as, indeed, it had
begun long before. Pliny—or was it Aristotle—had started it, by talking
of tentacles thirty feet long, and thick in proportion; but Pliny,
though a sort of professor himself, had lived so long ago that he need
not be treated like one. Later, in the Middle Ages, came rumours of
cuttlefishes that flung their vast sucker-armed feelers aloft amidst
the rigging of ships, and overwhelmed them in the waves. But this,
too, was pre-scientific, and though the accounts of the great kraken
of the Norwegian seas belonged to the age in which scientific voyages
had been made, and cuttlefish actually measured, yet these were so
obviously fabulous that no sober-minded scientist, with a reputation for
incredulity to maintain, need trouble himself about them.

It was in 1750 that Pontoppidan, a Danish writer, and for the last
seventeen years of his life Bishop of Bergen, in Norway, first gave
to the world his account of the kraken and sea-serpent, and it must
be admitted that what he says of both of them—but especially of the
former—is sufficient to justify many a head-shake, on the part of
grave people. The kraken, according to the bishop, has a back which,
when it rises from the sea-bottom, provides anyone who may be in the
neighbourhood, with a comfortable island of about a mile and a half
in circumference. For an island, accordingly, it is often, and very
naturally, mistaken. It may be landed upon and walked over with ease
and comfort, but has the disadvantage of sinking slowly and leaving
one in the water, if anything of a disagreeable nature, such as the
lighting of a fire or the digging of a hole, is instituted upon it. Upon
provocation, moreover, or when the creature is hungry, a forest of vast,
snake-like trees, being its enormous tentacles, rise from and wave over
the supposed island, seizing and overwhelming any vessel that may be
within their reach. As it sinks, too, a violent whirlpool is caused,
owing to the displacement of the water consequent on the disappearance
of so huge a body—in which whirlpool ships are sucked down. The waters,
for miles about it, are discoloured with a turbid fluid—the well-known
inky discharge of the cuttlefish—and shoals of fishes, that have been
attracted by the monster’s musky smell, and have lost their way in the
darkness, are received into its vasty maw.

Such was the kraken, and with such an example before one it is no
wonder that the learned world continued to fight stubbornly against the
admission of tentacles more than seven or eight feet long, and eight
inches round at the base. However, they still went on growing, and have
become, at last, more authentic, so that there is now little doubt
that the cuttlefish, on which the great cachalot habitually feeds, are
sometimes of a size sufficient to bear comparison with his own enormous
bulk. That they ever equal it—at least in weight—I should certainly
hesitate to affirm, but that there are mighty cephalopods, whose eight
or ten arms are capable of clasping the huge barrel of a sperm-whale’s
body, and must, therefore, be some thirty feet in length, appears to be
settled by ocular demonstration. Mr. Bullen, to whose interesting work,
_The Cruise of the Cachalot_, I am indebted for most of this chapter,
was once looking over his ship’s side at midnight, when there arose in
the midst of that broad and shining pathway which the full moon of the
tropics flings down upon the sea, a very large cachalot struggling with
and, as it soon appeared, devouring a squid, or cuttlefish, which Mr.
Bullen distinctly says was almost as large as itself. The great arms of
this eerie-looking creature were writhed about the whale’s vast head,
almost, if not quite, the hugest part of him, and certainly so, when,
as was constantly here the case, the jaws were distended. As for the
head of the cuttlefish, Mr. Bullen, after a very careful examination of
it through the night-glasses—and it must be remembered that there was
the whale’s head beside it, to compare it with—came to the conclusion
that it was, at least, as large as one of the ship’s pipes, holding 850
gallons, but probably a good deal larger. The eyes alone he estimated as
at least a foot in diameter. Huge as was this cuttlefish, it had not the
smallest chance in its struggle with the cachalot. True struggle, indeed,
as between the two, there was none, for the whale was simply eating the
cuttlefish, nor did he experience any difficulty in doing so.

Taking the softness of the cephalopoda into consideration, and comparing
it with the hard, solid, block-like body of the whale, it is not easy
to imagine that there would ever be a different result to a rencontre
between the two. Still, this may be possible. By the mere doctrine of
chances, it is very unlikely that the largest specimen of a creature but
very seldom seen should represent the greatest size to which it ever
attains. Eight great tentacles of, let us say, thirty feet long are,
as we have seen, incapable of holding a large bull cachalot powerless
in their embrace. But to what length may not those tentacles grow, and
would a length of fifty, seventy, or eighty feet be sufficient to do
so? Sixteen mighty cables—for arms like these would wind at least twice
about their enemy—would make a net from which even the hugest whale might
find it difficult to free himself, and even he might at last yield to
that paralysing effect which the suckers of the cuttlefish are supposed
to have upon their prey. Then, again, there are female cachalots as well
as males, and these are but half the size of the latter. Upon them or the
young, are the wrongs of the giant octopus ever avenged?

I have speculated, in face of the incident here alluded to, upon the
possibility of a cuttlefish’s tentacles sometimes reaching thirty feet
in length, but there seems to be better evidence—that of actual contact
and measurement—of their sometimes being longer still. Whilst in the
death agony the cachalot belches out the contents of his vast stomach,
which consist, for the most part, of huge-sized fragments of such great
cuttlefishes, which have been bitten off and swallowed whole. Mr. Bullen
fished up and examined one of these fragments, which he found to be a
piece of an arm about five feet square, having on it six or seven round
sucking discs, of the size of saucers, armed on their outer circumference
with large sharp hooks resembling a tiger’s claw. On a subsequent
occasion, still larger fragments were observed, their size being taken
to equal that of the ship’s hatch-house, which was eight feet long, with
a breadth and height of six feet. What must have been the length of the
entire tentacle, of which such blocks as these were the component parts?
Since one of seven feet long measured only seven or eight inches round
the base, the calculation is not difficult to make, but I will leave the
making of it to someone else. If we suppose, however, that these gobbets
represented portions of the expanded ends, only, of two greatly elongated
tentacles, which the various species of decapods possess, over and above
the other eight, this would make their entire length immense: since such
expanded part bears but a small proportion to the tentacle as a whole,
and is not much more than twice its narrower circumference.

Look at it in what way we will, the creature that was bitten into such
fragments as these, must have been of proportions so vast that the Bishop
Pontoppidan himself can hardly have erred more in overstatement, than
our grudging scientists have, in under-estimation. Seven feet for an arm
or a tentacle! That was enough—we were to be satisfied with that. But
no, neither we nor the cachalots are going to be satisfied with short
commons. Though professors be virtuous there shall still be cakes and ale
in the world. We shall have our monsters—our krakens and sea-serpents—let
them bite their thumbs at them as they will. The Prince of Monte Carlo,
too, not many years ago, found one for himself, and his naturalist called
it _Lepidotenthis Grimaldii_. With a Latin name and a naturalist, there
can surely be no more objection.




CHAPTER XXI

    WHALES AND THEIR ENEMIES—THE THRESHER AND THE SWORD-FISH—SPORT
    AMONGST ANIMALS—THE SWORD-FISH AND ITS WAYS—CANNIBALISM IN
    NATURE—THE SHARK AND THE PILOT-FISH.


The sword-fish and killer, whose acquaintance we made in the last
chapter, are two of the principal enemies of the larger whales;
especially of those that are provided with baleen, or whalebone, instead
of teeth, since they are more defenceless than the toothed whales, as
represented by the redoubtable cachalot. Another of these enemies is the
well-known thresher-fish, a species of shark which grows to a length of
some fifteen feet, more than half of which is taken up by the tail, or
rather by the upper lobe of the caudal fin, which is extraordinarily
developed. In proportion to the bulk of the shark, it is thin and
flexible, but the integument which forms its outer covering is so tough,
and its edges so sharp, that wielded, as it is, with enormous power,
it can cut almost like a razor. Armed with this formidable weapon, the
thresher, as soon as it sees a whale rise, swims towards it, and leaping
several yards into the air, delivers, with it, as it comes down, a
terrible blow across the giant’s back. So great is the force exerted that
the silence of the ocean is suddenly broken by a report like that of a
musket, whilst the waters are instantly stained with the blood of the
whale. The latter, roused to fury with the pain, endeavours to retaliate
by striking with its own tail, in the manner of the cachalot, but, though
a single blow of it would be fatal, the agility of the shark is such,
and his size, in proportion to his gigantic adversary, so small, that he
avoids this contingency, and continues to leap and to ply his instrument
of flagellation almost unceasingly.

No single thresher, indeed, could do more than discommode a whale, but
these attacks are usually delivered by two or more in company, whilst
often threshers and sword-fish pursue their game, together, in packs. In
this case, whilst a constant volley of blows falls on the whale’s devoted
back, the sword-fish dive beneath his belly and stab upwards with their
much more formidable sword or lance. As against the thresher, the whale’s
best resource is to dive, but this brings no relief from the attacks
of the other, and on his rising to breathe again, the flagellation is
renewed. It is no wonder that, weakened with loss of blood, and covered
with deep stabs, some of which, perhaps, may be mortal, the whale has at
last to succumb. Possibly from amongst the pack of his enemies, he may
have succeeded in killing some, but this hardly helps him—the wounds and
stabs continue, and his blood flows more and more.

Such is the story which repeated observations, on the part of those best
qualified for making them, have made familiar; nor is there anything
which should cause us to doubt the truth of it, except the interesting
nature and picturesque character of the facts narrated—a very broken
reed for the sceptical naturalist to lean on. He, of course, denies it,
and is not at all impressed by such accounts of eye-witnesses as, for
instance, the following. “One morning,” says Captain Arn, “during a calm
when near the Hebrides, all hands were called up at two a.m. to witness
a battle between several of the fish called threshers or fox-sharks and
some sword-fish, on one side, and an enormous whale on the other. It was
in the middle of the summer; and the weather being clear and the fish
close to the vessel, we had a fine opportunity of witnessing the contest.
As soon as the whale’s back appeared above the water, the threshers,
springing several yards into the air, descended with great violence upon
the object of their rancour, and inflicted upon him the most severe slaps
with their long tails, the sounds of which resembled the reports of
muskets fired at a distance. The sword-fish, in their turn, attacked the
distressed whale, stabbing from below; and thus beset on all sides, and
wounded, when the poor creature appeared the water around him was dyed
with blood. In this manner they continued tormenting and wounding him for
many hours, until we lost sight of him; and I have no doubt they, in the
end, completed his destruction. The master of a fishing-boat has recently
observed that the thresher-shark serves out the whales, the sea sometimes
being all blood. One whale attacked by these fish once took refuge under
his vessel, where it lay an hour and a half without moving a fin. He also
remarked having seen the threshers jump out of the water as high as the
masthead and down upon the whale, while the sword-fish was wounding him
from beneath, the two sorts of fish evidently acting in concert.” As the
fish are here stated to have been close to the vessel, it is difficult to
see how a mistake could have arisen. Various professors, however, deny
the truth, and even the possibility of these things; but the reckless
negations of mere scientists should always be received with extreme
caution, when opposed to the direct personal evidence of British seamen,
as accustomed to scan as to sail the ocean, and in the constant, daily
habit of keeping their weather-eye open.

As before remarked, the thresher is a species of shark, nor can he be
said to be a very large one, since without the tail he would only be
some six or seven feet long, and that part of him, efficient though it
is, is so thin and supple that it adds but little to his bulk. Certainly
one would not expect such a creature to make whales his habitual prey:
nor is this the case, though common observation makes it certain that he
does very often attack them. Usually, however, he feeds upon mackerels,
herrings, and other fish that swim in shoals. These, if scattered, he
drives together by threshing the water with his tail, going round and
about them as does a sheep-dog with its flock, though with a purpose much
less humane. Then, when the sea is thick with a wedged and struggling
mass, he kills quantities at a time by a rain of flail-like blows.

The thresher—or fox-shark, as it is also called—and the sword-fish make,
together, a strange pair of creatures, the one being extraordinarily
elongated at the tail, and the other at the nose. It is curious to
find these two great fishes, developed thus in opposite directions,
if not upon opposite principles, combining against a common object of
attack, each helping the other with a weapon very different from its own.
Of the two, that of the sword-fish is certainly the more deadly when
used against a creature of any size, and since the thresher itself is
doubtless good eating, one almost wonders that it does not occur to its
powerful ally to kill it, rather than the whale. This it could probably
do with impunity, for one thrust would be sufficient, and by striking
from beneath, as it does with the whale, it would stand in no danger
of the thresher’s blows. Moreover, it is one of the swiftest swimmers
of ocean, as might be gathered both from its powerful tail and the
general lines of its body, which is elongated, even if we do not take
the lance-like snout or upper jaw into consideration. The sword-fish,
however, seems to possess a natural instinct for combination, since, on
another occasion, we have seen it leagued with two killers or grampuses,
in an unsuccessful attack on a sperm-whale. Possibly, therefore, it makes
the pursuit of these huge creatures—more particularly of the whalebone
whales, which are less dangerous—a speciality, being, no doubt, induced
to it by the prospect of a rich and enduring banquet, and possibly also
by the mere love of sport.

It is quite a mistake to imagine that animals do not enjoy killing, as
we—that is to say, as some of us—do. On the contrary, every creature
experiences a natural pleasure in doing that which it excels in doing,
and when this excellence consists in any form of destruction, we have
the very type of the sportsman amongst ourselves. Thus many predaceous
animals will always kill more than they can devour, if the opportunity
for their doing so should occur. The stock instance given is the tiger,
but under the requisite conditions it would probably be the same with
all the Felidæ. They evidently find a pleasure in killing their prey,
independent of that which follows when they feast upon its carcass. The
same story is told by all those whose hen-house has suffered through the
depredations of foxes; in fact, numberless instances are to be found of
this love of killing, for its own sake, in animals formed to kill, but
so scattered about in all sorts of books that it would take a long while
to collect a good list of them. Now, the sword-fish is so swift and so
deadly, and the sea is so full of creatures which it could, without any
difficulty, despatch, that I cannot help thinking it is more the pleasure
of repeatedly stabbing the huge whale, and seeing the blood rush out,
which induces it to attack it, than the anticipations of a feast. It is
just the same with the thresher, and I have, myself, very little doubt
that these two go whale-hunting, just as people go elephant-shooting, and
find the same sort of excitement in it. What is curious is that men who
are accustomed to harpoon whales, and never have the smallest sympathy
with them whilst doing so, become quite pitiful when they see them being
killed in this way, and they never seem to think themselves at all like
the sword-fish and threshers. The whale, no doubt, classes them all
together, but it may think the harpooners the worst of the band.

