Produced by Eric Eldred









THE NATURALIST IN LA PLATA

BY

W. H. HUDSON, C.M.Z.S.


JOINT AUTHOR OF "ARGENTINE ORNITHOLOGY"


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. SMIT

THIRD EDITION.

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1895




PREFACE.


The plan I have followed in this work has been to sift and arrange the
facts I have gathered concerning the habits of the animals best known to
me, preserving those only, which, in my judgment, appeared worth
recording. In some instances a variety of subjects have linked
themselves together in my mind, and have been grouped under one heading;
consequently the scope of the book is not indicated by the list of
contents: this want is, however, made good by an index at the end.

It is seldom an easy matter to give a suitable name to a book of this
description. I am conscious that the one I have made choice of displays
a lack of originality; also, that this kind of title has been used
hitherto for works constructed more or less on the plan of the famous
_Naturalist on the Amazons._ After I have made this apology the reader,
on his part, will readily admit that, in treating of the Natural History
of a district so well known, and often described as the southern portion
of La Plata, which has a temperate climate, and where nature is neither
exuberant nor grand, a personal narrative would have seemed superfluous.

The greater portion of the matter contained in this volume has already
seen the light in the form of papers contributed to the _Field,_ with
other journals that treat of Natural History; and to the monthly
magazines:--_Longmans', The Nineteenth Century, The Gentleman's
Magazine,_ and others: I am indebted to the Editors and Proprietors of
these periodicals for kindly allowing me to make use of this material.

Of all animals, birds have perhaps afforded me most pleasure; but most
of the fresh knowledge I have collected in this department is contained
in a larger work _(Argentine Ornithology),_ of which Dr. P. L. Sclater
is part author. As I have not gone over any of the subjects dealt with
in that work, bird-life has not received more than a fair share of
attention in the present volume.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. THE DESERT PAMPAS

CHAPTER II. CUB PUMA, OR LION OF AMERICA

CHAPTER III. WAVE OF LIFE

CHAPTER IV. SOME CURIOUS ANIMAL WEAPONS

CHAPTER V. FEAR IN BIRDS

CHAPTER VI. PARENTAL AND EARLY INSTINCTS

CHAPTER VII. THE MEPHITIC SKUNK

CHAPTER VIII. MIMICRY AND WARNING COLOURS IN GRASSHOPPERS

CHAPTER IX. DRAGON-FLY STORMS

CHAPTER X. MOSQUITOES AND PARASITE PROBLEMS

CHAPTER XI. HUMBLE-BEES AND OTHER MATTERS

CHAPTER XII. A NOBLE WASP

CHAPTER XIII. NATURE'S NIGHT-LIGHTS

CHAPTER XIV. FACTS AND THOUGHTS ABOUT SPIDERS

CHAPTER XV. THE DEATH-FEIGNING INSTINCT

CHAPTER XVI. HUMMING-BIRDS

CHAPTER XVII. THE CRESTED SCREAMER

CHAPTER XVIII. THE WOODHEWER FAMILY

CHAPTER XIX. MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE

CHAPTER XX. BIOGRAPHY OF THE VIZCACHA

CHAPTER XXI. THE DYING HUANACO

CHAPTER XXII. THE STRANGE INSTINCTS OF CATTLE

CHAPTER XXIII. HORSE AND MAN

CHAPTER XXIV. SEEN AND LOST

APPENDIX

INDEX




THE NATURALIST IN LA PLATA,


CHAPTER I.

THE DESERT PAMPAS.


During recent years we have heard much about the great and rapid changes
now going on in the plants and animals of all the temperate regions of
the globe colonized by Europeans. These changes, if taken merely as
evidence of material progress, must be a matter of rejoicing to those
who are satisfied, and more than satisfied, with our system of
civilization, or method of outwitting Nature by the removal of all
checks on the undue increase of our own species. To one who finds a
charm in things as they exist in the unconquered provinces of Nature's
dominions, and who, not being over-anxious to reach the end of his
journey, is content to perform it on horseback, or in a waggon drawn by
bullocks, it is permissible to lament the altered aspect of the earth's
surface, together with the disappearance of numberless noble and
beautiful forms, both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. For he
cannot find it in his heart to love the forms by which they are
replaced; these are cultivated and domesticated, and have only become
useful to man at the cost of that grace and spirit which freedom and
wildness give. In numbers they are many--twenty-five millions of sheep
in this district, fifty millions in that, a hundred millions in a
third--but how few are the species in place of those destroyed? and when
the owner of many sheep and much wheat desires variety--for he possesses
this instinctive desire, albeit in conflict with and overborne by the
perverted instinct of destruction--what is there left to him, beyond his
very own, except the weeds that spring up in his fields under all skies,
ringing him round with old-world monotonous forms, as tenacious of their
undesired union with him as the rats and cockroaches that inhabit his
house?

We hear most frequently of North America, New Zealand, and Australia in
this connection; but nowhere on the globe has civilization "written
strange defeatures" more markedly than on that great area of level
country called by English writers _the pampas_, but by the Spanish more
appropriately _La Pampa_--from the Quichua word signifying open space or
country--since it forms in most part one continuous plain, extending on
its eastern border from the river Parana, in latitude 32 degrees, to the
Patagonian formation on the river Colorado, and comprising about two
hundred thousand square miles of humid, grassy country.

This district has been colonized by Europeans since the middle of the
sixteenth century; but down to within a very few years ago immigration
was on too limited a scale to make any very great change; and, speaking
only of the pampean country, the conquered territory was a long,
thinly-settled strip, purely pastoral, and the Indians, with their
primitive mode of warfare, were able to keep back the invaders from the
greater portion of their ancestral hunting-grounds. Not twenty years
ago a ride of two hundred miles, starting from the capital city,
Buenos Ayres, was enough to place one well beyond the furthest
south-western frontier outpost. In 1879 the Argentine Government
determined to rid the country of the aborigines, or, at all events, to
break their hostile and predatory spirit once for all; with the result
that the entire area of the grassy pampas, with a great portion of
the sterile pampas and Patagonia, has been made available to the
emigrant. There is no longer anything to deter the starvelings
of the Old World from possessing themselves of this new land of
promise, flowing, like Australia, with milk and tallow, if not with
honey; any emasculated migrant from a Genoese or Neapolitan
slum is now competent to "fight the wilderness" out there, with his
eight-shilling fowling-piece and the implements of his trade. The
barbarians no longer exist to frighten his soul with dreadful war cries;
they have moved away to another more remote and shadowy region, called
in their own language _Alhuemapu_, and not known to geographers. For
the results so long and ardently wished for have swiftly followed on
General Roca's military expedition; and the changes witnessed during the
last decade on the pampas exceed in magnitude those which had been
previously effected by three centuries of occupation.

In view of this wave of change now rapidly sweeping away the old
order, with whatever beauty and grace it possessed, it might not seem
inopportune at the present moment to give a rapid sketch, from the field
naturalist's point of view, of the great plain, as it existed before the
agencies introduced by European colonists had done their work, and as it
still exists in its remoter parts.

The humid, grassy, pampean country extends, roughly speaking, half-way
from the Atlantic Ocean and the Plata and Paraná rivers to the Andes,
and passes gradually into the "Monte Formation," or _sterile pampa_--a
sandy, more or less barren district, producing a dry, harsh, ligneous
vegetation, principally thorny bushes and low trees, of which the chañar
(Gurliaca decorticans) is the most common; hence the name of
"Chañar-steppe" used by some writers: and this formation extends
southwards down into Patagonia. Scientists have not yet been able to
explain why the pampas, with a humid climate, and a soil exceedingly
rich, have produced nothing but grass, while the dry, sterile
territories on their north, west, and south borders have an arborescent
vegetation. Darwin's conjecture that the extreme violence of the
_pampero,_ or south-west wind, prevented trees from growing, is now
proved to have been ill-founded since the introduction of the Eucalyptus
globulus; for this noble tree attains to an extraordinary height on the
pampas, and exhibits there a luxuriance of foliage never seen in
Australia.

To this level area--my "parish of Selborne," or, at all events, a goodly
portion of it--with the sea on one hand, and on the other the
practically infinite expanse of grassy desert--another sea, not "in vast
fluctuations fixed," but in comparative calm--I should like to conduct
the reader in imagination: a country all the easier to be imagined on
account of the absence of mountains, woods, lakes, and rivers. There is,
indeed, little to be imagined--not even a sense of vastness; and Darwin,
touching on this point, in the _Journal of a Naturalist,_ aptly
says:--"At sea, a person's eye being six feet above the surface of the
water, his horizon is two miles and four-fifths distant. In like manner,
the more level the plain, the more nearly does the horizon approach
within these narrow limits; and this, in my opinion, entirely destroys
the grandeur which one would have imagined that a vast plain would have
possessed."

I remember my first experience of a hill, after having been always shut
within "these narrow limits." It was one of the range of sierras near
Cape Corrientes, and not above eight hundred feet high; yet, when I had
gained the summit, I was amazed at the vastness of the earth, as it
appeared to me from that modest elevation. Persons born and bred on the
pampas, when they first visit a mountainous district, frequently
experience a sensation as of "a ball in the throat" which seems to
prevent free respiration.