The sword, as it is called, of the sword-fish—though it is more like a
long lance—is formed by the prolongation of the bones of the upper jaw.
It is wedge-shaped, sharp at the end, and sometimes more than half the
whole length of the rest of the creature’s body—a most formidable weapon,
which its owner can drive through the body of a porpoise or shark, or
into the side of a whale, as easily as a lady can stick a knitting-needle
into a ball of worsted. This may seem like an exaggeration, but it cannot
be a very great one, since a sword-fish has been known to run its sword
right through the timbers of a ship, though sheathed with copper, so as
to pierce an oil-cask lying, with others, in the hold. Of course, under
such circumstances, it was unable to withdraw the weapon, which was
broken off, and remained so tightly wedged in the hole it had made, that
neither did any water enter the ship, nor a drop of oil escape from the
oil-cask. In the museum at South Kensington, portions of the hulls of
ships, or of other hard substances, thus pierced, and with the broken
sword lying either in or beside them, are exhibited. Probably, in these
cases, the ship has been mistaken for a whale by the sword-fish, and
such incidents may be looked upon as evidence both of his being able,
as a rule, to distinguish the one from the other, and of his habit of
attacking the whale in this way; for ships are so numerous that were it
by chance merely that such things happened, they would probably happen
more often.

I do not know if there is any record of men having been attacked by
sword-fish, but in natural history books bathers are generally warned
against them, and it is difficult to imagine a more terrific creature
coming to attack one in the water. A man may kill a shark even under
these circumstances, and there are even negroes who are said to be expert
in doing so. As the shark turns upon his back they dive underneath him,
and then, as he turns over again, they stab him with a long knife in the
belly, ripping him up. But then the shark is slow, and he has to pause
and turn over before he strikes, which gives a man who is expert and
keeps his presence of mind, a chance to strike at him first. The shark
comes near the man—near him with its whole body, that is to say—but the
sword-fish would not. His sword projects three feet in front of him, and
so he would be three feet away, so to speak, when he first pricked the
man with it. Only after he had been run right through would the man get
to proper striking distance, and then it would be too late. Nor would
there be any avoiding that sword-thrust—the sword-fish is so very swift,
and comes with such a tremendous rush.

The sword-fish may attain a length of from twelve to sixteen feet,
and is then a most formidable monster, to be feared by almost every
inhabitant of the ocean, from the whale downwards. But a still more
terrible, because a more cruel monster, is the saw-fish, a creature
that grows to an even larger size, and carries, as his name implies, a
saw, instead of a sword, in front of him. This terrific implement may
be as much as two yards in length—just double the length of the other.
It is flat and broad, narrowing slowly towards the point; and all the
way down, upon each side, it is set with sharp quadrangular teeth,
each one being firmly fixed in a socket. The creature’s real teeth are
small and weak, so that it is difficult for him to eat hard, firm flesh.
He prefers intestines, which are softer, and by means of his saw he is
able to procure them. This he does by sinking beneath some unfortunate
porpoise or dolphin—perhaps even a shark or a whale—and striking violent
lateral blows at its belly; not spearing it with the keen, clean thrust
of the sword-fish, but ripping it from side to side. In this way it tears
out the entrails of its victim, and then greedily devours them as they
float in the water. A more horrible thing can hardly be imagined. There
is only this to be said, that the creatures thus cruelly used are as
cruel themselves in pursuing and devouring their own prey—or, at least,
they are as cruel as they can be. Whether that is a very consolatory
reflection I really don’t know, but I can think of no better one. In the
sea, even more than upon land, every creature lives by killing and eating
other creatures. There are no gentle scenes, or, at least, not many; it
is all a carnage. The most peaceable and innocent creatures—the ones that
we can think about with most pleasure—are the great toothless whales,
for these, though so gigantic, have a gullet too small for a fish of any
size to pass down it, and live, for the most part, on infusoria, which
are creatures so minute, and so low in the scale of life, that they may
almost be looked upon as belonging to the vegetable kingdom.

The whales, indeed, with their great jaws, in which, in a leisurely
way, they enclose hosts of creatures so widely distributed, yet at
the same time so minute, that they make, as it were, a part of the
water, in which they are often only distinguishable by the colour their
numbers impart to it, may be said to browse the sea, as oxen and horses
browse the fields. Yet these poor, peaceful giants are persecuted, as
we have seen, by packs of ravenous creatures against whom their very
size makes them almost defenceless. As for the toothed whales, some
of them—as, for instance, the killer or grampus—are amongst the most
voracious of the dwellers of the sea, so that, from the great cachalot
down to the smallest fish, mollusc, or crustacean, it may be said that
all marine nature is at fierce, carnivorous war. This war, too, is, for
the most part, cannibalistic in its nature, and this cannibalism is of a
peculiarly horrid description, since most fish devour numbers of their
own offspring, for which, by the laws of nature, they feel no affection,
and which they do not even know.

In these latter practices, indeed, the cetaceans, being mammals and very
tender parents, do not participate; but there is another honourable
exception, and that where we might least of all expect to find it. The
sharks, so justly dreaded for their voracity, to which, as is well known,
man himself not infrequently falls a victim, are solicitous of their
young, with whom, to the number of a dozen or more, the mother swims
about and does her best to provide them with food. The pretty little
flock gambol and frolic about her, and should anything alarm them,
they dart at once into her great mouth, held open to receive them, and
disappear down her throat. There they remain till their mother thinks
the danger is over, when she opens her mouth again, and they re-emerge.
This privilege—and it must sometimes be a valuable one—is also open to
the pretty little pilot-fishes which, to the number sometimes of half a
dozen, accompany the shark in all its wanderings, and which everybody has
read about.

It is generally said in natural history books, that the relations
existing between the shark and the pilot-fish are not quite understood:
but since it must be an inestimable privilege to a little weakly fishlet
that any large fish might snap up, to have a shark for a protector, and
a shark-cavern to go into—not in the way that other creatures go into
it—and since there is nothing which the shark eats that his friend may
not have a share of, if he wants to, I really do not see what more one
need understand, as far, at least, as the pilot-fish is concerned. Then,
too, if—as there seems little doubt is the case—the pilot-fish acts as
a scout for the shark, and brings him to anything eatable that he may
find floating about in the sea, this fully explains the part which the
shark plays in this little amicable arrangement. He protects his little
guide and purveyor, not only by his presence but also by offering him
an asylum, and the habit of seeking such an asylum has, no doubt, been
acquired by the pilot-fish through his seeing the young sharks do so. He
has lived in the nursery with them, and they have taught him the trick.
Of course, as the pilot-fish shares in anything the shark gets, his wish
to guide the latter to whatever he may be the first to find, as well
as the trouble he takes to find it, is easily explained. It is not an
unselfish act, but one in his own interests, and thus all the requisites
of an association of this sort, between two different species of animals,
are fulfilled.[13]

When a shark is caught at sea, the poor little pilot-fish, as he is
hauled up on deck, will leap up after him out of the water, in a vain
endeavour to follow his life’s companion. It is no use; he falls back
again, the blue and golden bands with which his bright little body is
decorated glittering in the sun—for there generally is a sun in the
regions where these things take place. This certainly looks as though
the pilot-fish were genuinely attached to the shark. It seems like the
act of a faithful little friend, but it need imply no more than does his
habitual following and keeping company with the shark in the sea. To
be with the great fish has become an instinct with the little one, and
so when the latter sees his convoy going somewhere where he has never
gone before, he endeavours to go with him. Still, that a really friendly
feeling may, through long association, have arisen between the two
companions, though differing so from one another in size and appearance,
does not seem impossible, or even unlikely. Of course, in considering a
question of this sort, we should first get clear ideas of what friendship
really is—the essential elements of which it consists. To do this is
not, perhaps, so easy a matter as it may seem. At any rate, it is too
difficult to be attempted in a work like this.

I make all these statements in regard to the relations existing between
the shark and the pilot-fish, and between the mother shark and her young,
upon the authority of Mr. Bullen, author of two interesting works,
_The Cruise of the Cachalot_ and _Idylls of the Sea_. In regard to the
reception by the shark into her stomach—or, at least, down her throat—of
both her young and the pilot-fish, this certainly does seem surprising,
but as Mr. Bullen was, on various occasions, present when a shark was
cut open and her family and retainers found inside her, the fact seems
established. He writes, too—so I gather—as an eye-witness of the habit
_au naturel_. I do not know, therefore, why there should be no reference
to it in works that are supposed to instruct, except that, as a rule,
the scientific naturalist has but two lines of conduct in regard to the
more picturesque doings of any animal. First, he denies what is not in
accordance with his ideas and non-experience, and then he refuses to say
anything about such things—cuts them, as it were, even after they have
been properly introduced to him, and their respectability vouched for.
If he had a third line he might, in time, frankly describe them, but
generally he has only those two.




CHAPTER XXII

    THE SHARK’S ATTACHÉ—QUEER WAYS OF FISHING—HINTS FOR NAVAL
    WARFARE—FISH THAT _DO_ FLY.


The little pilot-fish is not the only friend that the shark has. The
remora, or sucking-fish, as we shall soon see, is still more attached
to him. This is one of the queerest fish in the whole ocean. Others may
have a more extraordinary, or, at any rate, a more terrifying appearance,
but not one of them is constructed on such an original principle, or has
such a very quaint and ingenious process of getting through the world.
What the process is may be guessed from the name of sucking-fish, but the
remora does not suck with its mouth, but with its head. The whole upper
surface of this consists of “a large, flat, plate-like adhesive disc,”
and whatever this disc touches it adheres to with the greatest tenacity.
The reason is that the air between the plate and anything it lies against
is forced out, so that a vacuum is created, and when once this is the
case, two things that touch each other always stick together. It is by
virtue of this principle that a fly is able to walk along the ceiling,
for all its six feet end in so many little adhesive discs or suckers,
which act as strongly, in proportion to their size, as does that of the
remora. But the remora, when it uses its sucker, does not walk, or even
swim, which is the equivalent of walking in a fish; all that is done for
it by the shark or turtle, to which it attaches itself. It just swims
underneath it, and presses itself against its under side, and there it is
carried along as safely as if it were riding in its own carriage—indeed,
much more so, for there is less likely to be an accident, and if ever
there is, the remora can drop off without being hurt, as people generally
are when they jump out of a carriage.

It is difficult to imagine a more secure and delightful way of going
about, and of all sea-fish, the remora, as it seems to me, must have the
easiest and safest time. To all but him the fierce and greedy monsters of
the deep—the sword-fish and saw-fish, the threshers, the sharks, and the
killers—are a terror and a menace. But what can any of them do against
a little sucking thing that sticks tight against them, in a place they
cannot possibly get at. The remora, if it liked, could fix itself to the
very sword or saw itself of these two redoubtable warriors. It would
not, probably, because when either were in action, it would have to come
off; but just behind one or the other—on the hilt or the handle—it could
manage quite comfortably. It would then be just in front of their owners’
mouth, but yet quite unreachable, so that, supposing it to be a dainty,
this would make a very good illustration of Tantalus. With the saw-fish,
at any rate, such a situation would be quite possible, since there is a
considerable space between the mouth and the beginning of the saw, and
if there would not be room enough for it there with the sword-fish, the
under part of the lower lip, or jaw, would do just as well.

It is as the friend—or _attaché_—of the shark, however, that the remora
is best known, and it is just in this position, or approaching to
it, that he is said to fix himself—on the front or head part of the
shark’s body, rather than behind, or on the tail. Now, of course, when
the shark is eating anything—when he is tearing at a dead whale, for
instance—fragments of the feast will float about in the water, and the
nearer the remora is to the mouth of the shark, the nearer these are
likely to come to it. This is the reason generally given for his choosing
the position on the shark which he is said to do, or for his swimming
at the shark’s mouth, when he chooses to swim with, rather than cling
to him. However, as the remora is free to leave the shark whenever he
chooses, and as the latter swallows his food whole, I cannot quite see
what advantage he gains by being always in this advanced position. It is
not as if he could not leave the shark, for then it might be a matter of
life and death to him to be there. But as he must always know when the
shark gets anything, and cannot well nibble the piece that goes down his
patron’s throat, as far as I can see he might as well sit lower down, as
at the head of the table.

For myself, therefore, I doubt the reason given for his choosing the
latter position, and I should doubt the fact of his doing so, if there
were not some evidence for it. For the remora often attaches itself to
the hull of a ship, and it is natural to suppose that, in such cases, it
mistakes the ship for a large shark, or a whale. Now when it does so,
it either sticks to, or swims near, the fore part of the vessel, but not
behind, or astern. Thus, Professor Moseley describes it as “swimming for
weeks, near the water-surface, just a foot in front of the cut-water,”
and he remarks on this that “if it swam just behind the stern, it
would get plenty of food, whereas in front of the bow it gets nothing
whatever.” “Nevertheless,” continues the professor, “it stays on at what,
in a shark, is, of course, the right place, ready to be at the beast’s
mouth directly food is found.” This, therefore, seems to establish the
fact. As to the reason of it, it has just occurred to me that when a
shark bites a piece out of the living body of any creature, there must
be a great rush of blood, and the remora would get the best benefit of
this, if it was just by the shark’s mouth, at the time. Or, again, the
little fish may feel more secure there than elsewhere. A shark is a large
thing—twenty, thirty, or forty feet long sometimes—and many voracious
fish that might prefer to keep away from its head, might be bold enough,
perhaps, to approach its tail or the after part of its body. The remora,
apparently, is not in the habit of going inside the shark’s mouth, as
does the pilot-fish—so it may think the next safest thing to that is to
keep as near it as it can, on the outside.

The wonderful power of adhesion, possessed by the remora, has been put to
practical use by the Chinese, who actually employ it to catch turtles.
A thin but very strong line is attached to a little iron ring, which is
fitted round the base of the remora’s tail, which, as it becomes very
narrow just there, and then swells broadly out to form the caudal fin,
seems as if it were made for the purpose. Thus armed, the fishermen
row or sail about till they see a turtle lying asleep on the water,
and having come as close up to it as they dare, they drop several of
these queer fishing-lines over the side of the boat—or sampan, as it is
called. Should the remoras attach themselves to the sides or keel, they
are dislodged with long bamboos, to which the lines serve as a guide,
and then, swimming round about, before long they generally discover the
turtle, to which they at once become fastened. If there were only one of
them it might not be possible to draw in so large and heavy a creature as
a turtle—at least, a large one—but with several it is not difficult to do
so. The remoras are then detached, and can be used in this manner again
and again, as well as to catch a fish or two, should it be so desired.
Afterwards, when they have done their day’s work, they can be eaten
themselves, for that is the way of the world, not of the Chinese only, as
some people seem to think. The Chinese, it may be remembered, fish also
with cormorants, round whose throats they weld a ring, to prevent their
swallowing the fish. Two more novel and ingenious methods of following
the gentle craft were surely never devised, but the more ingenious of
the two, perhaps—that which I have just described—seems to have been
practised by the Indians of America, when the Spaniards, in an evil hour,
first landed on that continent. Columbus himself—or if not he, one of his
companions—has described the method, and how, when the remora is thrown
overboard, it shoots “like an arrow out of a Bowe towards the other
fish, and then, gathering the bag on his head like a purse-net, holds
it so fast that he lets not loose till hal’d up out of the water.”[14]
The Indians, however, seem to have used but one remora at a time, as
apparently they do now, and if it fixes itself to a turtle, instead of
hauling it in, they dive down, following the line, and swim with it to
the boat.