In most places the rich, dry soil is occupied by a coarse grass, three
or four feet high, growing in large tussocks, and all the year round of
a deep green; a few slender herbs and trefoils, with long, twining
stems, maintain a frail existence among the tussocks; but the strong
grass crowds out most plants, and scarcely a flower relieves its uniform
everlasting verdure. There are patches, sometimes large areas, where it
does not grow, and these are carpeted by small creeping herbs of a
livelier green, and are gay in spring with flowers, chiefly of the
composite and papilionaceous kinds; and verbenas, scarlet, purple, rose,
and white. On moist or marshy grounds there are also several lilies,
yellow, white, and red, two or three flags, and various other small
flowers; but altogether the flora of the pampas is the poorest in
species of any fertile district on the globe. On moist clayey ground
flourishes the stately pampa grass, Gynerium argenteum, the spears of
which often attain a height of eight or nine feet. I have ridden through
many leagues of this grass with the feathery spikes high as my head, and
often higher. It would be impossible for me to give anything like an
adequate idea of the exquisite loveliness, at certain times and seasons,
of this queen of grasses, the chief glory of the solitary pampa.
Everyone is familiar with it in cultivation; but the garden-plant has a
sadly decaying, draggled look at all times, and to my mind, is often
positively ugly with its dense withering mass of coarse leaves, drooping
on the ground, and bundle of spikes, always of the same dead white or
dirty cream-colour. Now colour--the various ethereal tints that give a
blush to its cloud-like purity--is one of the chief beauties of this
grass on its native soil; and travellers who have galloped across the
pampas at a season of the year when the spikes are dead, and white as
paper or parchment, have certainly missed its greatest charm. The plant
is social, and in some places where scarcely any other kind exists it
covers large areas with a sea of fleecy-white plumes; in late summer,
and in autumn, the tints are seen, varying from the most delicate rose,
tender and illusive as the blush on the white under-plumage of some
gulls, to purple and violaceous. At no time does it look so perfect as
in the evening, before and after sunset, when the softened light imparts
a mistiness to the crowding plumes, and the traveller cannot help
fancying that the tints, which then seem richest, are caught from the
level rays of the sun, or reflected from the coloured vapours of the
afterglow.

The last occasion on which I saw the pampa grass in its full beauty was
at the close of a bright day in March, ending in one of those perfect
sunsets seen only in the wilderness, where no lines of house or hedge
mar the enchanting disorder of nature, and the earth and sky tints are
in harmony. I had been travelling all day with one companion, and for
two hours we had ridden through the matchless grass, which spread away
for miles on every side, the myriads of white spears, touched with
varied colour, blending in the distance and appearing almost like the
surface of a cloud. Hearing a swishing sound behind us, we turned
sharply round, and saw, not forty yards away in our rear, a party of
five mounted Indians, coming swiftly towards us: but at the very moment
we saw them their animals came to a dead halt, and at the same instant
the five riders leaped up, and stood erect on their horses' backs.
Satisfied that they had no intention of attacking us, and were only
looking out for strayed horses, we continued watching them for some
time, as they stood gazing away over the plain in different directions,
motionless and silent, like bronze men on strange horse-shaped pedestals
of dark stone; so dark in their copper skins and long black hair,
against the far-off ethereal sky, flushed with amber light; and at their
feet, and all around, the cloud of white and faintly-blushing plumes.
That farewell scene was printed very vividly on my memory, but cannot be
shown to another, nor could it be even if a Ruskin's pen or a Turner's
pencil were mine; for the flight of the sea-mew is not more impossible
to us than the power to picture forth the image of Nature in our souls,
when she reveals herself in one of those "special moments" which have
"special grace" in situations where her wild beauty has never been
spoiled by man.

At other hours and seasons the general aspect of the plain is
monotonous, and in spite of the unobstructed view, and the unfailing
verdure and sunshine, somewhat melancholy, although never sombre: and
doubtless the depressed and melancholy feeling the pampa inspires in
those who are unfamiliar with it is due in a great measure to the
paucity of life, and to the profound silence. The wind, as may well be
imagined on that extensive level area, is seldom at rest; there, as in
the forest, it is a "bard of many breathings," and the strings it
breathes upon give out an endless variety of sorrowful sounds, from the
sharp fitful sibilations of the dry wiry grasses on the barren places,
to the long mysterious moans that swell and die in the tall polished
rushes of the marsh. It is also curious to note that with a few
exceptions the resident birds are comparatively very silent, even those
belonging to groups which elsewhere are highly loquacious. The reason of
this is not far to seek. In woods and thickets, where birds abound
most, they are continually losing sight of each other, and are only
prevented from scattering by calling often; while the muffling effect on
sound of the close foliage, to' which may be added a spirit of emulation
where many voices are heard, incites most species, especially those that
are social, to exert their voices to the utmost pitch in singing,
calling, and screaming. On the open pampas, birds, which are not
compelled to live concealed on the surface, can see each other at long
distances, and perpetual calling is not needful: moreover, in that still
atmosphere sound travels far. As a rule their voices are strangely
subdued; nature's silence has infected them, and they have become silent
by habit. This is not the case with aquatic species, which are nearly
all migrants from noisier regions, and mass themselves in lagoons and
marshes, where they are all loquacious together. It is also noteworthy
that the subdued bird-voices, some of which are exceedingly sweet and
expressive, and the notes of many of the insects and batrachians have a
great resemblance, and seem to be in accord with the aeolian tones of
the wind in reeds and grasses: a stranger to the pampas, even a
naturalist accustomed to a different fauna, will often find it hard to
distinguish between bird, frog, and insect voices.

The mammalia is poor in species, and with the single exception of the
well-known vizcacha (Lagostomus trichodactylus), there is not one of
which it can truly be said that it is in any special way the product of
the pampas, or, in other words, that its instincts are better suited to
the conditions of the pampas than to those of other districts. As a
fact, this large rodent inhabits a vast extent of country, north, west,
and south of the true pampas, but nowhere is he so thoroughly on his
native heath as on the great grassy plain. There, to some extent, he
even makes his own conditions, like the beaver. He lives in a small
community of twenty or thirty members, in a village of deep-chambered
burrows, all with their pit-like entrances closely grouped together; and
as the village endures for ever, or for an indefinite time, the earth
constantly being brought up forms a mound thirty or forty feet in
diameter; and this protects the habitation from floods on low or level
ground. Again, he is not swift of foot, and all rapacious beasts are his
enemies; he also loves to feed on tender succulent herbs and grasses, to
seek for which he would have to go far afield among the giant grass,
where his watchful foes are lying in wait to seize him; he saves himself
from this danger by making a clearing all round his abode, on which a
smooth turf is formed; and here the animals feed and have their evening
pastimes in comparative security: for when an enemy approaches, he is
easily seen; the note of alarm is sounded, and the whole company
scuttles away to their refuge. In districts having a different soil and
vegetation, as in Patagonia, the vizcachas' curious, unique instincts
are of no special advantage, which makes it seem probable that they have
been formed on the pampas.

How marvellous a thing it seems that the two species of mammalians--the
beaver and the vizcacha--that most nearly simulate men's intelligent
actions in their social organizing instincts, and their habitations,
which are made to endure, should belong to an order so low down as the
Rodents! And in the case of the latter species, it adds to the marvel
when we find that the vizcacha, according to Water-house, is the lowest
of the order in its marsupial affinities.

The vizcacha is the most common rodent on the pampas, and the Rodent
order is represented by the largest number of species. The finest is the
so-called Patagonian hare--Dolichotis patagonica--a beautiful animal
twice as large as a hare, with ears shorter and more rounded, and legs
relatively much longer. The fur is grey and chestnut brown. It is
diurnal in its habits, lives in kennels, and is usually met with in
pairs, or small flocks. It is better suited to a sterile country like
Patagonia than to the grassy humid plain; nevertheless it was found
throughout the whole of the pampas; but in a country where the wisdom of
a Sir William Harcourt was never needed to slip the leash, this king of
the Rodentia is now nearly extinct.

A common rodent is the coypú--Myiopotamus coypú--yellowish in colour
with bright red incisors; a rat in shape, and as large as an otter. It
is aquatic, lives in holes in the banks, and where there are no banks it
makes a platform nest among the rushes. Of an evening they are all out
swimming and playing in the water, conversing together in their strange
tones, which sound like the moans and cries of wounded and suffering
men; and among them the mother-coypú is seen with her progeny, numbering
eight or nine, with as many on her back as she can accommodate, while
the others swim after her, crying for a ride.

With reference to this animal, which, as we have seen, is prolific, a
strange thing once happened in Buenos Ayres. The coypú was much more
abundant fifty years ago than now, and its skin, which has a fine fur
under the long coarse hair, was largely exported to Europe. About that
time the Dictator Rosas issued a decree prohibiting the hunting of the
coypú. The result was that the animals increased and multiplied
exceedingly, and, abandoning their aquatic habits, they became
terrestrial and migratory, and swarmed everywhere in search of food.
Suddenly a mysterious malady fell on them, from which they quickly
perished, and became almost extinct.

What a blessed thing it would be for poor rabbit-worried Australia if a
similar plague should visit that country, and fall on the right animal!
On the other hand, what a calamity if the infection, wide-spread,
incurable, and swift as the wind in its course, should attack the
too-numerous sheep! And who knows what mysterious, unheard-of
retributions that revengeful deity Nature may not be meditating in her
secret heart for the loss of her wild four-footed children slain by
settlers, and the spoiling of her ancient beautiful order!

A small pampa rodent worthy of notice is the Cavia australis, called
_cui_ in the vernacular from its voice: a timid, social, mouse-coloured
little creature, with a low gurgling language, like running babbling
waters; in habits resembling its domestic pied relation the guinea pig.
It loves to run on clean ground, and on the pampas makes little
rat-roads all about its hiding-place, which little roads tell a story to
the fox, and such like; therefore the little cavy's habits, and the
habits of all cavies, I fancy, are not so well suited to the humid
grassy region as to other districts, with sterile ground to run and play
upon, and thickets in which to hide.

A more interesting animal is the Ctenomys magellanica, a little less
than the rat in size, with a shorter tail, pale grey fur, and red
incisors. It is called _tuco-tuco_ from its voice, and _oculto_ from its
habits; for it is a dweller underground, and requires a loose, sandy
soil in which, like the mole, it may _swim_ beneath the surface.
Consequently the pampa, with its heavy, moist mould, is not the tuco's
proper place; nevertheless, wherever there is a stretch of sandy soil,
or a range of dunes, there it is found living; not seen, but heard; for
all day long and all night sounds its voice, resonant and loud, like a
succession of blows from a hammer; as if a company of gnomes were
toiling far down underfoot, beating on their anvils, first with strong
measured strokes, then with lighter and faster, and with a swing and
rhythm as if the little men were beating in time to some rude chant
unheard above the surface. How came these isolated colonies of a species
so subterranean in habits, and requiring a sandy soil to move in, so far
from their proper district--that sterile country from which they are
separated by wide, unsuitable areas? They cannot perform long overland
journeys like the rat. Perhaps the dunes have travelled, carrying their
little cattle with them.