[Illustration: THREE _VERSUS_ ONE

A sword-fish and two killers attacked the mighty cachalot in vain. He
first bit the sword-fish in two, then stretched one killer dead upon the
sea with a blow from his tail, and the other fled for his life.]

We do not read that the old Greeks or Romans ever used the remora of the
Mediterranean—for there are several species—to fish with in this way. If
they had, they would probably have expected it to pull in anything—even
a whale—for their idea was that this little fish, by affixing itself to
a ship, could retard its progress through the water, or even stop it
if it wished to. Thus it was believed that at the battle of Actium a
remora held back Antony’s ship, and thus contributed to his defeat. It
seems strange that no one should have thought of turning such powers to
practical account, not for fishing purposes merely, but also in naval
warfare. Even now, were the story true, much might be done in this way.
Instead of torpedoes discharged at the enemy’s ships, we might read,
then, of remoras having been successfully affixed to them.

There are several different kinds of sucking fishes, and some of
them—like the common lump-sucker which frequents our coasts—have the
adhesive disc, or part, situated on the under surface. Of the true
remoras there are also several species, the smallest being about eight
inches long, whilst the largest attains to three feet or more.

If the remoras, by virtue of their parasitic relations with powerful and
dangerous species, are the most protected of all fishes, we may, perhaps,
look upon the flying-fish of the southern seas as the most persecuted. At
any rate, it is popularly supposed to be, and equally when it leaps out
of the water, or, after a long, skimming flight, descends into it again,
the bonito—a sort of large mackerel, its principal enemy—is understood to
be hungering for it. For myself, upon general principles, I am inclined
to doubt this. Animals, it is well known, enjoy doing what they do with
ease and mastery. If they have an art, they like to practise it—they do
not seek to hide their light under a bushel. Why, then, should not a fish
that can fly, fly, sometimes, for its own amusement? That it should do
so would be in accordance with all analogy; so, as it is no more than
an assumption to hold that it does not, I shall hold that it does. One
reads, often, about the gaping jaws of a dolphin, or albacore, appearing
above the water, just as the flying-fish is about to descend into it—and
no doubt this may frequently occur. But were the dolphin or albacore or
bonito always expecting it—having pursued it underneath, in the water, as
we are told—I believe the signs of this would be much more frequent. It
would be the usual thing then, I believe, to see the jaws, or the whole
body of the enemy, leap into the air, or at least for there to be some
disturbance in the water, as the excursionist touched it. But this, as a
rule, one does not see—at least, I have not myself.

Again, one reads so much about sea-birds hovering in the air, and ready
to pounce upon the poor fish, as soon as they issue from the waves.
However, though I have made three sea voyages—one in a sailing-ship—I
have never had the luck to see this; from which I gather that there is
at least a good deal of respite from this evil, to which, moreover,
other fishes are subject—for whether in air or water, what matters it?
No doubt, however, but that the _Exocetus volitans_—to give it its Latin
name—is ardently pursued, and eaten, as it deserves to be, with the
greatest relish. That its fins have been developed into wings, for the
express purpose of escaping from such pursuit, is equally probable; and
therefore it would be very strange if they did not often enable it to do
so. A good evidence of their efficacy is, I think, the enormous abundance
of the species possessing them; so that perhaps, on the whole, these
creatures of two elements, on whom so much pity has been bestowed, have a
better, instead of a worse, time than the majority of their fellows.

The most curious thing I know about the flying-fish is that naturalists
will keep on pretending that it can’t fly. However, we must not be led
astray by this, but go by the name and what our gallant seamen tell
us. Also we should remember this, that a sailor, when he sees a fish
flying, or anything curious, is a free man, whereas a naturalist, under
similar circumstances, has his hands more or less tied by a sort of
professional etiquette, which requires that he should not let an animal
be more interesting than he can help, or give in to any picturesque fact,
unless it can be stated in a dull kind of way. The facility with which,
in able hands, this compromise may be effected, has led to many tardy
admissions; but exceptional cases arise, and this, perhaps, may be one
of them. For here is the tropic sea, blue as a sapphire, gleaming like a
diamond, glancing and throbbing with such jewels of light that it looks
as though thousands of silver fishes were jumping in the meshes of a
golden net, flung down by the sun from the sky. All at once, from amidst
these myriads of sparkles a number flash higher, leap into the air, and
fly, like bright arrows, towards you. Onwards they come, and from being
light only, they pass into form and substance, begin to live, to move
with sense and volition, and, all at once, they are fishes, flying with
wings over their home of the sea. They sink towards the water, rise
again, sink, rise, then dip for one moment, and, the next, go glittering
up into the air, and come spinning round in a curve. Thus they gleam on
for a most astonishing distance, till, near you, they disappear into the
sea, or, far away, become again the sparkling jewels of the sun. And
all around, over the great, wide sea, these showers of living gems are
leaping in and out of it. It is a most beautiful sight. The body of the
fish is of a light, gleaming blue, and the delicate film-like wings,
springing from just behind the gills, and extending backwards almost to
the tail, set it, as they rapidly quiver, in a soft and silvery haze.

It is, of course, the pectoral fins that thus perform the office of
wings, and by moving them and steering a course, their owner flies as
truly, for the time, as does either a bird or a bat. Those who deny
this—the naturalists aforesaid—say that the flying-fish never go for a
greater distance, without touching the water, than the initial impetus
of their leap out of it carries them to. Now the swim-bladder of the
flying-fish is so large that when the creature distends it, as it has
the power to do, it occupies almost the whole cavity of the body, which
thus becomes full of air, and, besides this, it has another sort of
bladder in its mouth, which it can inflate through the gills. Thus it
is all air, and everybody knows how difficult it is to throw a light,
bladdery thing to any distance—a stone goes much farther. What sort of
impetus must that be, which can, in this instance, throw it to 500 or
1,000 yards, and is it not more likely that a small fish (it is only
about a foot long), whose fins have become developed so as to support it
in the air, and whose body has been turned into an air-sac, should have
been enabled to fly, rather than leap, these wonderful distances? When I
first saw flying-fish myself, I felt quite angry at the nonsense I had
been made to believe about them, through the natural history books, and
from that moment I resolved that I would be as cautious in trusting to
what are called sober statements, as to statements that may seem to be
exaggerated. Certainly it is the sailors, here, and not the scientists,
who best know what they are talking about, and so, as they have seen a
great deal more of flying-fish than I have, instead of repeating my own
opinion, I will end the subject, and this chapter, with that of one who,
to all the advantages of a sailor, adds those of being a careful observer
and a very picturesque writer. At any rate, I don’t see how he can have
been mistaken in such matters as these, and, if not, there ought to
be an end, at last, of that long-enduring fallacy that the flying-fish
cannot fly.

Mr. Bullen then—and I quote him as an authority—says at page 188 of his
_Idylls of the Sea_: “As the result of personal observation extending
over a good many years, I assert that the Exocetus _does fly_. I
have often seen a flying-fish rise two hundred yards off, describe
a semicircle, and, meeting the ship, rise twenty feet in the air
perpendicularly, at the same time darting off at right angles to its
previous course. Then, after another long flight, when just about to
enter the water, the gaping jaws of a dolphin gave it pause and it rose
again, returning, almost directly, upon its former course. This procedure
is so common that it is a marvel it has not been more widely noticed. A
flying-fish of mature size can fly a thousand yards. It does not flap
its fins as a bird, but they vibrate like the wings of an insect, with a
distinct hum. The only thing which terminates its flight involuntarily is
the drying of its fin-membranes and their consequent stiffening.”




CHAPTER XXIII

    THE SEA-SERPENT—MANY OCCASIONS ON WHICH IT HAS BEEN
    SEEN—CONSCIENTIOUS SCEPTICISM OF SCIENTIFIC MEN—A FIGHT
    BETWEEN MONSTERS—THE LARGEST LAND-SERPENT—SNAKES AND
    SNAKE-STONES—MEDICAL EVIDENCE—A COLONIAL REMEDY.


It used to be thought that the great whales—the cachalot, the rorqual,
and the Greenland whale—were the largest of ocean’s dwellers, but if
evidence is of any value whatever, there is one marine creature that is
larger even than they—indeed, so much larger and more powerful that he is
able to make them his prey, conquering them—even the mighty sperm-whale
himself—by main strength put forth in single combat. This portentous
monster is, of course, the great sea-serpent, which has been seen, at
intervals, probably from time immemorial, and recorded also from, at
least, as far back as 1734. In 1740 we have Bishop Pontoppidan’s word for
its appearance—and we know now that he was right about the kraken—who
describes it as having a length of 600 feet; and in 1822 it was again
seen off Norway, and again it was 600 feet long; so, perhaps, it was the
same one.

Then, in 1829, there is a description of such a creature, seen in the
Indian seas, which tallies, on the whole, with the later joint account
of Captain McQuhæ and Lieutenant Drummond, of H.M.S. _Dædalus_, in
1848. Captain McQuhæ describes the creature that he saw, as an “enormous
serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly
above the surface of the sea,” and “as nearly,” he says, “as we could
approximate, by comparing it with the length of what our maintopsail yard
would show in the water, there was, at the very least, sixty feet of the
animal _à fleur d’eau_, no portion of which was, to our perception, used
in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal
undulations. There seemed to be as much as thirty or forty feet of tail,
as well.” This great serpent, which, however, by this computation,
would not have been so large as the largest whales, “passed the ship
rapidly, but so close under our lee-quarter, that had it been a man of
my acquaintance I should easily have recognised his features with the
naked eye. It had no fins, but there was something like the mane of
a horse, or, rather, a bunch of seaweed, washing about its back.” It
swam at about the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and was in sight for
a full twenty minutes. Lieutenant Drummond thought the creature looked
more like an eel than a snake. It had, he thought, “a back fin ten feet
long, and also a tail fin.” The head, too, he describes, I think, as
of a somewhat different shape, and says that it was “rather raised and
occasionally dipping.” Still, there is nothing in the one account that is
irreconcilable with the other, nor is it often the case that two people,
seeing the same thing, describe it in just the same way. The _Dædalus_ at
the time that this creature was seen, was somewhere between the Cape of
Good Hope and St. Helena.

Twenty-seven years later, in 1875, the officers and crew of the
barque _Pauline_, whilst sailing in the Indian seas, had a still more
interesting experience. They were, one day, watching three large
sperm-whales not far from the ship, when a most enormous serpent,
shooting suddenly out of the water by the side of the largest one,
encircled it in two coils of its body, and in about fifteen minutes,
during which time there was a terrific struggle between the two
leviathans, succeeded in crushing it to death. This, at least, may be
assumed, for one by one the ribs of the unfortunate whale were heard to
crack, with a sound resembling the report of a small cannon, and, at the
end of the time stated, the snake dived downwards, carrying its victim
with it, head first. When one thinks of the enormous strength of a large
bull cachalot, which may be from fifty to eighty feet in length, one can
form some idea of that of the monster by whom it was overpowered, yet
possibly it was not so much the strength of the great serpent as the
application of it, by which the whale was vanquished. Could it have got
any portion of the sinuous body within its vast toothed jaws, or could
it have delivered a blow upon it with its mighty tail, the issue of the
combat might have been different; but enveloped in a double noose, each
foot of which was charged with enormous constricting power, its strength
was choked out of it; and as the serpent’s tail—or that part of it beyond
the folds on one side—no doubt hung down in the water, whilst as much
of the neck as was disengaged on the other would have been equally out
of harm’s way, what could the whale, who was all the time suffocating,
do? Neither with jaws nor tail would any effective reply have been open
to him. He might almost as easily have struck or bitten himself, as the
preposterous enemy that was wreathed so closely about him.

When one comes to think of it, it is most extraordinary what powers are
contained in the limbless body of a snake. The ancestors of snakes had
limbs, as can be proved by dissection, for in some, even now, the minute
bones of rudimentary hind legs lie embedded in the flesh. They are, of
course, perfectly useless, and their presence can only be explained
on evolutionary doctrines. Snakes, then, have lost their limbs, and
the theory is that they have lost them because they gradually came to
require them less and less, not because their body got to be better
adapted for the uses to which limbs are put. And yet to a very large
extent this has actually come to be the case. For instance, one thing
that the two forelegs, or arms, seem specially fitted for, is to clasp
or hug, as we see not only with ourselves, but, to an even greater
extent, with the ant-eater of South America, or—according to popular
belief, at any rate—with the bears. A snake, however, with its long
rope-like body, can hug with infinitely greater power and effect than can
the strongest pair of arms belonging to an animal of the same size—or,
rather, weight. But not only arms, but even hands, may be eclipsed, for
the whipster of America, by coiling two different parts of its body
round the body of another snake, and then suddenly straightening out
the portion between them, which has hitherto been looped, can tear the
individual so attacked into halves. It is doubtful, however, whether a
monkey of comparable size could do the same with hands and arms together.
In both monkeys and men, again, one of the most useful offices of the
hand—perhaps we may call it the chief office—is to convey food to the
mouth, but this a snake can do with a coil of its own body, if not as
well as ourselves, at least a good deal better than can many animals,
whose hands are only paws.

Again, most animals can raise themselves on their hind legs so as to
survey the surrounding country, and they walk with their heads raised
more or less in the air. These privileges snakes are supposed to have
forfeited, yet some of them can stand several feet high, if they wish it,
and they can even get over the ground—and that at considerable speed—with
the head and front part of the body held thus high in the air. When a
creature loses certain highly developed organs, which it once possessed,
it is said to have degenerated—to have become a more lowly organised
being—and the theory is that as its wants were lowly, it has gained by
the change, for a complicated structure is only an encumbrance when it is
not required. What good, for instance, would arms and legs be to a man,
if he only cared for crawling through mud? He had much better lose them,
and become like a worm. But if snakes have lost their limbs in accordance
with these principles, on what principle is it that they can do as much
or more without them, as other animals can with? For my part, I can’t
help thinking that their wants, instead of diminishing, increased, and
that, as their limbs didn’t improve, they used their bodies, and found
they did better with them.

The different people who had seen the sea-serpent on board the _Pauline_
went before a magistrate, and made a statement to that effect, which
was taken down in writing. I have read it, and it agrees with all I
have said, except that there is nothing in it about the cracking of the
whale’s ribs. As, however, this is mentioned as having occurred, both in
Chambers’s _Encyclopædia_ and elsewhere, I suppose it really did—that is
to say, that the men who witnessed the combat, heard the loud noise like
a cannon-shot as each rib broke, and talked about it afterwards, though
they did not mention it before the magistrate. The sea-serpent, as well
as other huge monsters of a less snake-like appearance, continued to be
seen at tolerably frequent intervals after this, and the last time, I
think, was only a year or two ago. Again it was a serpent, and off the
coast of Norway, and it came so near, that the ship, which was not a
large one, seemed endangered, and someone who was on it fired a shot, on
which the monster sank.

From all this evidence it would appear that there are various unknown
creatures of vast size inhabiting the sea, which are but rarely seen, and
that one of these is a gigantic serpent that crushes its prey to death,
like a boa-constrictor on land. When one thinks how vast the expanse of
ocean is, how profound are its depths, and how inaccessible, compared to
the land, is the floor over which its waves roll, this does not seem
very wonderful, especially as, even on the land, new animals, sometimes
of considerable size, are from time to time discovered. The real wonder
is that the sea-serpent should have been disbelieved in for such a very
long time. Now, a great many people do believe in it, even including some
of the more learned ones, who tell us so in solemn, pompous strains, as
if what they thought about a thing was almost as important as the thing
itself—or, indeed, quite, if not more so. There are scientists, in fact,
who seem really to fancy that by giving their adherence to anything, they
allow it to be, and so, as it were, create it; nothing else, surely,
can explain the sense of awful responsibility under which they seem to
labour. No wonder, then, that they should hesitate before saying, “Let
there be sea-serpents!” Any conscientious man would, taking their size
and voracity into consideration.

Next to the great sea-serpent, the largest and most powerful constricting
snake that we know of is the anaconda of South America, which grows to
at least thirty feet long, and is said by the Spaniards to be capable
of overpowering and eating a bull. Hence the Spanish name for it is
_matatoro_, or bull-killer, but whether the name is founded upon a fact
or a fiction does not appear to be certain. Waterton thought that the
Spaniards must have known what they were talking about, and that the
very name was an evidence of the thing. He was told, moreover, that
the matatoro grew to a much greater length than thirty feet—more than
double as long, in fact—but of this, again, there is no satisfactory
evidence. It does not seem in itself impossible that a snake of even
thirty, or thirty-five, feet in length should be able to destroy a bull;
but there is one thing which inclines me to doubt the anaconda’s doing
so, as well as its growing to such a size as the Spaniards reported.
Before South America was colonised by the Spaniards there were no cattle
in the country, so we must assume that this great snake was not larger
or stronger than would be necessary to allow it to overcome the largest
wild animals with which it came in contact. These would be the jaguar and
the tapir, and as neither of these are so large, or, I think, so strong
as a Spanish South American bull, the latter ought, one would think, to
be too much for an anaconda. This is not quite conclusive, indeed, for
the jaguar itself found no difficulty in preying on horses and cattle
as soon as they were introduced, though it had had nothing larger to
attack, before, than the tapir or huanaco. Nay, more, the puma, which is
smaller and more slightly built than the jaguar, at once began to attack
these large animals, as though it had been both “native and to the manner
born.” Still, in the manner in which these creatures secure their prey,
agility and skill—since they generally dislocate the neck—may come more
into play than sheer strength, whereas it is the latter that would be
most required by a serpent, in the actual process of constriction, after
the seizure had once been made.

Be this as it may, the safest plan is to limit our ideas in regard to the
destructive powers of the anaconda, by what it has been known to do, and
I do not think that there is any properly authenticated instance of its
having killed a bull—not for us, that is to say; there may be cases known
to the Spaniard. Now, the anaconda is very fond of the water—indeed,
it is almost, if not quite, as amphibious as the crocodile; and I have
sometimes wondered if it does not prey upon the latter. If it does, then
we probably see in this the starting-point from which the great oceanic
anaconda, or sea-serpent, has been developed. We have only to picture
the remote ancestors of the latter having got first to the mouths of
the rivers, and then further and further out to sea, proceeding from
crocodiles to sharks of about the same size, and so to larger sharks,
and thence, gradually, to more and more gigantic marine forms, till at
length, in fierce contention with rorqual or cachalot, the zenith of
power was attained.

Other snakes which live in the sea are small, or comparatively small, and
these, which, unlike the sea-serpent, are very well known, are extremely
poisonous. They, no doubt, have had their origin in some water-loving
viper, or other kind of poisonous snakes, of which there are many
examples—most snakes, indeed, are fairly at home in the water, and all,
probably, are perfectly well able to swim. Of venomous land-snakes the
most deadly, perhaps, is the well-known cobra, or hooded snake, of India.
The skin of the neck, in this species, is flattened out from just behind
the head. Under ordinary circumstances it lies loose, and is not so very
noticeable, but when angry or excited the cobra can inflate it, and it
then becomes very conspicuous. To do so, it rears its head, together
with the upper part of its body, into the air—standing, as it were, on
its tail, and, hissing loudly, presents a both strange and terrifying
appearance.

This is the snake that the Indian snake-charmers lure out of its hole
by playing on a sort of pipe, and then catch and handle with impunity.
I, at least, believe that they can do so, and also that they are able,
should they chance to be bitten, to cure the bite by applying to it a
curious substance, which is called a snake-stone. I believe it because
one of these snake-stones has found its way into Africa—probably through
the Portuguese—and there I have seen it in the possession of a Dutch
family of the name of De Lange, who, though poor people, once refused
fifty pounds for it. This proves their belief in its efficacy, and
that belief has been founded upon a number of trials, every one of
which was successful. Here is one of them—I quote it from my brother’s
work, _Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa_, pp. 14-15: “De Lange
told us that the value of the stone was well known in the district,
as it had saved the lives of so many people—whom he named—and several
horses. Amongst other names he mentioned that of a daughter of an old
elephant-hunter, named Antony Fortman, who, he averred, had been bitten
by a cobra some years before, when quite a child. As the stone had to
be sent for, it had only reached her, he said, just in time to save
her life. Two years later, in 1877, this story, at any rate, met with
a curious confirmation. At that time Antony Fortman was at Tati, in
Matabililand, with his family, his eldest daughter being a girl about
sixteen years of age. I had quite forgotten about the snake-stone, when
one day, the conversation turning on snakes, Antony Fortman said to his
daughter, ‘Turn up your sleeve, and show Mr. Selous where the snake bit
you.’ This she did, and on the girl’s left arm, near the shoulder, was
a very large and ugly scar, as if a piece of flesh had sloughed away,
and the wound had then skinned over. Fortman then proceeded to tell me
how the girl had been bitten, some years before, in Marico, when quite
a child, and that a horse had been saddled up at once, and a messenger
despatched for De Lange’s snake-stone, how the little girl had become
insensible and turned nearly black before the stone arrived, and that
it had been twice applied before it drew out the snake-poison. Both De
Lange and Fortman described the action of the stone in the same way.
Friedrich de Lange told me that he had brought this snake-stone with him
from the Cape Colony, and that it had been an heirloom in his family for
some generations.” Evidence like this appears to me stronger even than
the sneers of doctors, though that, too, should be strong, considering
how constantly they have sneered at the truth in whatever new form it
presented itself—inoculation, mesmerism, and so forth—anything, in fact,
that they did not understand, so that they were never at a loss for
material.

Almost, if not quite as poisonous as the Indian cobra, is the rattlesnake
of America, and, again, the puff-adder of Africa. However, I am not
writing a book about snakes, so as space obliges me to finish this
chapter, I will only add that I once walked right over a puff-adder
without stepping on it, and consequently without its biting me. If it
had done so it would have saved me a great deal of worry and trouble—as
is usual in such cases—for I was alone on the top of a very steep hill,
and the homestead lay a long way off at the bottom. The brandy-bottle,
therefore—which is the colonial remedy for being bitten, as well as for
not being bitten, by a puff-adder—would not have been forthcoming, and I
had no snake-stone in my pocket.




CHAPTER XXIV

    HUNTING RUSES AMONGST THE HIGHER ANIMALS—WOLVES, FOXES, AND
    JACKALS—UNTEMPERED JUSTICE—GESTURE-LANGUAGE IN MEN AND DOGS—THE
    CAPE HUNTING-DOG AND HIS PREY.


In several of the preceding chapters we have seen something of the
stratagems and contrivances made use of by various creatures—fish,
insects, birds, or crustaceans—in order to secure their prey. Similar
devices, as might be expected, are not unknown amongst the mammalia also.
The list, however, is not so long as one might expect, considering the
superior intelligence of this class of animals, but we must remember that
it is not so easy to study the habits of wild quadrupeds as it is those
of insects and various small creatures. It is principally with wolves,
foxes, and jackals that the observations in question have been made, no
doubt because such animals, owing to their abundance, or through other
reasons, have come more into contact with mankind.

All these three species, either habitually or occasionally, hunt
together in concert—that is to say, either two or more carry out a
certain plan, in which each helps the other. Thus, in India, Mr. Elliott
observed, one morning, two wolves standing side by side as though in
consultation, whilst far off, upon the plain, grazed a small herd of
nylgaus—the typical Indian antelope—on which their eyes were, from time
to time, fixed with a greedy longing. At length the plan of campaign was
decided upon. One of the wolves trotted quietly off to a small nullah or
ravine, where it lay down amidst the bushes with which its sides were
dotted, whilst the other, with a stealthier pace, made a wide circle
which brought him, at length, unobserved, on the farther side of the
antelopes, and at no great distance from them. Further concealment was
now unnecessary, and suddenly flinging off the mask, the wolf rushed down
upon the startled creatures, and began to drive them towards the nullah.
This it did by continually rushing round, either on one side or the
other, according as the herd showed a disposition to break away to right
or left of the line along which they were required to go, exactly as a
sheep-dog drives the sheep to the fold. At length, when the nullah was
reached, the wolf that lay behind a bush on the very edge of it, leapt
suddenly out, and selecting a doe, sprang upon it, and being joined by
its fellow strategist, the two soon pulled it down, and feasted on it at
their leisure.

What would have happened had the wolf behind the bush failed in
securing an antelope, and had the herd in consequence got away? We may
surmise from the following anecdote, as told by Jesse in his well-known
_Gleanings from Natural History_. “A sportsman—I think it was in
Scotland—had walked out one evening with his attendant, hoping to shoot a
hare. They proceeded together to some rocky ground, part of which formed
the side of a very high hill, which was not accessible for a sportsman,
and from which both hares and foxes took their way in the evening to
the plain below. There were two channels or gullies made by the rains,
leading from these rocks to the lower ground. Near one of these channels
the two men stationed themselves. They had not been there long when they
observed a fox coming down the gully, and followed by another. After
playing together for a little time, one of the foxes concealed himself
under a large stone or rock which was at the bottom of the channel, and
the other returned to the rocks. He soon, however, came back chasing
a hare before him. As the hare was passing the stone where the first
fox had concealed himself, he tried to seize her by a sudden spring,
but missed his aim. The chasing fox then came up, and finding that his
expected prey had escaped, through the want of skill in his associate,
he fell upon him, and they both fought with so much animosity that the
parties who had been watching their proceedings came up and destroyed
them both,” thus making incomplete a most interesting observation.

In all probability, therefore, the two wolves, had the one that lay in
ambush missed his spring, would have fought too, and this makes me the
more inclined to believe a story which was told me—not, however, by an
eye-witness—of wolves in America: from which it would appear that when
the stratagem is carried out by more than a pair of associates, the
duty of seizing the prey, if it devolves upon a single member of the
band, may be a very dangerous one indeed. In the case alluded to, the
wolf that had to do this lay down by a small stream, at a place where
it was fordable, and a wapiti was driven down upon it, through woods
that fringed the bank, by the rest of the pack, amounting to a dozen or
more. Knowing the ford, the wapiti made straight for it, and the wolf,
springing up at the critical moment, either missed his mark or was shaken
off by the powerful quarry. He was foiled, at any rate, and the wapiti,
dashing into the water, gained the opposite bank and got clean away.
Hardly had he disappeared when the pack, headed by a wolf of great size
and strength—evidently the leader—came up, and now a most remarkable and,
withal, tragic scene was enacted. The wolf that had failed flung itself
on its back, and whining in the most pitiful way, appeared to bespeak the
mercy of its incensed fellows, and especially of the grim-looking leader,
whose action in the matter all seemed to await expectantly. For a moment
or two—during which the whines and cries of the wretched criminal rose to
an agony—the latter seemed to waver, but ferocity, or long-established
custom, carried the day. He sprang forward to execute justice, and his
example being instantly followed by the rest of the pack, the poor
penitent was quickly torn to pieces and devoured on the spot. I cannot,
as I say, vouch for this story, as I have not read or heard the original
account of the person who is supposed to have witnessed the incident,
but it tallies very curiously with the other two, both of which are
authentic.

[Illustration: AWAITING JUDGMENT.

The great leader of the wolf pack stood over the wretched delinquent,
hesitating whether to be merciful or to give the signal for him to be
torn in pieces.]

Everybody is familiar with the way in which a dog, when it wishes to
propitiate its master and to deprecate punishment when scolded, throws
itself on its back with its tail turned up between its legs. Now this is
a habit which every dog has brought with it from its wild ancestry, and
one may be often seen to employ it towards another when it is afraid to
fight, knowing that it would be well beaten. It is the converse, as it
were, of the bristled back and elevated tail, with which dogs approach
each other when they really mean to fight, and with neither of these two
_expressions_, as one may call them, can man have had anything to do. We
now see to what use the first of them is put by wild, canine species, and
if it was not on this occasion effective, we may be sure that on many
others it both has been and will be.

There is another very curious and interesting thing in connection with
this habit amongst domesticated dogs. If man has not taught it to them,
they possibly may have taught it to him. Somewhere in the _Odyssey_ of
Homer—I cannot give the place, but I have often read references to it—it
is told how when travellers come to a village, and a lot of fierce dogs
belonging to the inhabitants rush out upon them, they immediately squat
down on the ground, and that then the dogs cease to molest them. Now Dr.
Schliemann, when he travelled in the Ionian Islands, found that this
was the regular habit with the peasants on coming to strange villages,
or when they visited shepherds living, with their sheep, in the open
country. The same expedient is resorted to by the peasantry of Hungary
and Macedonia and other countries of Europe, where the conditions of
life are more or less primitive; also, I believe, in the East, or parts
of it, and—most interesting of all, as showing the habit to be almost
universal—the Kaffirs of South Africa, under similar circumstances, act
in the same way. The chief Lo Bengula, before he learnt, too late, the
real ends and aims of the Aryan, had some large, fierce dogs, which used
to rush out to attack any native that came to see him, at his primitive
palace. To offer any resistance to their onset would have been death to
anyone, and the resource employed, just as in the other cases, was to
crouch on the ground, in which lowly and defenceless position—though
sometimes one of the men would get a bite—they were generally let alone.

The dog, therefore, seems to understand this attitude in a man, just
as he does the still more prostrate one employed by himself, for, in
truth, it is very similar. A man who meditates attack, or intends to
defend himself, stands firm and erect, with chest expanded and head
thrown back. When he sinks to the ground, with his head hung, his arms
resting passively, and his chest drawn in—as follows naturally from the
position—all this is reversed, and the one posture as strongly expresses
submission, or, at least, a peaceable intent, as the other does war and
defiance. I do not imagine, however, that man has really studied the
dog’s method and made use of it himself in order to disarm him, but
rather that his own mode of expression is governed by the same principle,
and that having been accustomed to deprecate the wrath of a superior
by crouching before him, he puts the same plan in practice to mitigate
canine fury.