Greatest among the carnivores are the two cat-monarchs of South America,
the jaguar and puma. Whatever may be their relative positions elsewhere,
on the pampas the puma is mightiest, being much more abundant and better
able to thrive than its spotted rival. Versatile in its preying habits,
its presence on the pampa is not surprising; but probably only an
extreme abundance of large mammalian prey, which has not existed in
recent times, could have, tempted an animal of the river and
forest-loving habits of the jaguar to colonize this cold, treeless, and
comparatively waterless desert. There are two other important cats. The
grass-cat, not unlike Felis catus in its robust form and dark colour,
but a larger, more powerful animal, inexpressibly savage in disposition.
The second, Felis geoffroyi, is a larger and more beautiful animal,
coloured like a leopard; it is called wood-cat, and, as the name would
seem to indicate, is an intruder from wooded districts north of the
pampas.

There are two canines: one is Azara's beautiful grey fox-like dog,
purely a fox in habits, and common everywhere. The other is far more
interesting and extremely rare; it is called _aguará,_ its nearest ally
being the _aguará-guazú,_ the Canis jubatus or maned wolf of
naturalists, found north of the pampean district. The aguará is smaller
and has no mane; it is like the dingo in size, but slimmer and with a
sharper nose, and lias a much brighter red colour. At night when camping
out I have heard its dismal screams, but the screamer was sought in
vain; while from the gauchos of the frontier I could only learn that it
is a harmless, shy, solitary animal, that ever flies to remoter wilds
from its destroyer, man. They offered me a skin--what more could I want?
Simple souls! it was no more to me than the skin of a dead dog, with
long, bright red hair. Those who love dead animals may have them in any
number by digging with a. spade in that vast sepulchre of the pampas,
where perished the hosts of antiquity. I love the living that are above
the earth; and how small a remnant they are in South America we know,
and now yearly becoming more precious as it dwindles away.

The pestiferous skunk is universal; and there are two quaint-looking
weasels, intensely black in colour, and grey on the back and flat crown.
One, the Galictis barbara, is a large bold animal that hunts in
companies; and when these long-bodied creatures sit up erect, glaring
with beady eyes, grinning and chattering at the passer-by, they look
like little friars in black robes and grey cowls; but the expression on
their round faces is malignant and bloodthirsty beyond anything in
nature, and it would perhaps be more decent to liken them to devils
rather than to humans.

On the pampas there is, strictly speaking, only one ruminant, the Cervus
campestris, which is common. The most curious thing about this animal is
that the male emits a rank, musky odour, so powerful that when the wind
blows from it the effluvium comes in nauseating gusts to the nostrils
from a distance exceeding two miles. It is really astonishing that only
one small ruminant should be found on this immense grassy area, so
admirably suited to herbivorous quadrupeds, a portion of which at the
present moment affords sufficient pasture to eighty millions of sheep,
cattle, and horses. In La Plata the author of _The Mammoth and the
Flood_ will find few to quarrel with his doctrine.

Of Edentates there are four. The giant armadillo does not range so far,
and the delicate little pink fairy armadillo, the truncated
Chlamydophorus, is a dweller in the sand-dunes of Mendoza, and has never
colonized the grassy pampas. The Tatusia hybrida, called "little mule"
from the length of its ears, and the Dasypus tricinctus, which, when
disturbed, rolls itself into a ball, the wedge-shaped head and
wedge-shaped tail admirably fitting into the deep-cut shell side by
side; and the _quirquincho_ (Dasypus minutus), all inhabit the pampa,
are diurnal, and feed exclusively on insects, chiefly ants. Wherever the
country becomes settled, these three disappear, owing to the dulness of
their senses, especially that of sight, and to the diurnal habit, which
was an advantage to them, and enabled them to survive when rapacious
animals, which are mostly nocturnal, were their only enemies. The
fourth, and most important, is the hairy armadillo, with habits which
are in strange contrast to those of its perishing congeners, and which
seem to mock many hard-and-fast rules concerning animal life. It is
omnivorous, and will thrive on anything from grass to flesh, found dead
and in all stages of decay, or captured by means of its own strategy.
Furthermore, its habits change to suit its conditions: thus, where
nocturnal carnivores are its enemies, it is diurnal; but where man
appears as a chief persecutor, it becomes nocturnal. It is much hunted
for its flesh, dogs being trained for the purpose; yet it actually
becomes more abundant as population increases in any district; and, if
versatility in habits or adaptiveness can be taken as a measure of
intelligence, this poor armadillo, a survival of the past, so old on the
earth as to have existed contemporaneously with the giant glyptodon, is
the superior of the large-brained cats and canines.

To finish with the mammalia, there are two interesting opossums, both of
the genus Didelphys, but in habits as wide apart as cat from otter. One
of these marsupials appears so much at home on the plains that I almost
regret having said that the vizcacha alone gives us the idea of being in
its habits the _product_ of the pampas. This animal--Didelphys
crassicaudata--has a long slender, wedge-, shaped head and body,
admirably adapted for pushing through the thick grass and rushes; for it
is both terrestrial and aquatic, therefore well suited to inhabit low,
level plains liable to be flooded. On dry land its habits are similar to
those of a weasel; in lagoons, where it dives and swims with great ease,
it constructs a globular nest suspended from the rushes. The fur is
soft, of a rich yellow, reddish above, and on the sides and under
surfaces varying in some parts to orange, in others exhibiting beautiful
copper and terra-cotta tints. These lovely tints and the metallic lustre
soon fade from the fur, otherwise this animal would be much sought after
in the interests of those who love to decorate themselves with the
spoils of beautiful dead animals--beast and bird. The other opossum is
the black and white Didelphys azarae; and it is indeed strange to find
this animal on the pampas, although its presence there is not so
mysterious as that of the tuco-tuco. It shuffles along slowly and
awkwardly on the ground, but is a great traveller nevertheless. Tschudi
met it mountaineering on the Andes at an enormous altitude, and, true to
its lawless nature, it confronted me in Patagonia, where the books say
no marsupial dwells. In every way it is adapted to an arboreal life, yet
it is everywhere found on the level country, far removed from the
conditions which one would imagine to be necessary to its existence. For
how many thousands of years has this marsupial been a dweller on the
plain, all its best faculties unexercised, its beautiful grasping hands
pressed to the ground, and its prehensile tail dragged like an idle rope
behind it! Yet, if one is brought to a tree, it will take to it as
readily as a duck to water, or an armadillo to earth, climbing up the
trunk and about the branches with a monkey-like agility. How reluctant
Nature seems in some cases to undo her own work! How long she will
allow a specialized organ, with the correlated instinct, to rest without
use, yet ready to flash forth on the instant, bright and keen-edged, as
in the ancient days of strife, ages past, before peace came to dwell on
earth!

The avi-fauna is relatively much richer than the mammalia, owing to the
large number of aquatic species, most of which are migratory with their
"breeding" or "subsistence-areas" on the pampas. In more senses than one
they constitute a "floating population," and their habits have in no way
been modified by the conditions of the country. The order, including
storks, ibises, herons, spoonbills, and flamingoes, counts about
eighteen species; and the most noteworthy birds in it are two great
ibises nearly as large as turkeys, with mighty resonant voices. The duck
order is very rich, numbering at least twenty species, including two
beautiful upland geese, winter visitors from Magellanic lands, and two
swans, the lovely black-necked, and the pure white with rosy bill. Of
rails, or ralline birds, there are ten or twelve, ranging from a small
spotted creature no bigger than a thrush to some large majestic birds.
One is the courlan, called "crazy widow" from its mourning plumage and
long melancholy screams, which on still evenings may be heard a league
away. Another is the graceful variegated _ypicaha,_ fond of social
gatherings, where the birds perform a dance and make the desolate
marshes resound with their insane humanlike voices. A smaller kind,
Porphyriops melanops, has a night-cry like a burst of shrill hysterical
laughter, which has won for it the name of "witch;" while another,
Rallus rythyrhynchus, is called "little donkey" from its braying cries.
Strange eerie voices have all these birds. Of the remaining aquatic
species, the most important is the spur-winged crested screamer; a noble
bird as large as a swan, yet its favourite pastime is to soar upwards
until it loses itself to sight in the blue ether, whenca it pours forth
its resounding choral notes, which reach the distant earth clarified,
and with a rhythmic swell and fall as of chiming bells. It also sings by
night, "counting the hours," the gauchos say, and where they have
congregated together in tens of thousands the mighty roar of their
combined voices produces an astonishingly grand effect.

The largest aquatic order is that of the Limicolse--snipes, plover, and
their allies--which has about twenty-five species. The vociferous
spur-winged lapwing; the beautiful black and white stilt; a true snipe,
and a painted snipe, are, strictly speaking, the only residents; and it
is astonishing to find, that, of the five-and-twenty species, at least
thirteen are visitors from North America, several of them having their
breeding-places quite away in the Arctic regions. This is one of those
facts concerning the annual migration of birds which almost stagger
belief; for among them are species with widely different habits, upland,
marsh and sea-shore birds, and in their great biannual journey they pass
through a variety of climates, visiting many countries where the
conditions seem suited to their requirements. Nevertheless, in
September, and even as early as August, they begin to arrive on the
pampas, the golden plover often still wearing his black nuptial dress;
singly and in pairs, in small flocks, and in clouds they come--curlew,
godwit, plover, tatler, tringa--piping the wild notes to which the
Greenlander listened in June, now to the gaucho herdsman on the green
plains of La Plata, then to the wild Indian in his remote village; and
soon, further south, to the houseless huanaco-hunter in the grey
wilderness of Patagonia.