The jackals of Ceylon—as no doubt of India and other countries—employ
the same kind of stratagem for the securing of prey, as do wolves and
foxes. A pack of them will surround any covert having a limited area,
into which they have seen a hare or one of the smaller kinds of deer
enter, and some always take care to station themselves about the path
where the game entered, and by which they know it will most likely come
out again. Possibly their places may be assigned to the various members
of the pack by the leader, for it is he, we are told, who gives the
signal for the attack to commence, by first raising his voice in the loud
and peculiar cry which all who live in lands where jackals roam know
so well. “Okkay! okkay! okkay!” he repeats in howl upon howl; “Okkay!
okkay! okkay!” come the answering cries of the rest, and into the jungle
they all dash, and out of it, shortly afterwards, at the expected place,
dashes, if all goes well, the terrified animal, to be pulled down on the
outskirts.

This is a good ruse, but a still more cunning one is sometimes employed
by the jackals of India—that is to say, they have been seen to employ
it, for no doubt other jackals might act in the same way, under similar
circumstances. In this instance a considerable number ranged themselves
at intervals along a patch of jungle skirting the shores of a lake, and
just within it, so as to be concealed. Here they quietly waited till,
about midnight, by the light of the moon, a fine axis deer was seen to
leave the jungle and advance over the narrow strip of foreshore which
separated it from the water. Just before commencing to drink it turned
and snuffed towards the jungle, but either the wind must have been in
the right direction or its thirst overcame its caution, for turning
again and stooping to the cool stream that lay white and still in the
moonlight, it took a draught so deep and so long that it seemed as
though it would never be ended. At last, however, it was satisfied, and
walking back, swollen now and distended through the inordinate amount
that it had swallowed, it was about to re-enter the jungle, when a
jackal, springing with a yelp from its outer fringe, barred its further
advance. The startled deer wheeled suddenly round, ran for some distance
along the open space, and then again tried to enter the jungle, only to
be again driven back by the same sharp yelp and spring, striking terror
to its heart. A fresh attempt was frustrated in the same way, and being
followed by a longer run, the deer now passed out of sight, but for a
long time yelp succeeded yelp at irregular intervals, growing fainter
and fainter till they were lost in the distance. The result of the ruse
was not, therefore, in this instance witnessed, but in all probability
it justified the sagacity of the jackals. Forced to keep running whilst
its stomach was swollen with the water it had drunk, the deer must soon
have become exhausted, and as little able to fight as to escape through
speed—in which condition the pack would have closed upon it and pulled it
down.

But why were the jackals so anxious that the deer should not enter the
jungle? Any obstacles which the thickness of the undergrowth might have
offered to their own pursuit would, one would think, have been still
more effective in checking the flight of their victim, in which case they
ought to have been able to tire it out, and then pull it down all the
sooner. Possibly, however, the axis, being an animal many times larger
and stronger than themselves, might be able to plunge through covert
which they would be unable to penetrate, or, again, it might have turned
to bay under more favourable circumstances.

The witness of this very interesting scene was no other than the “last
man” of the ill-fated Afghan expedition of 1841-2, who appears to have
been an intelligent observer and trustworthy recorder of the ways and
habits of animals. He was unable, as he thought, to estimate the number
of jackals engaged in the hunt, on account of the possibility of each one
having turned back the deer many times, by running past it and posting
itself again. This does not appear to me likely, for if the jackals were
able so easily to outrun the deer, they might have pulled it down then
and there, if in large numbers, and if there were only a few of them, it
does not seem likely that they could ever have overpowered so strong an
animal. I think it much more probable that there was a jackal to each
yelp, and that, seeing where the deer was about to turn in, it was able
to shift its position in time to meet it, if not exactly posted, before.
Indeed, all these ruses seem based upon the superior speed of the animal
against which they are employed, for if two or more wolves or jackals
can run down a deer or an antelope, why should they not do so together,
instead of one hiding and the other driving the prey? For this reason,
though it is stated that the one wolf drove the herd of nylgaus to the
place where it wished them to go, as a shepherd-dog drives a flock of
sheep, I must suppose either that it could not have overtaken them, or
that there is some flaw in the reasoning of the animal when it lays the
trap. No doubt a short chase is better than a long one, but the idea
which one receives when one reads of a wolf running on this or that side
of an animal, so as to drive it just where it wants it to go, is that it
could overtake it if it pleased. With the foxes, however, everything is
plain and straightforward, since, except by stratagem, they could not
possibly catch a hare.

All animals, however, like to take their prey by surprise, if they
can, and of this I have myself seen an interesting instance in South
Africa, where I lived for nearly three years. I was once riding along
the waggon-road—a sandy trail winding amidst thick thorn-bush—somewhere
in Bechuanaland, when all at once there jumped out, upon either side, a
pair of Cape hunting-dogs in act to spring. They were bending, indeed,
and all elastic, on the very point of making the leap, when, taking
in the situation both at the same time, they each stood a little up
on their hind legs, and with a curious look of having made an awkward
mistake, they turned and disappeared into the bush again, the whole
in silence—they did not utter one sound. No doubt the dogs had heard
the beat of the horse’s hoofs along the road, and thinking it was wild
game, had hidden, one on each side, prepared to leap together, as it
passed, and pull it down. From the total change of their whole demeanour,
and their expression—very like a dog’s when it has made some foolish
mistake—I feel quite sure that they had not expected a man to be mixed up
in the affair, nor is any instance of their attacking one, even when in
numbers, on record, so far as I know. It seems evident, therefore, that
they could not have seen me before, as I came riding along, since one
glimpse would have shown them that a man was on the horse.

But now a puzzle arises. It is not usual for game to come trotting along
the waggon-road, nor does the Cape hunting-dog ever attack the oxen or
horses of white men in the interior—at least I have not heard of its
doing so. Why, then, did these two take up their position on either side
of the path as though to wait till something passed along it, a thing
which would only happen at very long intervals, and then would be more
likely to be a mounted man, or a waggon, or oxen, than anything else?
Unless some antelopes are accustomed to use the waggon-roads in South
Africa, which I have never heard of their doing, judgment here, on the
part of the two dogs, must have been at fault. For this reason, though
nothing seemed clearer than that this had been their plan at the time, I
do not now think that it was. I believe they were governed entirely by
their sense of hearing, which was either so acute as to bring them both
to just the right place, and at just the right time for the joint attack,
or else that they judged, by the regularity of the hoof-beats and the
direction in which they were proceeding, that the animal, whatever it
was, was coming along the road. The last, I think, is the most likely,
and this, again, would show that one of the wild indigenous animals
of South Africa has, by this time, learnt the use and meaning of the
waggon-roads that cross the country.

All the above stratagems are of a collective nature—two or more animals,
that is to say, take part in them—and these are more interesting than
where merely one is concerned, since the capacity to combine of itself
shows a high degree of intelligence. A simpler sort of ruse or wile
may be displayed in the manner in which a beast of prey assaults and
overpowers its victim, and this is especially the case where it hunts
alone, and the quarry is much more powerful than itself. These two wild
dogs were prepared, evidently, to attack a large animal jointly, but
either of them, probably, would have been able to run down and kill one
of equal size, in the open. A sable antelope is a larger animal, I should
say, than the Basuto pony I was riding—it stands higher, at any rate,
and has a very formidable pair of horns, which it can use most adroitly,
and with deadly effect. The Cape hunting-dog knows this well, and when
it overtakes its dangerous quarry, which it can do with ease, instead of
holding on to it, in which case it would be immediately transfixed, it
springs up and inflicts just one bite in the flank, letting go instantly
and then pursuing it again. In its next spring it gives another bite in
just the same place, and in this way it, at last, succeeds in tearing
open the poor beast’s flank, from which the entrails then protrude
and can be cruelly torn out and devoured. Of course, under these
circumstances, the poor antelope soon dies, and is eaten by the dog—a
process, however, which, in all probability, is commenced by the latter
some time before life is extinct. Such is Nature, and as there is no
appeal from her ways, it is no use quarrelling with them. The best plan
is to be an optimist, and then everything seems right in a trice.

As far as I know, there is only one published account of a sable antelope
being pursued by a single Cape hunting-dog, in this way, nor was the
incident, in this case, witnessed to its natural conclusion. It has not
been absolutely proved, therefore, that such a chase may be brought by
the dog to a successful conclusion; but I myself have no doubt whatever
that it both can be and sometimes is, for I do not believe that wild
animals ever attempt what it is not within their power to achieve,
though, of course, they may sometimes fail in the attempt. They are
guided by their experience, and though there are exceptions to every
rule, it is safe to assume that, in the important concerns of their life,
we never see a grown wild animal either making a first experiment or
doing a foolish thing.

[Illustration: THE END OF THE CHASE.

Sable antelope attacked by Cape hunting dogs.]

The account above alluded to is by my brother, and as it is very
interesting, I will conclude this chapter with it. “We this day witnessed
a very pretty sight, as we were riding across a wide, open down, between
the Zweswe and Umfule rivers. We had a short time previously noticed a
solitary old sable antelope bull feeding on the edge of a small strip
of bush that intersected the plain. Suddenly this antelope, which was
six or seven hundred yards distant, came running into the flat straight
towards us, on perceiving which we reined in our horses and looked around
for the cause of its alarm. This was soon apparent, for before long we
saw that an animal was running on its tracks and, though still distant,
overhauling it fast, for the sable antelope, not being pressed, was not
yet doing its best, so that when it was about two hundred yards from us,
its pursuer, which we now saw was a wild dog, was not more than fifty
yards behind it. The noble-looking antelope must just then have seen us,
for it halted, looked towards us, and then turning its head, glanced at
its insignificant pursuer. That glance, however, at the open-mouthed
dog, thirsting for its life-blood, must have called up unpleasant
reminiscences, for instead of showing fight, as I should have expected
it to have done, it threw out its limbs convulsively and came dashing
past us at its utmost speed. It was, however, to no purpose, for the wild
dog, lying flat to the ground, as a greyhound, its bushy tail stretched
straight behind it, covered two yards to its one, and came up with it
in no time. It just gave it one bite in the flank, and letting go its
hold instantly, fell a few yards behind; at the bite the sable antelope
swerved towards us, and upon receiving a second in exactly the same
place, turned still more, so that, taking the point on which we stood
for a centre, both pursuer and pursued had described about a half-circle
around us, always within two hundred yards, since the sable antelope had
first halted. As the wild dog was just going up the third time, it got
our wind, and instead of again inflicting a bite, stopped dead and looked
towards us, whilst about a hundred yards from it the sable antelope also
came to a stand. The baffled hound then turned round and made off one
way, whilst the sable antelope, delivered from its tormentor, cantered
off in another.”[15]




CHAPTER XXV

    MAN AND BEAST IN THE FAR NORTH—TRAPS THAT ARE SEEN THROUGH—A
    NEW DISCOVERY—CUNNING OF ARCTIC FOXES—THE TRAPPER AND THE
    WOLVERINE.


The various ruses mentioned in the preceding chapter were all of an
offensive character, employed, that is to say, by one animal in order
to entrap and prey upon another. But as much cunning may be shown by a
creature in avoiding death as in inflicting it, or in securing its food.
The two kinds, indeed, are often combined, as was seen in the last case
mentioned, where, but for its ingenious method of attack, the dog must
soon have been impaled on the horns of the sable antelope, an animal in
comparison with whose size and strength its own are quite insignificant.

The same remark applies to those crowning instances of animal strategy in
which the endeavour—constantly successful—is to avoid the artifices of
man himself, since the successful springing of the trap is followed by a
triumphant meal upon the bait with which it is set. There is nothing, in
its way, more interesting than that keen, hard, close competition between
the brain of man and beast that is going on day by day and year by year
in the fur-bearing regions of the North, especially over the snowy
wastes of the Hudson Bay territories in the far north of North America.
The cunning shown by the arctic foxes, especially in avoiding the various
kinds of snares laid by the trappers for their destruction, is truly
wonderful, and we should be justified in disbelieving many of the facts
narrated were they not well authenticated and, indeed, notorious in those
parts.

It is, for instance, quite a common “dodge” for a trapper to set his
spring-jaw traps upside-down, and the reason for his doing so is that the
foxes, having discovered the principle of the mechanism, are accustomed
to scratch away the earth from under the trap, and then, putting their
paw up—through the jaws, indeed, but from the outside, so that it cannot
be enclosed between them, as they fly up—to press upon the pan and start
the trap. When the trap is set upside-down, therefore, the fox is taken
by surprise, and for a short time the trapper may have success. But very
quickly the new experience is gained, and the traps are now started
from above instead of from below. Another change may be resorted to,
but this is not likely to be successful unless some time has gone by,
and, of course, the natural result of continued variation in the way of
setting the traps, is to make the foxes more and more observant of the
way in which they lie. They become, therefore, more and more difficult
to catch, and the trapper’s best plan is to keep moving from one part
of the country to another, in the hope of getting a few skins in each.
The reason why the foxes learn so quickly by experience is that they
are not solitary-living animals, but go about either in pairs or small
companies. When, therefore, one is caught, its mate or its fellows are
witness of its misfortune, and have the dreadful incident stamped upon
their memory, not only by reason of the fear which it inspires on their
own account, but also through the sorrow and sympathy which the sight of
a suffering and often, perhaps, a tenderly loved companion arouses in
them.

Another way of trapping, or of trying to trap, the foxes is by setting
a loaded gun, with a string tied, at one end, to the trigger, and, at
the other, to a piece of meat. The meat lies some thirty yards from the
muzzle of the gun, with which, of course, it is in a straight line, and
the string, for the whole distance, is buried under the snow, the gun
being also concealed, either in the same or some other way. All that
appears is the piece of meat, which lies, by itself, on the snow, as if
it had nothing to do with anything. When the fox seizes it, however,
he pulls the string, which in its turn pulls the trigger, and the gun,
going off, shoots him dead[16]—a very humane sort of trap indeed. But
it is just the same as with the other kinds. After a very few foxes,
or, sometimes, after only a single one has been shot, no more are to
be got in this way. The first poor victim lies upon the bloodstained
snow, but over him bends his affectionate consort, whining and wretched,
yet not so given up to grief but that the intellectual faculties are
rather sharpened than obscured by the bitterness of the loss. The fatal
cord attached to the meat, which, in despite of tears, she has perhaps
managed to swallow down, lies now exposed. She follows it up, sniffing
it and sometimes touching it with her paw, and soon arrives at the
evil-looking object, which she knows has, for the time, exhausted its
death-dealing power. A careful examination imprints it on her memory,
and through life, now, in particular, she carries a picture in her mind
of that string attached to the trigger. It was the pull that did it.
With that there came a sudden flame, and the roar of death was in her
ears. Three feet, at least, she leaped into the air—higher, possibly, if
perchance a pellet or two struck her—and then raced away over the snow
that was her husband’s winding-sheet. She returned to find him dead, and
there, from his very jaws, from the protruded tongue that would never
be passed over her in kindness and affection again, lay that thin dark
line upon the snow, that connected him visibly with death. Never, in all
her earthly pilgrimage, hereafter, will she forget that lumps of meat,
though seeming to lie loose upon the ground, may yet make part of a trap,
full twenty-five or thirty yards away, and that to touch them, whilst
they do make part of it, means swift and certain death. But they may be
disconnected. That thin and subtle ligament from which the whole danger
proceeds is easy to sever; but how to sever it without setting in motion
the thing to which it is attached—that little, insignificant-looking
thing, which, as it is the part that the string touches, must be the key
to set in motion the whole infernal machine? Smaller even than the pan
of the well-known toothed trap, which, by being pressed on, causes the
jaws to fly up, it must act on the same diabolical principle. Something
is set loose by it—something that flies out to where the meat is, and
kills the fox that is eating it. Something—but what? No matter; whatever
it is, it is death. It comes and it kills, and it can only come from that
long, ominous-looking tube, which is hollow at one end, and only one.
Just from that end it was—quite a long way in front of the trigger—that
the flame of fire flashed out. To be in front of that, then, and to pull
the string, is death; but once behind it, the string may be pulled with
impunity. Still, there is the trigger. To be behind that must be safer
still, and if the string can be gnawed so as not to pull the trigger
at all, that will be the safest of all. As for the string, there is
no danger in _it_. It is to start the trap merely. It is not the trap
itself. _That_ is obvious. Even a cub might see that. The whole thing
lies in the trigger. If you pull that, you let off the trap: but if you
can gnaw through the string without pulling it, you can take the meat
without the trap going off, or if you can let the trap off without its
hurting you, you can take the meat afterwards.

It may be thought that not even foxes, though they are known to be
cunning, could reason in this way; but if facts are to be taken as
evidence, they must reason still more strongly. Not only do they draw the
conclusion that to be behind the muzzle of the gun is to be in safety,
but they even adopt a plan by which they are able, with almost equal
safety, to go up to the meat and let the gun off, by taking it in their
mouth. In the latter case, of course, the string need not be cut at
all—except, indeed, afterwards, to eat the meat—but when it has to be, it
is always that part of it which is near the trigger, that the fox gnaws
through. This shows plainly that the danger must be connected in the
animal’s mind not only with the string and trigger, but with the muzzle
of the gun; but though it must, therefore, know that, being where it is
the gun might be fired with impunity, the fox, having decided to sever
the string before seizing the bait, does not do this, but leaves the
trigger still on the cock. Now, as it must be as easy to gnaw through the
string without discharging the gun, at one part as at another, it must
be as a precaution against a possible accident that the fox does so at a
point where, if it did go off, it could not hurt him: since it assures
itself doubly, it cannot be said that it has not room for more than one
idea in its head, at the same time.[17]

But now comes the second plan—not quite so perfect as the other, as the
fox may get a pellet or two in its skin, but, perhaps, involving even a
greater degree of intelligence. Instead of going to the gun, the fox,
in this case, digs a trench in the snow up to the meat, which it then
seizes and pulls into the trench, where it lies flat. The gun goes off,
but the fox is not hurt, for—and this is the most wonderful part of
it—it has drawn the trench at right angles to the muzzle of the gun—to
the line of fire, that is to say—so that the shot, instead of raking the
channel, as it would do if it were in a straight line with the gun and
string, only strikes the edge of the cutting, and goes flying over it. If
men were besieging a hostile town, and wished to approach it under cover
of a trench, so as to avoid, as much as possible, the bullets from the
walls, this is just how they would manage it. They would not, any more
than the foxes, draw it all in one line with the line of fire, for then
the bullets would fly down, instead of over it, and every man in it would
be killed. The brain of the fox, therefore, as far as this particular
thing is concerned, is equal to that of man, and as the trench is always
drawn in the same way, we may be sure that mere chance has nothing to
do with it. The reason why the fox is able to draw the meat into the
trench before the gun goes off, is that the cord which connects the bait
with the trigger is always a little longer than the distance between the
two, for if it were not, as it is liable to shrink during changes of the
atmosphere, when the weather changes from dry to moist, the gun would
sometimes go off of itself. As a rule, therefore, the meat can be moved
five or six inches, without anything happening, and this just allows the
fox to pull it down into the ditch, where he lies with it, out of harm’s
way. So here are two quite different ways—each as cunning as can well be
imagined—by which the fox gets the better of the trapper, and though the
human element enters into such episodes as these, they still make part of
the romance of animal life, seeing that the life of an animal whose skin
is in demand is one long pitched battle with man.

But cunning as are these arctic foxes, there is one animal which seems to
outdo even them in its instinct, as one may almost call it, for avoiding
all danger, and especially snares, traps, or pitfalls of any and every
description. This is the celebrated glutton or wolverine, an animal
which, as it is not only never to be taken itself, but enjoys nothing
so much as destroying all traps that it finds set for other animals, is
the very despair of the trapper. It belongs to the weasel family, but
in form and general appearance is more like a bear than one of these
animals, being stout in the body, with long large limbs and shaggy fur,
whilst it walks on the soles of its feet, which is an ursine mode of
progression. Its tail, however, is a conspicuous feature, being thick
and bushy, though short. In size it surpasses every other member of the
family to which it belongs, so that it is able to make so large and
strong an animal as the beaver its prey. It is even said that it will
occasionally attack and overpower some of the larger species of deer,
dropping upon them from out of the branches of trees, and then tearing at
their throats. Whether this is true, however, I do not know, nor, for our
present purposes, does it much matter, for it is only from the standpoint
of its cunning, or, perhaps one should rather say, of its intellectual
competition with man, that I am going to discuss the wolverine here.

It is not that the trapper has any wish to catch him—not for his fur, at
least, which is worth little or nothing. The wolverine is not wanted,
and would be let alone if he would let other people alone, but this he
will not do. Nothing pleases him better than to come across a trapper
engaged in his occupation, for then he knows that for some time to come
he can have meat without the trouble of killing it. Where he lives—in the
great pine forests of North America—the marten lives, too, and the fur of
the marten is very valuable indeed. The trapper goes through the woods
setting a long line of traps, and when once the wolverine has come upon
this line, he follows it day by day, and never leaves off doing so till
he has destroyed every trap, eaten the bait, and sometimes the marten
that he finds inside it. These traps are not the steel ones that are set
for the foxes, nor are they the spring guns either. The marten’s skin is
so valuable and, at the same time, so small, that the trapper does not
want it to be injured anywhere. The skin of a fox that has been shot in
the head or caught by one of the legs, is almost as valuable as if it
had not been damaged at all, but it is not the same with the marten. His
skin is wanted intact—without a flaw upon any part of it. The trapper,
therefore, makes a curious trap of branches—or “poles,” as he calls
them—which are set in the ground, so as to make a sort of little chamber
or wigwam, which has only one way into it, and across that way a noose,
or something, is arranged—I am not quite sure what; they never tell one
in the books—so as to kill the marten, but without injuring his skin, as
he gets inside.

The wolverine comes to one of these little wigwams, and knows exactly
what it means. There is something inside to be got, and a door to walk
in by. That something he means to have, but he is not going in by the
door. He knows what would happen if he did. That is one of man’s horrible
treacheries—pretending to be kind and nice to animals, but meaning to
destroy them all the while. It is a trap, and the way to get the better
of a trap is never to do what it asks you to do, or, at least, not in the
way that it asks you to do it. So, being asked to go in by the door, the
wolverine pulls out some of the poles at the other end, and goes in that
way, taking the bait from behind. Having done this, he generally proceeds
to show his contempt of the whole thing, and especially, perhaps, of the
man who thought he could take him in, by destroying the trap _in toto_,
scattering the poles all about, and then going off to do the same with
the next. In this way the whole line of traps are treated one after
another, and if a marten has been caught in any of them, the wolverine
eats as much as he wants and hides the rest—for he is very fond of taking
things away and hiding them. One may imagine the rage of the trapper
when he comes back to look at his traps. Either he must get rid of the
wolverine in some way, or leave that part of the country altogether. To
lie in wait with a gun, himself, would be a tedious business, and the
chances are that the wolverine would either smell him or find out his
whereabouts in some other way, and so take care not to come near. He
determines to trap him, or at least to try to. Half a dozen traps of
different sorts—acting upon different principles of destruction—he makes
himself, with all the skill and ingenuity that his own cunning, sharpened
by a lifelong experience, can suggest, and he sets several steel ones as
well. Every three or four days he comes to look at them, but always, if
the wolverine has been there at all, he finds one of two things. Either
the baits have been taken and the traps pulled to pieces, or else both
trap and bait have been left severely alone. In this latter case the
cunning animal has feared to touch them. There are his tracks all about,
and in some places the marks of his body, where he has lain down and
gazed intently at the things he was trying to understand. But he was not
quite satisfied, had not entirely grasped the principle, not penetrated
as deeply into the matter as, under the circumstances, he would like to
do. Therefore he would not touch it. Until he saw clearly just what the
idea was, the trapper must really excuse him: he would much rather leave
it alone. As soon as he had discovered it, he might be relied upon—the
bait was most attractive—but until then he preferred to go on with the
marten-traps. They were quite simple: no difficulty at all about them.
For, of course, all the while, the trapper, who cannot afford to lose
time, and hopes every day to catch the wolverine, keeps setting his
marten-traps as before.

At last he gives up what he has been trying, and determines to set a
spring-gun—not in such a way as he might hope that an ordinary animal
would get shot by it, but more cunningly than he has ever done it before.
So not only does he lay the gun amidst bushes, so that it is quite
concealed by them, but blockades the way to it, as it were, with a small
pine-tree, so that it is neither to be seen nor got at. The bait—a nice
juicy piece of meat—lies temptingly just on the top of a bank that rises
from a little lake where the wolverine goes sometimes—when the trapper is
not there—to drink. As he turns to walk up the bank, he is sure to see
it, and likely this time—as the trapper would fain hope—to take it, too.
So he arranges everything, obliterates his footmarks by trailing a bush
over them, as he goes away, and comes again, a day or two afterwards.
There lies the bait, just as it was, and close beside it are the tracks
of the wolverine, where he has stood and looked at it. It was a sore
temptation, doubtless, so near his nose, but he has resisted it, and gone
away to get a meal that is safe, though hard earned.

[Illustration: A MISCHIEVOUS BEAST.

A wolverine, finding a backwoodsman’s house empty, will clear it of
everything movable down to the gridiron.]

Still the memory of such a lump of meat as that will be sure to linger,
so next day the trapper comes again, hoping that the wolverine will
have been there before him. And so he has been, but he has gone, again,
with the bait, having first drawn the pine-tree out of the way, and
then cut the string—which, if pulled, would have fired off the gun—only
just behind the muzzle. His tracks lead down to the shores of the lake,
at a part where it stretches out widely, so as to give a good view all
round. There he has eaten the meat, and there the trapper finds his
string, which he can use again if he likes. He does use it again two or
three times, first tying it where it has been bitten through, and then
arranging things in the same way. But each time it all happens over
again, just as before, except that now the wolverine is careful to gnaw
the string a little behind the knot, where it has, each time, been tied,
as if it had thought that it might be as dangerous to be in front of this
as in front of the muzzle of the gun. So the trapper, at last, thinking
that there must be a human spirit in the body of the wolverine—and a very
cunning and malicious one, too—gives it up, and goes into another part of
the country, so far away that he is not likely to be followed.

It is not only traps that the wolverine is fatal to. If he finds the
house of a backwoodsman empty, he will get into it through a hole which
he makes in the wall—never through the door, even if this should be
open—and then takes away whatever there may be inside. It does not matter
what the things are. Guns, kettles, knives, axes, blankets, boxes, or
cans of tinned meat, it is all the same to the wolverine, he carries them
all off or pushes them along with his paws, to hide them in different
places—for he is like the magpie or the bizcacha in this; whatever he
sees seems to have an attraction for him. Thus it has sometimes happened
that a hunter and his family, having been so imprudent as to leave their
“lodge” unguarded for a day or two—or perhaps having to go and there
being no one to leave there—have come back and found it quite empty, only
the bare walls with nothing inside them. The misfortune, however, is
not so great as it seems, for the tracks of the wolverine, or sometimes
the pair of them, can be followed up, and, little by little, everything
is found hidden about in the bushes. It is not often, however, that the
animal itself is discovered.

Indeed the wolverine’s presence is much more often felt than seen. One
ill deed after another comes to light, and is surely traced to his door,
but their author remains, for long periods, invisible. With a cunning
that seems human, he devises, plans, and executes, and with equal
astuteness he chooses his time. When he does happen to meet a man, how
does he act? He sits up on his haunches, like a dog begging, and holding
one of his big, flat fore paws just above his eyes, so as to shade them
from the light, looks long and earnestly at the intruder—for as such he
considers him. This he will do, sometimes, three or four times, before
deciding that he had better go, unless, indeed, he sees any special
reason for alarm, in which case he quickly disappears. There is no other
known animal, as far as I am aware, that has this odd human-like habit.
No wonder the American backwoodsman, besides looking upon the wolverine
(or carcajou as he calls him) as a very malignant animal, thinks him a
little uncanny as well.




CHAPTER XXVI

    MAN-EATING ANIMALS—THE TIGER’S SLAVE—A SAVAGE
    LION-HUNT—WOLF-REARED CHILDREN—MEN AND APES—A SHAM
    GORILLA—UNPROHIBITED MURDER—A MONKEY’S MALISON.


We have seen how some animals are, by their cunning and sagacity, able to
compete even with man himself. At an earlier period, when wild animals
were more numerous than they are now and when man had nowhere risen above
the savage state, this must have been still more the case, and, even now,
there are parts of the world where the struggle between man and beast
can hardly be said to have been decided in favour of the former. Thus
in India, in spite of its old and, in many respects, high civilisation,
tigers have held their own from time immemorial, and every year numbers
of the natives are killed by certain individuals amongst them, that have
acquired a taste for human flesh in preference to any other.

These man-eaters, as they are called, become wonderfully cunning, and
never attack either a European or a _shikaree_, or native hunter, who
is always armed with his matchlock. The poor labourers or cattle-herds,
on the other hand, who carry nothing, except perhaps a stick, which,
of course, is of no use, are totally defenceless against these lurking
fiends, which hang about the villages, and sometimes quite depopulate
them. A fearful thing it must be, not to be able to stir beyond the
little collection of mud and straw-thatched huts which make an Indian
village without being liable to a sudden and horrible death. Sometimes,
indeed, the tiger will come into the very village street and carry off a
man or a woman almost from the door of their hut. Or it will lurk near
the well or tank from which the water is drawn, so that to procure the
precious fluid, without which the lives of the community could not be
supported, individual lives must constantly be risked. The only remedy
for a state of things like this is the arrival of a British officer or,
at least, of a native shikaree upon the scene, and this in a country so
large and densely populated as India, and with such a small scattering
of Europeans in it, is not an everyday occurrence. Often, therefore, the
people get tired of waiting, and after losing a certain proportion of
their number, the remainder abandon the village and migrate to another
part of the country altogether.