Here is a puzzle for ornithologists. In summer on the pampas we have a
godwit--Limosa hudsonica; in March it goes north to breed; later in the
season flocks of the same species arrive from the south to winter on the
pampas. And besides this godwit, there are several other North American
species, which have colonies in the southern hemi-spere, with a reversed
migration and breeding season. Why do these southern birds winter so far
south? Do they really breed in Patagonia? If so, their migration is an
extremely limited one compared with that of the northern birds--seven or
eight hundred miles, on the outside, in one case, against almost as many
thousands of miles in the other. Considering that some species which
migrate as far south as Patagonia breed in the Arctic regions as far
north as latitude 82 degrees, and probably higher still, it would be
strange indeed if none of the birds which winter in Patagonia and on the
pampas were summer visitors to that great austral continent, which has
an estimated area twice as large as that of Europe, and a climate milder
than the arctic one. The migrants would have about six hundred miles of
sea to cross from Tierra del Fuego; but we know that the golden plover
and other species, which sometimes touch at the Bermudas when
travelling, fly much further than that without resting. The fact that a
common Argentine titlark, a non-migrant and a weak flyer, has been met
with at the South Shetland Islands, close to the antarctic continent,
shows that the journey may be easily accomplished by birds with strong
flight; and that even the winter climate of that unknown land is not too
severe to allow an accidental colonist, like this small delicate bird,
to survive. The godwit, already mentioned, has been observed in flocks
at the Falkland Islands in May, that is, three months after the same
species had taken its autumal departure from the neighbouring mainland.
Can it be believed that these late visitors to the Falklands were
breeders in Patagonia, and had migrated east to winter in so bleak a
region? It is far more probable that they came from the south. Officers
of sailing ships beating round Cape Horn might be able to settle this
question definitely by looking out, and listening at night, for flights
of birds, travelling north from about the first week in January to the
end of February; and in September and October travelling south. Probably
not fewer than a dozen species of the plover order are breeders on the
great austral continent; also other aquatic birds--ducks and geese; and
many Passerine birds, chiefly of the Tyrant family.

Should the long projected Australasian expedition to the South Polar
regions ever be carried to a successful issue, there will probably be
important results for ornithology, in spite of the astounding theory
which has found a recent advocate in Canon Tristram, that all life
originated at the North Pole, whence it spread over the globe, but never
succeeded in crossing the deep sea surrounding the antarctic continent,
which has consequently remained till now desolate, "a giant ash (and
ice) of death." Nor is it unlikely that animals of a higher class than
birds exist there; and the discovery of new mammalians, differing in
type from those we know, would certainly be glad tidings to most
students of nature.

Land birds on the pampas are few in species and in numbers. This may be
accounted for by the absence of trees and other elevations on which
birds prefer to roost and nest; and by the scarcity of food. Insects are
few in dry situations; and the large perennial grasses, which occupy
most of the ground, yield a miserable yearly harvest of a few minute
seeds; so that this district is a poor one both for soft and hard billed
birds. Hawks of several genera, in moderate numbers, are there, but
generally keep to the marshes. Eagles and vultures are somewhat
unworthily represented by carrion-hawks (Polyborinae); the lordly
carancho, almost eagle-like in size, black and crested, with a very
large, pale blue, hooked beak--his battle axe: and his humble follower
and jackal, the brown and harrier-like chimango. These nest on the
ground, are versatile in their habits, carrion-eaters, also killers on
their own account, and, like wild dogs, sometimes hunt in bands, which
gives them an advantage. They are the unfailing attendants of all
flesh-hunters, human or feline; and also furiously pursue and persecute
all eagles and true vultures that venture on that great sea of grass, to
wander thereafter, for ever lost and harried, "the Hagars and Ishmaels
of their kind."

The owls are few and all of wide-ranging species. The most common is the
burrowing-owl, found in both Americas. Not a retiring owl this, but all
day long, in cold and in heat, it stands exposed at the mouth of its
kennel, or on the vizcacha's mound, staring at the passer-by with an
expression of grave surprise and reprehension in its round yellow eyes;
male and female invariably together, standing stiff and erect, almost
touching--of all birds that pair for life the most Darby and Joan like.

Of the remaining land birds, numbering about forty species, a few that
are most attractive on account of their beauty, engaging habits, or
large size, may be mentioned here. On the southern portion of the pampas
the military starling (Sturnella) is found, and looks like the European
starling, with the added beauty of a scarlet breast: among resident
pampas birds the only one with a touch of brilliant colouring. It has a
pleasing, careless song, uttered on the wing, and in winter congregates
in great flocks, to travel slowly northwards over the plains. When thus
travelling the birds observe a kind of order, and the flock feeding
along the ground shows a very extended front--a representation in
bird-life of the "thin red line"--and advances by the hindmost birds
constantly flying over the others and alighting in the front ranks.

Among the tyrant-birds are several species of the beautiful wing-banded
genus, snow-white in colour, with black on the wings and tail: these are
extremely graceful birds, and strong flyers, and in desert places, where
man seldom intrudes, they gather to follow the traveller, calling to
each other with low whistling notes, and in the distance look like white
flowers as they perch on the topmost stems of the tall bending grasses.

The most characteristic pampean birds are the tinamous--called
partridges in the vernacular--the rufous tinamou, large as a fowl, and
the spotted tinamou, which is about the size of the English partridge.
Their habits are identical: both lay eggs of a beautiful wine-purple
colour, and in both species the young acquire the adult plumage and
power of flight when very small, and fly better than the adults. They
have small heads, slender curved beaks, unfeathered legs and feet, and
are tailless; the plumage is deep yellowish, marked with black and brown
above. They live concealed, skulking like rails through the tall grass,
fly reluctantly, and when driven up, their flight is exceedingly noisy
and violent, the bird soon exhausting itself. They are solitary, but
many live in proximity, frequently calling to each other with soft
plaintive voices. The evening call-notes of the larger bird are
flute-like in character, and singularly sweet and expressive.

The last figure to be introduced into this sketch--which is not a
catalogue--is that of the Rhea. Glyptodon, Toxodon, Mylodon,
Megatherium, have passed away, leaving no descendants, and only pigmy
representatives if any; but among the feathered inhabitants of the pampa
the grand archaic ostrich of America survives from a time when there
were also giants among the avians. Vain as such efforts usually are, one
cannot help trying to imagine something of the past history of this
majestic bird, before man came to lead the long chase now about to end
so mournfully. Its fleetness, great staying powers, and beautiful
strategy when hunted, make it seem probable that it was not without
pursuers, other than the felines, among its ancient enemies, long-winded
and tenacious of their quarry; and these were perhaps of a type still
represented by the wolf or hound-like aguará and aguara-guazú. It might
be supposed that when almost all the larger forms, both mammal and bird,
were overtaken by destruction, and when the existing rhea was on the
verge of extinction, these long-legged swift canines changed their
habits and lost their bold spirit, degenerating at last into hunters of
small birds and mammals, on which they are said to live.

The rhea possesses a unique habit, which is a puzzle to us, although it
probably once had some significance--namely, that of running, when
hunted, with one wing raised vertically, like a great sail--a veritable
"ship of the wilderness." In every way it is adapted to the conditions
of the pampas in a far greater degree than other pampean birds, only
excepting the rufous and spotted tinamous. Its commanding stature gives
it a wide horizon; and its dim, pale, bluish-grey colour assimilates to
that of the haze, and renders it invisible at even a moderate distance.
Its large form fades out of sight mysteriously, and the hunter strains
his eyes in vain to distinguish it on the blue expanse. Its figure and
carriage have a quaint majestic grace, somewhat unavian in character,
and peculiar to itself. There are few more strangely fascinating sights
in nature than that of the old black-necked cock bird, standing with
raised agitated wings among the tall plumed grasses, and calling
together his scattered hens with hollow boomings and long mysterious
suspira-tions, as if a wind blowing high up in the void sky had found a
voice. Rhea-hunting with the bolas, on a horse possessing both speed and
endurance, and trained to follow the bird in all his quick doublings, is
unquestionably one of the most fascinating forms of sport ever invented,
by man. The quarry has even more than that fair chance of escape,
without which all sport degenerates into mere butchery, unworthy of
rational beings; moreover, in this unique method of hunting the ostrich
the capture depends on a preparedness for all the shifts and sudden
changes of course practised by the bird when closely followed, which is
like instinct or intuition; and, finally, in a dexterity in casting the
bolas at the right moment, with a certain aim, which no amount of
practice can give to those who are not to the manner born.

This 'wild mirth of the desert,' which the gaucho has known for the last
three centuries, is now passing away, for the rhea's fleetness can no
longer avail him. He may scorn the horse and his rider, what time he
lifts himself up, but the cowardly murderous methods of science, and a
systematic war of extermination, have left him no chance. And with the
rhea go the flamingo, antique and splendid; and the swans in their
bridal plumage; and the rufous tinamou--sweet and mournful melodist of
the eventide; and the noble crested screamer, that clarion-voiced
watch-bird of the night in the wilderness. Those, and the other large
avians, together with the finest of the mammalians, will shortly be lost
to the pampas utterly as the great bustard is to England, and as the
wild turkey and bison and many other species will shortly be lost to
North America. What a wail there would be in the world if a sudden
destruction were to fall on the accumulated art-treasures of the
National Gallery, and the marbles in the British Museum, and the
contents of the King's Library--the old prints and' mediaeval
illuminations! And these are only the work of human hands and
brains--impressions of individual genius on perishable material,
immortal only in the sense that the silken cocoon of the dead moth is
so, because they continue to exist and shine when the artist's hands and
brain are dust:--and man has the long day of life before him in which to
do again things like these, and better than these, if there is any truth
in evolution. But the forms of life in the two higher vertebrate classes
are Nature's most perfect work; and the life of even a single species is
of incalculably greater value to mankind, for what it teaches and would
continue to teach, than all the chiselled marbles and painted canvases
the world contains; though doubtless there are many persons who are
devoted to art, but blind to some things greater than art, who will set
me down as a Philistine for saying so. And, above all others, we should
protect and hold sacred those types, Nature's masterpieces, which are
first singled out for destruction on account of their size, or
splendour, or rarity, and that false detestable glory which is accorded
to their most successful slayers. In ancient times the spirit of life
shone brightest in these; and when others that shared the earth with
them were taken by death they were left, being more worthy of
perpetuation. Like immortal flowers they have drifted down to us on the
ocean of time, and their strangeness and beauty bring to our
imaginations a dream and a picture of that unknown world, immeasurably
far removed, where man was not: and when they perish, something of
gladness goes out from nature, and the sunshine loses something of its
brightness. Nor does their loss affect us and our times only. The
species now being exterminated, not only in South America but everywhere
on the globe, are, so far as we know, untouched by decadence. They are
links in a chain, and branches on the tree of life, with their roots in
a past inconceivably remote; and but for our action they would continue
to flourish, reaching outward to an equally distant future, blossoming
into higher and more beautiful forms, and gladdening innumerable
generations of our descendants. But we think nothing of all this: we
must give full scope to our passion for taking life, though by so doing
we "ruin the great work of time;" not in the sense in which the poet
used those words, but in one truer, and wider, and infinitely sadder.
Only when this sporting rage has spent itself, when there are no longer
any animals of the larger kinds remaining, the loss we are now
inflicting on this our heritage, in which we have a life-interest only,
will be rightly appreciated. It is hardly to be supposed or hoped that
posterity will feel satisfied with our monographs of extinct species,
and the few crumbling bones and faded feathers, which may possibly
survive half a dozen centuries in some happily-placed museum. On the
contrary, such dreary mementoes will only serve to remind them of their
loss; and if they remember us at all, it will only be to hate our
memory, and our age--this enlightened, scientific, humanitarian age,
which should have for a motto "Let us slay all noble and beautiful
things, for tomorrow we die."




CHAPTER II.

THE PUMA, OB LION OF AMERICA.


The Puma has been singularly unfortunate in its biographers. Formerly it
often happened that writers were led away by isolated and highly
exaggerated incidents to attribute very shining qualities to their
favourite animals; the lion of the Old World thus came to be regarded as
brave and I magnanimous above all beasts of the field--the Bayard of the
four-footed kind, a reputation which these prosaic and sceptical times
have not suffered it to keep. Precisely the contrary has happened with
the puma of literature; for, although to those personally acquainted
with the habits of this lesser lion of the New World it is known to
possess a marvellous courage and daring, it is nevertheless
always spoken of in books of natural history as the most pusillanimous
of the larger carnivores. It does not attack man, and Azara is perfectly
correct when he affirms that it never hurts, or threatens to hurt, man
or child, even when it finds them sleeping. This, however, is not a full
statement of the facts; the puma will not even defend itself against
man. How natural, then, to conclude that it is too timid to attack a
human being, or to defend itself, but scarcely philosophical; for even
the most cowardly carnivores we know--dogs and hyaenas, for
instance--will readily attack a disabled or sleeping man when pressed by
hunger; and when driven to desperation no animal is too small or too
feeble to make a show of resistance. In such a case "even the armadillo
defends itself," as the gaucho proverb says. Besides, the conclusion is
in contradiction to many other well-known facts. Putting-aside the
puma's passivity in the presence of man, it is a bold hunter that
invariably prefers large to small game; in desert places killing
peccary, tapir, ostrich, deer, huanaco, &c., all powerful, well-armed,
or swift animals. Huanaco skeletons seen in Patagonia almost invariably
have the neck dislocated, showing that the puma was the executioner.
Those only who have hunted the huanaco on the sterile plains and
mountains it inhabits know how wary, keen-scented, and fleet of foot it
is. I once spent several weeks with a surveying party in a district
where pumas were very abundant, and saw not less than half a dozen deer
every day, freshly killed in most cases, and all with dislocated necks.
Where prey is scarce and difficult to capture, the puma, after
satisfying its hunger, invariably conceals the animal it has killed,
covering it over carefully with grass and brushwood; these deer,
however, had all been left exposed to the caracaras and foxes after a
portion of the breast had been eaten, and in many cases the flesh had
not been touched, the captor having satisfied itself with sucking the
blood. It struck me very forcibly that the puma of the desert pampas is,
among mammals, like the peregrine falcon of the same district among
birds; for there this wide-ranging raptor only attacks comparatively
large birds, and, after fastidiously picking a meal from the flesh of
the head and neck, abandons the untouched body to the polybori and other
hawks of the more ignoble sort.

In pastoral districts the puma is very destructive to the larger
domestic animals, and has an extraordinary fondness for horseflesh. This
was first noticed by Molina, whose _Natural History of Chili_ was
written a century and a half ago. In Patagonia I heard on all sides that
it was extremely difficult to breed horses, as the colts were mostly
killed by the pumas. A native told me that on one occasion, while
driving his horses home through the thicket, a puma sprang out of the
bushes on to a colt following behind the troop, killing it before his
eyes and not more than six yards from his horse's head. In this
instance, my informant said, the puma alighted directly on the colt's
back, with one fore foot grasping its bosom, while with the other it
seized the head, and, giving it a violent wrench, dislocated the neck.
The colt fell to the earth as if shot, and he affirmed that it was dead
before it touched the ground.

Naturalists have thought it strange that the horse, once common
throughout America, should have become extinct over a continent
apparently so well suited to it and where it now multiplies so greatly.
As a fact wherever pumas abound the wild horse of the present time,
introduced from Europe, can hardly maintain its existence. Formerly in
many places horses ran wild and multiplied to an amazing extent, but
this happened, I believe, only in districts where the puma was scarce or
had already been driven out by man. My own experience is that on the
desert pampas wild horses are exceedingly scarce, and from all accounts
it is the same throughout Patagonia.

Next to horseflesh, sheep is preferred, and where the puma can come at a
flock, he will not trouble himself to attack horned cattle. In Patagonia
especially I found this to be the case. I resided for some time at an
estancia close to the town of El Carmen, on the Rio Negro, which during
my stay was infested by a very bold and cunning puma. To protect the
sheep from his attacks an enclosure was made of upright willow-poles
fifteen feet long, while the gate, by which he would have to enter, was
close to the house and nearly six feet high. In spite of the
difficulties thus put in the way, and of the presence of several large
dogs, also of the watch we kept in the hope of shooting him, every
cloudy night he came, and after killing one or more sheep got safely
away. One dark night he killed four sheep; I detected him in the act,
and going up to the gate, was trying to make out his invisible form in
the gloom as he flitted about knocking the sheep over, when suddenly he
leaped clear over my head and made his escape, the bullets I sent after
him in the dark failing to hit him. Yet at this place twelve or fourteen
calves, belonging to the milch cows, were every night shut into a small
brushwood pen, at a distance from the house where the enemy could easily
have destroyed every one of them. When I expressed surprise at this
arrangement, the owner said that the puma was not fond of calves' flesh,
and came only for the sheep. Frequently after his nocturnal visits we
found, by tracing his footprints in the loose sand, that he had actually
used the calves' pen as a place of concealment while waiting to make his
attack on the sheep.

The puma often kills full-grown cows and horses, but exhibits a still
greater daring when attacking the jaguar, the largest of American
carnivores, although, compared with its swift, agile enemy, as heavy as
a rhinoceros. Azara states that it is generally believed in La Plata and
Paraguay that the puma attacks and conquers the jaguar; but he did not
credit what he heard, which was not strange, since he had already set
the puma down as a cowardly animal, because it does not attempt to harm
man or child. Nevertheless, it is well known that where the two species
inhabit the same district they are at enmity, the puma being the
persistent persecutor of the jaguar, following and harassing it as a
tyrant-bird harasses an eagle or hawk, moving about it with such
rapidity as to confuse it, and, when an opportunity occurs, springing
upon its back and inflicting terrible wounds with teeth and claws.
Jaguars with scarred backs are frequently killed, and others, not long
escaped from their tormentors, have been found so greatly lacerated that
they were easily overcome by the hunters.

In Kingsley's American _Standard Natural History_, it is stated that the
puma in North California has a feud with the grizzly bear similar to
that of the southern animal with the jaguar. In its encounter with the
grizzly it is said to be always the victor; and this is borne out by the
finding of the bodies of bears, which have evidently perished in the
struggle.

How strange that this most cunning, bold, and bloodthirsty of the
Felidae, the persecutor of the jaguar and the scourge of the ruminants
in the regions it inhabits, able to kill its prey with the celerity of a
rifle bullet, never attacks a human being! Even the cowardly,
carrion-feeding dog will attack a man when it can do so with impunity;
but in places where the puma is the only large beast of prey, it is
notorious that it is there perfectly safe for even a small child to go
out and sleep on the plain. At the same time it will not fly from man
(though the contrary is always stated in books of Natural History)
except in places where it is continually persecuted. Nor is this all: it
will not, as a rule, even defend itself against man, although in some
rare instances it has been known to do so.

The mysterious, gentle instinct of this ungentle species, which causes
the gauchos of the pampas to name it man's friend--"amigo del
cristiano"--has been persistently ignored by all travellers and
naturalists who have mentioned the puma. They have thus made it a very
incongruous creature, strong enough to kill a horse, yet so cowardly
withal that it invariably flies from a human being--even from a sleeping
child! Possibly its real reputation was known to some of those who havo
spoken about it; if so, they attributed what they heard to the love of
the marvellous and the romantic, natural to the non-scientific mind; or
else preferred not to import into their writings matter which has so
great a likeness to fable, and might have the effect of imperilling
their reputation for sober-mindedness.

It is, however, possible that the singular instinct of tho southern
puma, which is unique among animals in a state of nature, is not
possessed by the entire species, ranging as it does over a hundred
degrees of latitude, from British North America to Tierra del Fuego. The
widely different conditions of life in the various regions it inhabits
must necessarily have caused some divergence. Concerning its habits in
the dense forests of the Amazonian region, where it must have developed
special instincts suited to its semi-arboreal life, scarcely anything
has been recorded. Everyone is, however, familiar with the dreaded
cougar, catamount, or panther--sometimes called "painter"--of North
American literature, thrilling descriptions of encounters with this
imaginary man-eating monster being freely scattered through the
backwoods or border romances, many of them written by authors who have
the reputation of being true to nature. It may be true that this cougar
of a cold climate did occasionally attack man, or, as it is often
stated, follow him in the forest with the intention of springing on him
unawares; but on this point nothing definite will ever be known, as the
pioneers hunters of the past were only anxious to shoot cougar and not
to study its instinct and disposition. It is now many years since
Audubon and Bachman wrote, "This animal, which has excited so much
terror in the minds of the ignorant and timid, has been nearly
exterminated in all the Atlantic States, and we do not recollect a
single well-authenticated instance where any hunter's life fell a
sacrifice in a cougar hunt." It might be added, I believe, that no
authentic instance has been recorded of the puma making an unprovoked
attack on any human being. In South America also the traveller in the
wilderness is sometimes followed by a puma; but he would certainly be
very much surprised if told that it follows with the intention of
springing on him unawares and devouring his flesh.