No wonder all sorts of superstitions have sprung up in the native mind
concerning an animal so fierce and terrible, against which men—at least
poor men—are so defenceless. One of these superstitions is that the tiger
has power over the body of the man slain by him, for as long as he may
care to come to it—that the man, under these circumstances, becomes, as
it were, the slave of the tiger, and is bound to help his master and
give him warning of danger should he see it approaching. Thus a story
is told of a shikaree who went to watch by the remains of a man that
a tiger had killed, hoping to shoot the murderer when it returned at
sundown to complete its repast on the body, as is the animal’s habit.
In the still of the afternoon, when the sun was low, the shikaree saw
the tiger approaching over the level ground, but while it was still at a
safe distance, the corpse, all mangled and gory as it was, raised itself
a little and held up a hand in warning, on which the tiger slunk away.
Twice it came back, but each time it was warned in the same way by the
man that was now its slave, so the shikaree had to give it up, and go
without getting a shot. If the corpse had been left there, then, even
after it had become a skeleton, it would have been obliged to help the
tiger, had the latter required its assistance; but no doubt it was taken
away and properly buried.

[Illustration: A KAFFIR LION HUNT.

The hunters surrounded the lion shouting and singing, and the lion,
confused by the noise and numbers, crouched and growled. The circle grew
smaller and smaller until a single warrior rushed forward, the lion
sprang upon him to be received on the point of his assegai, and was soon
dispatched by the brave hunter and his comrades.]

The Hindoos would not suffer so much from tigers if they were a more
warlike race, for, although they have no firearms, they might easily
make spears, and a party of men with spears can kill the fiercest beast
of prey. Thus the Kaffirs of South Africa if a lion should kill even an
ox belonging to them, much more one of themselves, never rest until they
have taken its life in return. The whole village arm themselves with
their spears—or assegais,[18] as we call them—and follow up the track of
the marauder till they have at last found him, however far he may have
gone. They then form a circle round the lion, and holding one assegai
in the right hand, and some spare ones, together with a shield large
enough to cover the whole body, in the left, they begin to close in upon
him, singing and shouting. The lion, when he sees so many men advancing
against him, crouches down and, growling fiercely, makes ready to spring
upon one of them, as soon as he comes within a certain distance. He has
not long to wait. The men, continuing to advance, make the circle ever
smaller, and as he turns from side to side, doubtful on which point in
it first to charge, a single warrior—as arranged probably by previous
agreement—rushes forward to the combat. Instantly, the lion’s attention,
which has been distracted amidst the numbers of his enemies, is fixed
upon this one, and, with concentrated fury, he comes leaping towards
him. Did the man stand to receive the charge, he would be dashed to the
ground by the mere weight of the lion’s body; but, skilful as brave, he
sinks gracefully down, with his shield held over him, and stabs up with
his assegai from underneath it. For one blow—which may or may not be
fatal—the lion has time, but, almost as he makes it, twenty or thirty
assegais meet in his body, as, with a tremendous yell, the rest rush down
upon him, each striving to be first to shield the comrade, who has thus
so splendidly performed his part. In the mêlée which ensues many of the
men may be more or less badly mauled, whilst some may lose their lives,
but when it is all over—and it does not last many minutes—the lion lies
stretched on the ground, with hardly an inch of skin, in his whole body,
not cut by the blade of an assegai. Thus, amongst the more warlike tribes
of Africa, lions have no chance of becoming habitual man-eaters, as do
so many tigers in India, but in those parts of the country where the
natives are timid, just the same thing happens, though, even there, there
is not often so long a lease of life for the offending animal.

Most of the larger feline animals take, occasionally, to man-eating, as
leopards in Asia or Africa, and jaguars in America. The puma, however, as
we have seen before, is the friend of man, and never behaves in this way.
Wolves, when they go in packs, are very dangerous to man, but I have not
heard of their showing a special predilection for his flesh except in the
province of Oude, in India, and here, since they hunt separately, for the
most part, and a grown person—at least a man—would be often too strong
for them, it is children that they mostly attack. “Night comes on,” says
someone who has lived there, “the wolf slinks about the village site,
marking the unguarded hut. It comes to one protected by a low wall, or
closed by an ill-fitting _tattie_ (mat). Inside, the mother, wearied by
the long day’s work, is asleep with her child in her arms, unconscious of
the danger at hand. The wolf makes its spring, fastens his teeth in the
baby’s throat, slings the little body across its back, and is off before
the mother is fully aware of her loss. Pursuit is generally useless. If
forced to drop its burden, the cruel creature tears it beyond power of
healing, while should it elude pursuit, the morning’s search results in
the discovery of a few bones, the remnants of the dreadful meal.”

It would seem—that is to say, there is evidence which makes it difficult
not to believe so, so for my part, I do believe it—that, every now and
then, a child that has been carried off in this way by a wolf, is not
eaten, but grows up with the young wolves, in the den to which it has
been brought, being suckled like them by the dam. The evidence of which I
speak comes from various witnesses, both native and European, and whilst
the different stories told confirm one another, several “wolf-boys,” as
they are called, have been actually brought up in orphanages or other
charitable institutions in Oude, into which they have been received,
after having, according to the account of those who brought them there,
been actually captured whilst in the company of wolves, and going on all
fours, like them. These boys, when first caught, were just like animals
in all their ways and habits, ate only raw meat, and though they got a
little less wolf-like by degrees, can hardly be said to have ever become
human beings, and never learnt to speak.

Here is an account of the capture of one of these poor wolf-boys. It
appeared in the _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_ more than fifty
years ago, and is quoted by Professor Ball in his _Jungle Life in India_,
where a résumé of the evidence on this subject may be found. It evidently
seems as strong to him as it does to me, but I was wrong to say that it
was difficult not to believe in the thing after reading the evidence for
it, for the fact is that evidence has not so much effect on people as
it ought to have. We believe a thing—or are inclined to believe it—or
not, according to the general inclination of our mind, and then test the
evidence by our belief, instead of our belief by the evidence. However,
here is the account, and it is only one of several others: “Some time
ago two of the King of Oude’s _sawars_, riding along the banks of the
Gúmptji, saw three animals come down to drink. Two were evidently young
wolves, but the third was as evidently some other animal. The sawars
rushed in upon them and captured all three, and to their great surprise,
found that one was a small, naked boy. He was on all fours, like his
companions, had callosities on his knees and elbows, evidently caused
by the attitude used in moving about, and bit and scratched violently
in resisting the capture. The boy was brought up in Lucknow, where he
lived some time, and may, for aught I know, be living still. He was
quite unable to articulate words, but had a dog-like intellect, quick
at understanding signs and so on.” Again, quoting from the same paper:
“There was another more wonderful, but hardly so well authenticated,
story of a boy who never could get rid of a strong wolfish smell, and
who was seen, not long after his capture, to be visited by three wolves,
which came evidently with hostile intentions, but which, after closely
examining him, he seeming not the least alarmed, played with him, and,
some nights afterwards, brought their relations, making the number of
visitors amount to five, the number of cubs the litter he had been taken
from was composed of.”

I quote these accounts as the two most interesting, and, for their
evidential value, refer again to the work I have just mentioned. Then
was the famous story of Romulus and Remus true after all? Supposing
the brothers had been found and rescued by peasants, before they had
been long with the wolf, this does not seem to me impossible, for then
there would not have been time for those dreadful dehumanising effects,
recorded in these Indian cases. But whether true or not, I have no doubt
that the legend—and it is only one of many such—grew out of observed
facts, and such facts were, no doubt, commoner in early times than they
are now. As a reason for the child being sometimes suckled, after having
been brought by one of a pair of wolves to the common den, Professor
Ball suggests that if the other of them had, in the meantime, brought
home something else—as, say, a kid or goat—and if this had been eaten
first, the child, lying amongst the cubs, might have been received as one
of them, before a fresh meal was required, in which case it would not
afterwards have been hurt. He thinks it more likely, however, that the
child should have been stolen by a she-wolf, to replace the loss of one
or other of her cubs. I do not, myself, however, think this nearly so
likely. Why should it occur to a wolf, or any animal, to replace its own
young by a human child? If it wished to adopt, it would surely adopt a
wolf-cub. The first of these explanations, therefore, is the one that I
accept, and it seems to me a probable enough one.

Children in Oude used to be so frequently carried off, that there were
people who made a livelihood by searching the wolf-dens, on the chance
of finding gold ornaments there, for in India it is customary to deck
children out in jewellery, of which even the poorest people seem to
have a family stock. No wonder, therefore, if sometimes one should have
escaped being devoured in the way above indicated; but whether the same
state of things prevails at the present time I do not know. Perhaps it
does, for the people who went about looking for the jewels, did not want
the wolves to be exterminated, for fear they should not be able to make
an honest living, just as our own wreckers were very much opposed to the
building of lighthouses, or as some shipowners think it a wicked thing
that they should not be able to insure their vessels for four or five
times their value. Whether they still can do this, or whether there are
still professional wolf-den searchers in India, I don’t quite know.

It seems possible, then, that man may sometimes live with animals, and
lead the life that they do—in fact, become an animal to all intents and
purposes. On the other hand, there are animals that do not fall so very
far behind man, in his lowest and most savage state. I am thinking, of
course, of the great man-like or anthropoid apes, in whose uncouth,
satyr-like forms, and grotesque physiognomies, we no doubt see, if not
actual copies of what our remote ancestors were, yet something very
similar to what they must have been. This was Darwin’s opinion, though
from the stress that is always being laid upon his not having thought
the existing apes our ancestors—as some still think he did—but only our
co-descendants from a common progenitor, there is a danger of forgetting
that it was. Man, according to Darwin’s view, has very much diverged from
this common ape ancestor, whilst the existing apes have not; but he has
only so diverged through a number of steps or stages, and could we trace
these back, we should soon reach beings—our real forefathers—differing
but little from the apes of the present day. This is really not so very
different from having descended from those actual apes; but many people
seem to find great comfort in thinking they have not done that. It is
only tweedledum as against tweedledee, but they make the most of it.

[Illustration: MIDNIGHT ASSASSINS.

From the picture by Briton Riviere, R.A.]

Chief amongst these interesting beings, whose general appearance,
in spite of their hairiness, their semi-quadrupedal gait and their
arboreal habits, distinguishes them amongst all other animals, as being
next-of-kin to man, stands the great gorilla, who lives its life in the
half-twilight gloom of the forests of equatorial Africa. What is this
life? Unfortunately, the little we know of it is all in connection with
the persecution which these creatures, like their relatives the orangs
and chimpanzees, are always liable to, and too frequently endure, at
the hands of man; so that very little concerning them, beyond how they
behave when shot, has as yet been made known to us. The female gorilla,
it would seem, makes a shelter of woven branches amongst the trees (as
do both the species above mentioned) for herself and her young one; but
whether the male, who is less arboreal, does this too, I am not so sure,
and indeed Du Chaillu—who, though hardly ever mentioned by writers on
natural history who yet follow him, knew more than anyone else about
gorillas—does not, as far as I remember, give this as one of their
habits. Be this as it may, the gorilla is the least arboreal of all the
anthropoid apes, not climbing nearly so well or so frequently, even
as the chimpanzee—its companion in the African forests—much less the
orang-utan of Borneo and Sumatra, or the gibbon, another Asiatic species,
which is the most active of all. Its great bulk would, no doubt, be
against this, but as the size of any animal must stand in some sort of
relation to its habits of life, it seems curious that a creature living
in dense forests, and belonging to a climbing family, should have become
so large as to impede its powers in this respect.

Now the male gorilla, standing, sometimes, six feet high, and being
much huger and bulkier than the largest man of that height, is greatly
superior in size to the female, whose stature does not often exceed four
and a half feet; for which reason she appears to be, and probably is,
more fitted for nimbleness and activity, amongst the branches of trees,
than her huge and heavy-bodied mate. But what has led to this great
disparity of size between the male and female gorilla—a disparity which
does not exist to anything like the same extent in the other man-like
apes? Both are nourished by the same food; both must lead—or, if they do
not now, must at any rate once have led—the very same life; therefore,
as it would seem, there must be some special reason for their size and
strength differing so greatly. It does not seem to be quite certain
whether polygamy is, or is not, the custom amongst gorillas, but there
can be little doubt that the rival males often fight together, for the
possession of the females. The natives showed Du Chaillu some skulls of
these great apes, that had the canine teeth of the upper jaw—which in
the male gorilla are almost as large as a lion’s—broken off, and this,
they said, had been done in some tremendous conflict of this sort, in
which their owners had been engaged. Now if the male gorillas, besides
being accustomed to fight for the females, are also polygamous, this may
be a reason why they have become so much larger than the latter, for
the largest and strongest amongst them would always have won, and so,
by collecting together a more numerous harem, would have left a greater
number of offspring to inherit their size and ferocity. The females,
however, not fighting, would not have grown larger in the same way, for
though, in nature, the qualities of one sex are often transmitted to the
other, this is by no means always the case. Generally, indeed, if not
always, where there is polygamy, the sexes differ much both in size and
appearance.

What a sight amidst these gloomy forests must be the contention in fierce
rivalry of two full-grown male gorillas! We may imagine one—the more
favoured suitor—sitting on the ground, his back, as is usual, against
the trunk of a tree, and his arm flung carelessly about the object of
his regard; the great fingers of the wonderfully human hand burying
themselves in her fur. All at once the peaceful nature of the scene is
rudely disturbed by the frowning presence of another male, whilst the
silence is as suddenly broken by a terrific barking cry, passing into a
long, loud, sullen, reverberating roar. The unwelcome comer has been, at
first, upon all fours, but now he rears himself upon his short hind legs,
and leaving the screen of heavy frondage that has hitherto partially
concealed him, advances into the open space beneath this tropical
trysting-tree. As he does so, the female discreetly retires, whilst her
spouse, or lover, assuming also the erect posture, comes forward to meet
his rival. The two advance upon each other with ferocious mien, they roar
alternately, or in unison, and beat, at intervals, with their doubled
fists upon the vast convexity of their chests, producing in this way a
deep, continuous, hollow sound, like the rolling of a muffled drum. As
the distance between them decreases, the eyes of each seem to flash more
fiercely, whilst the crest of hair upon the forehead is drawn rapidly up
and down, with a twitching motion, by the angry contraction of the facial
muscles. At length, and with a final roar, when separated by but a few
paces, each drops upon its knuckles,[19] and springs, almost at the same
time, upon the other. Were it a man that either encountered, he would
instantly be stretched dead or dying upon the ground, but here terrific
strength upon the one side is met by force as great upon the other, and
the combat is as long and as dubious as it is furious and violent.

After a heavy blow or two dealt with the open palm, the aim of either
champion would, probably, be to pull the other towards him, so as to
inflict a wound with the powerful canine teeth. As a result there would
soon be a deadlock, in which the two great creatures, pressed together
and grappling in a close embrace, would gnash and tear furiously at
one another. As long as the limbs were not free, the fighting would be
entirely with the teeth, and as these would probably be used to parry
as well as to inflict wounds, they would constantly clash together,
and might thus sometimes be broken off. How, or for how long, such a
combat would be likely to proceed, what might be its result, whether
the provoker of it—the bashful young gorillaress—would be unconcerned
during its continuance or stand regarding it with an anxious eye from
her retreat amidst the undergrowth of the forest, whether, too, by
manifesting a choice she would become an active agent in the life’s
happiness, or otherwise, of the two grim pretendants to her favours, or
go off passively with either one or the other, as mere spoils of the
victor, it is not in our power to say, nor will we here further consider.
Had there been as much desire to see and study the habits of the great
man-ape, as there has been to procure specimens of him, which add but
little to our knowledge, and that in the least interesting way, we might
be well informed on all these points and many others, but, as it is,
we must wait till real naturalists—people, that is to say, who love
watching animals and hate killing them—go out to these regions—they are
wanted everywhere. Doubtless, bad wounds are sometimes inflicted by male
gorillas upon one another, in these tremendous encounters, but probably
they are never fatal, since the huge framework would be as potent to
resist injury as the giant strength would be to inflict it, and a
gorilla that had not yet arrived at maturity would never think of trying
conclusions with a full-grown one.