I have spoken of the comparative ease with which the puma overcomes even
large animals, comparing it in this respect with the peregrine falcon;
but all predacious species are liable to frequent failures, sometimes to
fatal mishaps, and even the cunning, swift-killing puma is no exception.
Its attacks are successfully resisted by the ass, which does not, like
the horse, lose his presence of mind, but when assaulted thrusts his
head well down between its fore-legs and kicks violently until the enemy
is thrown or driven off. Pigs, when in large herds, also safely defy the
puma, massing themselves together for defence in their well-known
manner, and presenting a serried line of tusks to the aggressor. During
my stay in Patagonia a puma met its fate in a manner so singular that
the incident caused considerable sensation among the settlers on the Rio
Negro at the time. A man named Linares, the chief of the tame Indians
settled in the neighbourhood of El Carmen, while riding near the river
had his curiosity aroused by the appearance and behaviour of a young cow
standing alone in the grass, her head, armed with long and exceedingly
sharp horns, much raised, and watching his approach in a manner which
betokened a state of dangerous excitement. She had recently dropped her
calf, and he at once conjectured that it had been attacked, and perhaps
killed, by some animal of prey. To satisfy himself on this point he
began to search for it, and while thus engaged the cow repeatedly
charged him with the greatest fury. Presently he discovered the calf
lying dead among the long grass; and by its side lay a full-grown puma,
also dead, and with a large wound in its side, just behind the shoulder.
The calf had been killed by the puma, for its throat showed the wounds
of large teeth, and the puma had been killed by the cow. When he saw it
he could, he affirmed, scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses,
for was an unheard-of thing that a puma should be injured by any other
animal. His opinion was that it had come down from the hills in a
starving condition, and having sprung upon the calf, the taste of blood
had made it for a moment careless of its own safety, and during that
moment the infuriated cow had charged, and driving one of her long sharp
horns into some vital part, killed it instantly.

The puma is, with the exception of some monkeys, the most playful animal
in existence. The young of all the Felidae spend a large portion of
their time in characteristic gambols; the adults, however, acquire a
grave and dignified demeanour, only the female playing on occasions with
her offspring; but this she always does with a certain formality of
manner, as if the relaxation were indulged in not spontaneously, but for
the sake of the young and as being a necessary part of their education.
Some writer has described the lion's assumption of gaiety as more grim
than its most serious moods. The puma at heart is always a kitten,
taking unmeasured delight in its frolics, and when, as often happens,
one lives alone in the desert, it will amuse itself by the hour fighting
mock battles or playing at hide-and-seek with imaginary companions, and
lying in wait and putting all its wonderful strategy in practice to
capture a passing butterfly. Azara kept a young male for four months,
which spent its whole time playing with the slaves. This animal, he
says, would not refuse any food offered to it; but when not hungry it
would bury the meat in the sand, and when inclined to eat dig it up,
and, taking it to the water-trough, wash it clean. I have only known one
puma kept as a pet, and this animal, in seven or eight years had never
shown a trace of ill-temper. When approached, he would lie down, purring
loudly, and twist himself about a person's legs, begging to be caressed.
A string or handkerchief drawn about was sufficient to keep him in a
happy state of excitement for an hour; and when one person was tired of
playing with him he was ready for a game with the next comer.

I was told by a person who had spent most of his life on the pampas that
on one occasion, when travelling in the neighbourhood of Cape
Corrientes, his horse died under him, and he was compelled to continue
his journey on foot, burdened with his heavy native horse-gear. At night
he made his bed under the shelter of a rock, on the slope of a stony
sierra; a bright moon was shining, and about nine o'clock in the evening
four pumas appeared, two adults with their two half-grown young. Not
feeling the least alarm at their presence, he did not stir; and after a
while they began to gambol together close to him, concealing themselves
from each other among the rocks, just as kittens do, and frequently
while pursuing one another leaping over him. He continued watching them
until past midnight, then fell asleep, and did not wake until morning,
when they had left him.

This man was an Englishman by birth, but having gone very young to South
America he had taken kindly to the semi-barbarous life of the gauchos,
and had imbibed all their peculiar notions, one of which is that human
life is not worth very much. "What does it matter?" they often say, and
shrug their shoulders, when told of a comrade's death; "so many
beautiful horses die!" I asked him if he had ever killed a puma, and he
replied that he had killed only one and had sworn never to kill another.
He said that while out one day with another gaucho looking for cattle a
puma was found. It sat up with its back against a stone, and did not
move even when his companion threw the noose of his lasso over its neck.
My informant then dismounted, and, drawing his knife, advanced to kill
it: still the puma made no attempt to free itself from the lasso, but it
seemed to know, he said, what was coming, for it began to tremble, the
tears ran from its eyes, and it whined in the most pitiful manner. He
killed it as it sat there unresisting before him, but after
accomplishing the deed felt that he had committed a murder. It was the
only thing ho had ever done in his life, he added, which filled him with
remorse when he remembered it. This I thought a rather startling
declaration, as I knew that he had killed several individuals of his own
species in duels, fought with knives, in the fashion of the gauchos.

All who have killed or witnessed the killing of the puma--and I have
questioned scores of hunters on this point--agree that it resigns itself
in this unresisting, pathetic manner to death at the hands of man.
Claudio Gay, in his _Natural History of Chili,_ says, "When attacked by
man its energy and daring at once forsake it, and it becomes a weak,
inoffensive animal, and trembling, and uttering piteous moans, and
shedding abundant tears, it seems to implore compassion from a generous
enemy." The enemy is not often generous; but many gauchos have assured
me, when speaking on this subject, that although they kill the puma
readily to protect their domestic animals, they consider it an evil
thing to take its life in desert places, where it is man's only friend
among the wild animals.

When the hunter is accompanied by dogs, then the puma, instead of
drooping and shedding tears, is roused to a sublime rage: its hair
stands erect; its eyes shine like balls of green flame; it spits and
snarls like a furious torn cat. The hunter's presence seems at such
times to be ignored altogether, its whole attention being given to the
dogs and its rage directed against them. In Patagonia a sheep-farming
Scotchman, with whom I spent some days, showed me the skulls of five
pumas which he had shot in the vicinity of his ranche. One was of an
exceptionally large individual, and I here relate what he told me of his
encounter with this animal, as it shows just how the puma almost
invariably behaves when attacked by man and dogs. He was out on foot
with his flock, when the dogs discovered the animal concealed among the
bushes. He had left his gun at home, and having no weapon, and finding
that the dogs dared not attack it where it sat in a defiant attitude
with its back against a thorny bush, he looked about and found a large
dry stick, and going boldly up to it tried to stun it with a violent
blow on the head. But though it never looked at him, its fiery eyes
gazing steadily at the dogs all the time, he could not hit it, for with
a quick side movement it avoided every blow. The small heed the puma
paid him, and the apparent ease with which it avoided his best-aimed
blows, only served to rouse his spirit, and at length striking with
increased force his stick came to the ground and was broken to pieces.
For some moments he now stood within two yards of the animal perfectly
defenceless and not knowing what to do. Suddenly it sprang past him,
actually brushing against his arm with its side, and began pursuing the
dogs round and round among the bushes. In the end my informant's partner
appeared on the scene with his rifle, and the puma was shot.

In encounters of this kind the most curious thing is that the puma
steadfastly refuses to recognize an enemy in man, although it finds him
acting in concert with its hated canine foe, about whose hostile
intentions it has no such delusion.

Several years ago a paragraph, which reached me in South America,
appeared in the English papers relating an incident characteristic of
the puma in a wild beast show in this country. The animal was taken out
of its cage and led about the grounds by its keeper, followed by a large
number of spectators. Suddenly it was struck motionless by some object
in the crowd, at which it gazed steadily with a look of intense
excitement; then springing violently away it dragged the chain from the
keeper's hand and dashed in among the people, who immediately fled
screaming in all directions. Their fears were, however, idle, the object
of the puma's rage being a dog which it had spied among the crowd.

It is said that when taken adult pumas invariably pine away and die;
when brought up in captivity they invariably make playful, affectionate
pets, and are gentle towards all human beings, but very seldom overcome
their instinctive animosity towards the dog.