Though the above picture is merely imaginary, yet it is not, perhaps,
altogether void of foundation. It is natural to suppose that in attacking
one of his own species, the gorilla would employ the same methods of
warfare as he does against his only extraneous enemy—man; and that these
are such as I have described them, the following account will show. “We
walked,” says Du Chaillu, “with the greatest care, making no noise at
all. The countenances of the men showed that they thought themselves
engaged in a very serious undertaking; but we pushed on till finally
we thought we saw through the thick woods the moving of the branches
and small trees, which the great beast was tearing down, probably to
get from them the berries and fruits he lives on. Suddenly, as we were
yet creeping along in a silence which made a heavy breath seem loud and
distinct, the woods were at once filled with the tremendous barking
roar of the gorilla. Then the underbrush swayed rapidly just ahead, and
presently before us stood an immense male gorilla. He had gone through
the jungle on all fours; but when he saw our party he erected himself and
looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us, and
was a sight I think I shall never forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved
four inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great, muscular
arms, with fiercely glaring, large, deep grey eyes, and a hellish
expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision: thus
stood before us this king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us.
He stood there and beat his breast with his huge fists, till it resounded
like an immense bass-drum, which is their mode of offering defiance;
meantime giving vent to roar after roar. His eyes began to flash fiercer
fire as we stood motionless on the defensive, and the crest of short
hair, which stands on his forehead, began to twitch rapidly up and down,
while his powerful fangs were shown, as he again sent forth a thunderous
roar. And now truly,” exclaims Du Chaillu—upon whom, evidently, no
striking sight or impressive experience was thrown away—“he reminded
me of nothing but some hellish dream-creature—a being of that hideous
order, half man, half beast, which we find pictured by old artists in
some representations of the infernal regions. He advanced a few steps,
then stopped to utter that hideous roar again—advanced again, and finally
stopped, when at a distance of about six yards from us.” At this point
the poor gorilla, who, whatever his appearance may have been, could
not, certainly, in the malignity of his intentions have surpassed Du
Chaillu himself, was shot. In another moment he would, no doubt, have
launched himself upon his assailants—for such the party really were—and
the picture would have been reversed, except that the “half man” would
have been guiltless of any premeditated design against the life of an
unoffending fellow-creature.

In another encounter we find the same distribution of blame as between
the whole man and the half one, but luck here is on the side of the
latter. “Our little party separated, as is the custom, to stalk the wood
in various directions. Gambo and I kept together. One brave fellow went
off alone in a direction where he thought he could find a gorilla. The
other three took another course. We had been about an hour separated
when Gambo and I heard a gun fired but a little way from us, and
presently another. We were already on our way to the spot, where we hoped
to see a gorilla slain, when the forest began to resound with the most
terrific roars. Gambo seized my arms in great agitation, and we hurried
on, both filled with a dreadful and sickening alarm. We had not gone
far when our worst fears were realised. The poor, brave fellow who had
gone off alone was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, and
I thought at first quite dead. His bowels were protruding through the
lacerated abdomen. Beside him lay his gun. The stock was broken, and the
barrel was bent and flattened. It bore plainly the marks of the gorilla’s
teeth. When the unlucky hunter revived a little, he told the following
story. He said that he had met the gorilla suddenly and face to face, and
that it had not attempted to escape. It was, he said, a huge male, and
seemed very savage. It was in a very gloomy part of the wood, and the
darkness, I suppose, made him miss. He said he took good aim, and fired
when the beast was only about eight yards off. The ball merely wounded it
in the side. It at once began beating its chest, and with the greatest
rage advanced upon him. To run away was impossible. He would have been
caught in the jungle before he had gone a dozen steps. He stood his
ground, and as quickly as he could reloaded his gun. Just as he raised it
to fire, the gorilla dashed it out of his hands, the gun going off in the
fall; then in an instant, and with a terrible roar, the animal gave him
a tremendous blow with its immense open paw, frightfully lacerating the
abdomen, and with this single blow laying bare part of the intestines.
As he sank bleeding to the ground the monster seized the gun, and the
poor hunter thought he would have his brains dashed out with it. But the
gorilla seems to have looked upon this also as an enemy, and in his rage
almost flattened the barrel between his strong jaws.”

It is not quite certain from either of these accounts whether the gorilla
made his final onslaught in the upright or the quadrupedal attitude. It
seems more likely that the former is intended, but I cannot help thinking
myself that in the quick rush at the end of the leisurely advance the
creature would adopt his usual mode of progression, which is a sort of
shambling amble on all fours, but with the fore part of the body so
raised above the ground, on account of the great length of the fore arms,
as to make it of a transitional character. If, for instance, a man’s
arms were so long that he could lean on them when running, and merely
stooped a little in order to do so, we should hardly say that his gait
was quadrupedal—and this is how the gorilla walks or runs under ordinary
circumstances.

Du Chaillu tells us that the male gorilla is unmolested except by man,
and also that he has never known a full-grown male to retreat upon
his approach, or to act otherwise than as recorded in the foregoing
narratives. Now gorillas live “in the loneliest and darkest portions
of the dense African jungle,” and to many of them man must be unknown
till he seeks them out for their destruction. As a rule, when a male is
discovered it is sitting with its back against a tree—in the way I have
pictured it in my imagined scene of rivalry—whilst at least one female
feeds about, in its near neighbourhood. Perhaps there will be a young one
sitting on the ground, or clinging to its mother’s breast. Now when, for
the first time in its experience, a man intrudes thus upon a gorilla’s
domestic privacy, and it rises and advances upon him, for what does it
take him? Most probably, as it appears to me, for another and a rival
gorilla—thus more than returning the “half-man” compliment paid it by Du
Chaillu.

There is good evidence that monkeys of all sorts see, in ourselves, but a
larger species of monkey, and even the various expressions of the human
countenance seem, in some degree, intelligible to them. The gorilla sees
suddenly before him, in the gloom of the forest, a creature of the same
general shape as himself—of his own colour, too, for his skin is black,
and so is that of a negro—whilst in size it, at least, approaches him.
Minor differences, such as an unaccustomed slenderness of build, and an
inferior development of jaws and teeth, are, probably, but imperfectly
grasped. A peculiarly weak and weedy-looking gorilla, that, no doubt,
is the general effect produced; but the masculine character is stamped
upon the figure, and its approach suggests rivalry. All the details of
the male gorilla’s behaviour, on the occasion of these rencontres—as
narrated by Du Chaillu—are explained on the above supposition. We can see
now, at once, why he does not seek safety in flight, for such a retreat
would both derogate from his honour, nor does it seem to be necessary.
If, indeed, he saw and smelt man, as any four-footed creature sees and
smells him—but instead of that it is only another gorilla that he has
to do with—an inferior and less agreeably smelling one, no doubt—a
degenerate—but still presuming to rival him in the affections of his
spouse. Upon this hint he acts, and is, in consequence, shot by the being
that he takes for a very sorry specimen of his own species.

[Illustration: A GORILLA FIGHT IN THE FOREST.]

Space will not allow me to supplement this slight account of the gorilla
with a few remarks about those two other large apes—the orang-utan and
chimpanzee—which, with himself, make the three nearest approaches to the
human species. Indeed, there are not very many remarks to be made, for
our knowledge of these most interesting creatures is contained, for the
most part, in certain horrid descriptions of the way in which they act
when shot; complacent accounts—innocently worded, cheerfully told—of
what are really little better than so many cold-blooded, hard-hearted
murders. Everything, almost, that we have heard at first hand, has been
in connection with these barbarous proceedings—how mothers, for instance,
behave when shot with their infants clinging to them, or how the infants
act when they find their mothers are dead: how one _mias_ or _pappan_
will weave branches together, to sit upon, whilst it is shot at, and
another make a shift to continue alive with legs and arms broken, the
spine shattered, and all sorts of other more or less important parts
injured in varying degrees: bullets flattened, here and there, too—in
the neck or jaws—as lesser, though still piquant additions—enjoyable
side-dishes—to the main feast of maimings and manglings.

“Tenacity of life”—“_Extraordinary_ tenacity of life”—is the scientific
heading under which cases of the last kind fall, and everyone must have
noticed the strange and horrid sort of pleasure with which they are
always recorded by those responsible for them—how their spirits seem
to rise as the list of injuries grows longer—“the more the merrier,”
in fact, and the more harrowing the more welcome. This is what anyone
interested in the ways of wild animals has to go through when he seeks
for knowledge concerning them—life written very small indeed, and death,
with contortions, in great flaring capital letters. Seldom, indeed, do
we get the light and joy of the one unclouded by the gloom of the other.
As Lady Macbeth says, “Here’s the smell of the blood still.” It is, I
own, a mystery to me how a civilised man can deliberately kill a monkey
even—much less one of the higher apes. There are many, indeed, who having
shot a monkey once, have been so thoroughly upset by its reproachful and
very human-like actions that they have resolved never to do so again; but
as it is better to be warned through others than by one’s own experience,
I will conclude this small work by giving two striking cases of this
kind, both of which are quoted by Professor Romanes in his interesting
_Animal Intelligence_.

“I was once,” says Captain Johnson—to take the first of these—“one of
a party of Jeekary, in the Babor district; our tents were pitched in a
large mango garden, and our horses were piquetted in the same garden,
a little distance off. When we were at dinner a Syer came to us,
complaining that some of the horses had broken loose, in consequence of
being frightened by monkeys (_i.e._ _Macacus rhesus_) on the trees. As
soon as dinner was over I went out with my gun, to drive them off, and
I fired with small shot at one of them, which instantly ran down to the
lowest branch of the tree, as if he were going to fly at me, stopped
suddenly, and coolly put his paw to the part wounded, covered with blood,
and held it out for me to see. I was so much hurt at the time that it has
left an impression never to be effaced, and I have never since fired a
gun at any of the tribe.”

The second case is to be found recorded by Sir W. Hoste in his _Memoirs_,
and is thus alluded to by Jesse in _Gleanings from Natural History_:
“One of his officers, coming home after a long day’s shooting, saw a
female monkey running along the rocks, with her young one in her arms. He
immediately fired, and the animal fell. On his coming up, she grasped her
little one close to her breast, and with her other hand pointed to the
wound which the ball had made, and which had entered above her breast.
Dipping her finger in the blood, and then holding it up, she seemed to
reproach him with being the cause of her death, and consequently that
of the young one, to which she frequently pointed. ‘I never,’ says Sir
William, ‘felt so much as when I heard the story, and I determined never
to shoot one of these animals as long as I lived.’”

Monkeys are supposed to be less intelligent than men; and yet I never
heard of a soldier, shot down in battle, reproaching in this dumb but
dreadful way the king or cabinet ministers who had sent him out to be
killed. But then, when one comes to think of it, it is not quite such an
easy thing for soldiers to do as it is for monkeys. Many a poor fellow,
perhaps, may have had it in his mind, and even got his finger ready; but
when he looked round, just before dying, for his king or his emperor or
the cabinet ministers—why, they were not there, so what would have been
the use of holding it up?




FOOTNOTES


[1] Many birds are accustomed to eject the indigestible portions of their
food—bones, fur, feathers, etc., or the shells and shards of crustaceans
and insects—in the form of balls or pellets, which are, indeed, very
interesting objects, and both scientifically and as not leading to the
extermination of the species, would make a far preferable collection
to one of birds’ eggs. Let anyone who doubts this pick up upon some
gull-haunted island a score or so of the curious little globes made of
fragments of crab-shells cemented together, which lie all about, or
some of the dried frog-pellets of owls, over a marsh. He must then—or
he ought to—confess that such objects are more curious, if less pretty,
than birds’ eggs—which, however, as ornaments, nobody values in the
least—whilst by their very nature they teach us something in regard
to the habits of each species, which the latter do not. The pellets
of rooks, for instance, which I have found by the hundred, composed,
some entirely of innutritious vegetable materials, and others (almost
entirely) of earth, are most instructive from this point of view. In
fact, the results and tendencies springing out of this kind of collecting
would be wholly advantageous both to birds and to natural history;
so that one of the most useful things that could be started in these
“killing times” would be a club or fraternity of such collectors.

[2] The nest is contained within the hanging leaves, which are its
sole support—this, at least, is my impression. Now if the nest is made
_first_, on what does it rest—where is it—before the leaves wrap it round?

In the _tout ensemble_ the leaves correspond to the outer cup of the
nest, and the nest proper to the inner lining. It is the latter which, in
the ordinary building of a nest, comes last.

[3] Particularly and most remarkably in the case of spiders. In one
species, for instance, the males are of two patterns, as one may say,
each of which dances before the female, in its own way, which is very
different from that of the other (see Professor Poulton’s _Colours of
Animals_ in the “International Scientific Series”).

[4] By Mr. Hudson in _The Naturalist in La Plata_.

[5] In South America at least.

[6] This last, I should say, is as I imagine. Nobody tells one how the
bridge itself gets over.

[7] This floor, however, according to Professor Drummond, may be sunk
considerably below the level of the ground, which would make it, more
properly speaking, a basement.

[8] In spite of the damage done by them, however, white ants, by turning
over the soil, play an important part in the economy of nature, and
take, in the tropics, the place of earthworms. See Professor Drummond’s
_Tropical Africa_.

[9] _Wanderings in South America_, pp. 223-4.

[10] _Wanderings in South America._

[11] They had been noticed long before Bates’ paper, which was later, if
I mistake not, than _The Origin of Species_.

[12] The Rev. J. G. Wood, in _Homes without Hands_, p. 301.

[13] Were the pilot-fish to eat alone, he would not be under the shark’s
protection.

[14] From an old translation.

[15] _A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa._

[16] The gun is set with great exactitude and on a nice calculation, so
that the fox, if shot at all, is shot in the head. He dies, therefore,
suddenly, and without pain, whilst not expecting it—which some think the
best kind of death.

[17] The string must run, for a little way, behind the trigger (before
passing round a stick) in order to start the gun: and it is this part of
it that the fox gnaws. If we assume it to do so, as believing the trigger
to be the part of the gun from which the discharge comes, still there are
the two ideas—to gnaw the string, namely, thus preventing the discharge,
and to get behind the trigger whilst gnawing it.

[18] The word was used by the Portuguese in their great days, and may
have come from a West Coast tribe. It is unknown, I believe, to the
Kaffirs of South Africa.

[19] Or, as we are told _now_, the palm of the hand.

                    PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
                                 PRINTERS