One of the very few authentic instances I have met with of this animal
defending itself against a human being was related to me at a place on
the pampas called Saladillo. At the time of my visit there jaguars and
pumas were very abundant and extremely destructive to the cattle and
horses. Sheep it had not yet been considered worth while to introduce,
but immense herds of pigs were kept at every estancia, these animals
being able to protect themselves. One gaucho had so repeatedly
distinguished himself by his boldness and dexterity in killing jaguars
that he was by general consent made the leader of every tiger-hunt. One
day the comandante of the district got twelve or fourteen men together,
the tiger-slayer among them, and started in search of a jaguar which had
been seen that morning in the neighbourhood of his estancia. The animal
was eventually found and surrounded, and as it was crouching among some
clumps of tall pampas grass, where throwing a lasso over its neck would
be a somewhat difficult and dangerous operation, all gave way to the
famous hunter, who at once uncoiled his lasso and proceeded in a
leisurely manner to form the loop. While thus engaged he made the
mistake of allowing his horse, which had grown restive, to turn aside
from the hunted animal. The jaguar, instantly taking advantage of the
oversight, burst from its cover and sprang first on to the haunches of
the horse, then seizing the hunter by his poncho dragged him to the
earth, and would no doubt have quickly despatched him if a lasso, thrown
by one of the other men, had not closed round its neck at this critical
moment. It was quickly dragged off, and eventually killed. But the
discomfited hunter did not stay to assist at the finish. He arose from
the ground unharmed, but in a violent passion and blaspheming horribly,
for he knew that his reputation, which he priced above everything, had
suffered a great blow, and that he would be mercilessly ridiculed by his
associates. Getting on his horse he rode away by himself from the scene
of his misadventure. Of what happened to him on his homeward ride there
were no witnesses; but his own account was as follows, and inasmuch as
it told against his own prowess it was readily believed: Before riding a
league, and while his bosom was still burning with rage, a puma started
up from the long grass in his path, but made no attempt to run away; it
merely sat up, he said, and looked at him in a provokingly fearless
manner. To slay this animal with his knife, and so revenge himself on it
for the defeat he had just suffered, was his first thought. He alighted
and secured his horse by tying its fore feet together, then, drawing his
long, heavy knife, rushed at the puma. Still it did not stir. Raising
his weapon he struck with a force which would have split the animal's
skull open if the blow had fallen where it was intended to fall, but
with a quick movement the puma avoided it, and at the same time lifted a
foot and with lightning rapidity dealt the aggressor a blow on the face,
its unsheathed claws literally dragging down the flesh from his cheek,
laying the bone bare. After inflicting this terrible punishment and
eyeing its fallen foe for a few seconds it trotted quietly away. The
wounded man succeeded in getting on to his horse and reaching his home.
The hanging flesh was restored to its place and the ghastly rents sewn
up, and in the end he recovered: but he was disfigured for life; his
temper also completely changed; he became morose and morbidly sensitive
to the ridicule of his neighbours, and he never again ventured to join
them in their hunting expeditions. I inquired of the comandante, and of
others, whether any case had come to their knowledge in that district in
which the puma had shown anything beyond a mere passive friendliness
towards man; in reply they related the following incident, which had
occurred at the Saladillo a few years before my visit: The men all went
out one day beyond the frontier to form a _cerco,_ as it is called, to
hunt ostriches and other game. The hunters, numbering about thirty,
spread themselves round in a vast ring and, advancing towards the
centre, drove the animals before them. During the excitement of the
chase which followed, while they were all engaged in preventing the
ostriches, deer, &c., from doubling back and escaping, it was not
noticed that one of the hunters had disappeared; his horse, however,
returned to its home during the evening, and on the next morning a fresh
hunt for the lost man was organized. He was eventually found lying on
the ground with a broken leg, where he had been thrown at the beginning
of the hunt. He related that about an hour after it had become dark a
puma appeared and sat near him, but did not seem to notice him. After a
while it became restless, frequently going away and returning, and
finally it kept away so long, that he thought it had left him for good.
About midnight he heard the deep roar of a jaguar, and gave himself up
for lost. By raising himself on his elbow he was able to see the outline
of the beast crouching near him, but its face was turned from him, and
it appeared to be intently watching some object on which it was about to
spring. Presently it crept out of sight, then he heard snarlings and
growlings and the sharp yell of a puma, and he knew that the two beasts
were fighting. Before morning he saw the jaguar several times, but the
puma renewed the contest with it again and again until morning appeared,
after which he saw and heard no more of them.

Extraordinary as this story sounds, it did not seem so to me when I
heard it, for I had already met with many anecdotes of a similar nature
in various parts of the country, some of them vastly more interesting
than the one I have just narrated; only I did not get them at first
hand, and am consequently not able to vouch for their accuracy; but in
this case it seemed to me that there was really no room for doubt. All
that I had previously heard had compelled me to believe that the puma
really does possess a unique instinct of friendliness for man, the
origin of which, like that of many other well-known instincts of
animals, must remain a mystery. The fact that the puma never makes an
unprovoked attack on a human being, or eats human flesh, and that it
refuses, except in some very rare cases, even to defend itself, does not
seem really less wonderful in an animal of its bold and sanguinary
temper thau that it should follow the traveller in the wilderness, or
come near him when he lies sleeping or disabled, and even occasionally
defend him from its enemy the jaguar. We know that certain sounds,
colours, or smells, which are not particularly noticed by most animals,
produce an extraordinary effect on some species; and it is possible to
believe, I think, that the human form or countenance, or the odour of
the human body, may also have the effect on the puma of suspending its
predatory instincts and inspiring it with a gentleness towards man,
which we are only accustomed to see in our domesticated carnivores or in
feral animals towards those of their own species. Wolves, when pressed
with hunger, will sometimes devour a fellow wolf; as a rule, however,
rapacious animals will starve to death rather than prey on one of their
own kind, nor is it a common thing for them to attack other species
possessing instincts similar to their own. The puma, we have seen,
violently attacks other large carnivores, not to feed on them, but
merely to satisfy its animosity; and, while respecting man, it is,
within the tropics, a great hunter and eater of monkeys, which of all
animals most resemble men. We can only conclude with Humboldt that there
is something mysterious in the hatreds and affections of animals.

The view here taken of the puma's character imparts, I think, a fresh
interest to some things concerning the species, which have appeared in
historical and other works, and which I propose to discuss briefly in
this place.

There is a remarkable passage in Byron's _Narrative of the loss of the
Wager,_ which was quoted by Admiral Fitzroy in his _Voyage of the
Beagle,_ to prove that tho puma inhabits Tierra del Fuego and the
adjacent islands; no other large beast of prey being known in that part
of America. "I heard," he says, "a growling close by me, which made me
think it advisable to retire as soon as possible: the woods were, so
gloomy I could see nothing; but, as I retired, this noise followed me
close till I got out of them. Some of our men did assure me that they
had seen a very large beast in the woods. . . I proposed to four of the
people to go to the end of the bay, about two miles distant from the
bell tent, to occupy the skeleton of an old Indian wigwam, which I had
discovered in a walk that way on our first landing. This we covered to
windward with seaweed; and, lighting a fire, laid ourselves down in
hopes of finding a remedy for our hunger in sleep; but we had not long
composed ourselves before one of our company was disturbed by the
blowing of some animal at his face; and, upon opening his eyes, was not
a little astonished to see by the glimmering of the fire, a large beast
standing over him. He had presence of mind enough to snatch a brand from
the fire, which was now very low, and thrust it at the nose of tho
animal, which thereupon made off. . . . In the morning we were not a
little anxious to know how our companions had fared; and this anxiety
was increased upon our tracing the footsteps of the beast in the sand,
in a direction towards the bell tent. The impression was deep and plain,
of a large round foot well furnished with claws. Upon acquainting the
people in the tent with the circumstances of our story, we found that
they had been visited by the same unwelcome guest."

Mr. Andrew Murray, in his work on the Geographical Distribution of
Mammals, gives the Straits of Magellan as the extreme southern limit of
the puma's range, and in discussing the above passage from Byron he
writes: "This reference, however, gives no support to the notion of the
animal alluded to having been a puma. . . . The description of the
footprints clearly shows that the animal could not have been a puma.
None of the cat tribe leave any trace of a claw in their footprints. . .
The dogs, on the other hand, leave a very well-defined claw-mark. . . .
Commodore Byron and his party had therefore suffered a false alarm. The
creature which had disturbed them was, doubtless, one of the harmless
domestic dogs of the natives."

The assurance that the bold hardy adventurer and his men suffered a
false alarm, and were thrown into a great state of excitement at the
appearance of one of the wretched domestic dogs of the Fuegians, with
which they were familiar, comes charmingly, it must be said, from a
closet naturalist, who surveys the world of savage beasts from his
London study. He apparently forgets that Commodore Byron lived in a time
when the painful accuracy and excessive minuteness we are accustomed to
was not expected from a writer, whenever he happened to touch on any
matters connected with zoology.

This kind of criticism, which seizes on a slight inaccuracy in one
passage, and totally ignores an important statement in another--as, for
instance, that of the "great beast" seen in the woods--might be extended
to other portions of the book, and Byron's entire narrative made to
appear as purely a work of the imagination as Peter Wilkin's adventures
in those same antarctic seas.

Mr. J. W. Boddam Whetham, in his work _Across Central America_ (1877),
gives an anecdote of the puma, which he heard at Sacluk, in Guatemala,
and which strangely resembles some of the stories I have heard on the
pampas. He writes: "The following event, most extraordinary if true, is
said to have occurred in this forest to a mahogany-cutter, who had been
out marking trees. As he was returning to his hut, he suddenly felt a
soft body pressing against him, and on looking down saw a cougar, which,
with tail erect, and purring like a cat, twisted itself in and out of
his legs, and glided round him, turning up its fierce eyes as if with
laughter. Horror-stricken and with faltering steps he kept on, and the
terrible animal still circled about, now rolling over, and now touching
him with a paw like a cat playing with a mouse. At last the suspense
became too great, and with a loud shout he struck desperately at the
creature with his axe. It bounded on one side and crouched snarling and
showing its teeth. Just as it was about to spring, the man's companion,
who had heard his call, appeared in the distance, and with a growl the
beast vanished into the thick bushes."

Now, after allowing for exaggeration, if there is no foundation for
stories of this character, it is really a very wonderful coincidence
that they should be met with in countries so widely separated as
Patagonia and Central America. Pumas, doubtless, are scarce in
Guatemala; and, as in other places where they have met with nothing but
persecution from man, they are shy of him; but had this adventure
occurred on the pampas, where they are better known, the person
concerned in it would not have said that the puma played with him as a
cat with a mouse, but rather as a tame cat plays with a child; nor,
probably, would he have been terrified into imagining that the animal,
even after its caresses had met with so rough a return, was about to
spring on him.

In Clavigero's _History of Lower California,_ it is related that a very
extraordinary state of things was discovered to exist in that country by
the first missionaries who settled there at the end of the seventeenth
century, and which was actually owing to the pumas. The author says that
there were no bears or tigers (jaguars); these had most probably been
driven out by their old enemies; but the pumas had increased to a
prodigious extent, so that the whole peninsula was overrun by them; and
this was owing to the superstitious regard in which they were held by
the natives, who not only did not kill them, but never ventured to
disturb them in any way. The Indians were actually to some extent
dependent on the puma's success in hunting for their subsistence; they
watched the movements of the vultures in order to discover the spot in
which the remains of any animal it had captured had been left by the
puma, and whenever the birds were seen circling about persistently over
one place, they hastened to take possession of the carcass, discovered
in this way. The domestic animals, imported by the missionaries, were
quickly destroyed by the virtual masters of the country, and against
these enemies the Jesuits preached a crusade in vain: for although the
Indians readily embraced Christianity and were baptized, they were not
to be shaken in their notions concerning the sacred _Chimbicá,_ as the
puma was called. The missions languished in consequence; the priests
existed in a state of semi-starvation, depending on provisions sent to
them at long intervals from the distant Mexican settlements; and for
many years all their efforts to raise the savages from their miserable
condition were thrown away. At length, in 1701, the mission of Loreto
was taken charge of by one Padre Ugarte, described by Clavigero as a
person of indomitable energy, and great physical strength and courage, a
true muscular Christian, who occasionally varied his method of
instruction by administering corporal chastisements to his hearers when
they laughed at his doctrines, or at the mistakes he made in their
language, while preaching to them. Ugarte, like his predecessors, could
not move the Indians to hunt the puma, but he was a man of action, with
a wholesome belief in the efficacy of example, and his opportunity came
at last.

One day, while riding in the wood, he saw at a distance a puma walking
deliberately towards him. Alighting from his mule, he took up a large
stone and advanced to meet the animal, and when sufficiently near hurled
the missile with such precision and force that he knocked ifc down
senseless. After killing it, he found that the heaviest part of his task
remained, as it was necessary for the success of his project to carry
the beast, still warm and bleeding, to the Indian village; but mow his
mule steadfastly refused to approach it. Father Ugarte was not,
however, to be defeated, and partly by stratagem, partly by force, he
finally succeeded in getting the puma on to the mule's back, after which
he rode in triumph to the settlement. The Indians at first thought it
all a trick of their priest, who was so anxious to involve them in a
conflict with the pumas, and standing at a distance they began jeering
at him, and exclaiming that he had found the animal dead! But when they
were induced to approach, and saw that it was still warm and bleeding,
they were astonished beyond measure, and began to watch the priest
narrowly, thinking that he would presently drop down and die in sight of
them all. It was their belief that death would quickly overtake the
slayer of a puma. As this did not happen, the priest gained a great
influence over them, and in the end they were persuaded to turn their
weapons against the Chimbicá.

Clavigero has nothing to say concerning the origin of this Californian
superstition; but with some knowledge of the puma's character, it is not
difficult to imagine what it may have been. No doubt these savages had
been very well acquainted from ancient times with the animal's instinct
of friendliness toward man, and its extreme hatred of other carnivores,
which prey on the human species; and finding it ranged on their side, as
it were, in the hard struggle of life in the desert, they were induced
to spare it, and even to regard it as a friend; and such a feeling,
among primitive men, might in the course of time degenerate into such a
superstition as that of the Californians.

I shall, in conclusion, relate here the story of Maldonada, which is not
generally known, although familiar to Buenos Ayreans as the story of
Lady Godiva's ride through Coventry is to the people of that town. The
case of Maldonada is circumstantially narrated by Rui Diaz de Guzman, in
his history of the colonization of the Plata: he was a person high in
authority in the young colonies, and is regarded by students of South
American history as an accurate and sober-minded chronicler of the
events of his own times. He relates that in the year 1536 the settlers
at Buenos Ayres, having exhausted their provisions, and being compelled
by hostile Indians to keep within their pallisades, were reduced to the
verge of starvation. The Governor Mendoza went off to seek help from the
other colonies up the river, deputing his authority to one Captain Ruiz,
who, according to all accounts, displayed an excessively tyrannous and
truculent disposition while in power. The people were finally reduced to
a ration of sis ounces of flour per day for each person; but as the
flour was putrid and only made them ill, they were forced to live on any
small animals they could capture, including snakes, frogs and toads.
Some horrible details are given by Rui Diaz, and other writers; one, Del
Barco Centenera, affirms that of two thousand persons in the town
eighteen hundred perished of hunger. During this unhappy time, beasts of
prey in large numbers were attracted to the settlement by the effluvium
of the corpses, buried just outside the pallisades; and this made the
condition of the survivors more miserable still, since they could
venture into the neighbouring woods only at the risk of a violent death.
Nevertheless, many did so venture, and among these was the young woman
Maldonada, who, losing herself in the forest, strayed to a distance, and
was eventually found by a party of Indians, and carried by them to their
village.

Some months later, Captain Ruiz discovered her whereabouts, and
persuaded the savages to bring her to the settlement; then, accusing her
of having gone to the Indian village in order to betray the colony, he
condemned her to be devoured by wild beasts. She was taken to a wood at
a distance of a league from the town, and left there, tied to a tree,
for the space of two nights and a day. A party of soldiers then went to
the spot, expecting to find her bones picked clean by the beasts, but
were greatly astonished to find Maldonada still alive, without hurt or
scratch. She told them that a puma had come to her aid, and had kept at
her side, defending her life against all the other beasts that
approached her. She was instantly released, and taken back to the town,
her deliverance through the action of the puma probably being looked on
as direct interposition of Providence to save her.

Rui Diaz concludes with the following paragraph, in which he affirms
that he knew the woman Maldonada, which may be taken as proof that she
was among the few that survived the first disastrous settlement and
lived on to more fortunate times: his pious pun on her name would be
lost in a translation:--"De esta manera quedo libre la que ofrecieron a
las fieras: la cual mujer yo la conoci, y la llamaban la Maldonada, que
mas bien se le podia llamar la BIENDONADA; pues por este suceso se ha de
ver no haber merecido el castigo á que la ofrecieron."

If such a thing were to happen now, in any portion of southern South
America, where the puma's disposition is best known, it would not be
looked on as a miracle, as it was, and that unavoidably, in the case of
Maldonada.




CHAPTER III.

A WAVE OF LIFE,


For many years, while living in my own home on the pampas, I kept a
journal, in which all my daily observations on the habits of animals and
kindred matters were carefully noted. Turning back to 1872-3, I find my
jottings for that season contain a history of one of those waves of
life--for I can think of no better name for the phenomenon in
question--that are of such frequent occurrence in thinly-settled
regions, though in countries like England, seen very rarely, and on a
very limited scale. An exceptionally bounteous season, the accidental
mitigation of a check, or other favourable circumstance, often causes an
increase so sudden and inordinate of small prolific species, that when
we actually witness it we are no longer surprised at the notion
prevalent amongst the common people that mice, frogs, crickets, &c., are
occasionally rained down from the clouds.

In the summer of 1872-3 we had plenty of sunshine, with frequent
showers; so that the hot months brought no dearth of wild flowers, as in
most years. The abundance of flowers resulted in a wonderful increase of
humble bees. I have never known them so plentiful before; in and about
the plantation adjoining my house I found, during the season, no fewer
than seventeen nests.

The season was also favourable for mice; that is, of course, favourable
for the time being, unfavourable in the long run, since the short-lived,
undue preponderance of a species is invariably followed by a long period
of undue depression. These prolific little creatures were soon so
abundant that the dogs subsisted almost exclusively on them; the fowls
also, from incessantly pursuing and killing them, became quite rapacious
in their manner; whilst the sulphur tyrant-birds (Pitangus) and the
Guira cuckoos preyed on nothing but mice.

The domestic cats, as they invariably do in such plentiful seasons,
absented themselves from the house, assuming all the habits of their
wild congeners, and slinking from the sight of man--even of a former
fireside companion--with a shy secrecy in their motions, an apparent
affectation of fear, almost ludicrous to see. Foxes, weasels, and
opossums fared sumptuously. Even for the common armadillo (Dasypus
villosus) it was a season of affluence, for this creature is very adroit
in capturing mice. This fact might seem surprising to anyone who marks
the uncouth figure, toothless gums, and the motions--anything but light
and graceful--of the armadillo and perhaps fancying that, to be a
dexterous mouser, an animal should bear some resemblance in habits and
structure to the felidas. But animals, like men, are compelled to adapt
themselves to their surroundings; new habits are acquired, and the exact
co-relation between habit and structure is seldom maintained.

I kept an armadillo at this time, and good cheer and the sedentary life
he led in captivity made him excessively fat; but the mousing exploits
of even this individual were most interesting. Occasionally I took him
into the fields to give him a taste of liberty, though at such times I
always took the precaution to keep hold of a cord fastened to one of his
hind legs; for as often as he came to a kennel of one of his wild
fellows, he would attempt to escape into it. He invariably travelled
with an ungainly trotting gait, carrying his nose, beagle-like, close to
the ground. His sense of smell was exceedingly acute, and when near his
prey he became agitated, and quickened his motions, pausing frequently
to sniff the earth, till, discovering the exact spot where the mouse
lurked, he would stop and creep cautiously to it; then, after slowly
raising himself to a sitting posture, spring suddenly forwards, throwing
his body like a trap over the mouse, or nest of mice, concealed beneath
the grass.

A curious instance of intelligence in a cat was brought to my notice at
this time by one of my neighbours, a native. His children had made the
discovery that some excitement and fun was to be had by placing a long
hollow stalk of the giant thistle with a mouse in it--and every hollow
stalk at this time had one for a tenant--before a cat, and then watching
her movements. Smelling her prey, she would spring at one end of the
stalk--the end towards which the mouse would be moving at the same time,
but would catch nothing, for the mouse, instead of running out, would
turn back to run to the other end; whereupon the cat, all excitement,
would jump there to seize it; and so the contest would continue for a
long time, an exhibition of the cleverness and the stupidity of
instinct, both of the pursuer and the pursued. There were several cats
at the house, and all acted in the same way except one. When a stalk was
placed before this cat, instead of becoming excited like the others, it
went quickly to one end and smelt' at the opening, then, satisfied that
its prey was inside, it deliberately bit a long piece out of the stalk
with its teeth, then another strip, and so on progressively, until the
entire stick had been opened up to within six or eight inches of the
further end, when the mouse came out and was caught. Every stalk placed
before this cat was demolished in the same businesslike way; but the
other cats, though they were made to look on while the stick was being
broken up by their fellow, could never learn the trick.

In the autumn of the year countless numbers of storks (Ciconia maguari)
and of short-eared owls (Otus brachyotus) made their appearance. They
had also come to assist at the general feast.

Remembering the opinion of Mr. E. Newman, quoted by Darwin, that
two-thirds of the humble bees in England are annually destroyed by mice,
I determined to continue observing these insects, in order to ascertain
whether the same thing occurred on the pampas. I carefully revisited all
the nests I had found, and was amazed at the rapid disappearance of all
the bees. I was quite convinced that the mice had devoured or driven
them out, for the weather was still warm, and flowers and fruit on which
humble bees feed were very abundant.

After cold weather set in the storks went away, probably on account of
the scarcity of water, for the owls remained. So numerous were they
during the winter, that any evening after sunset I could count forty or
fifty individuals hovering over the trees about my house. Unfortunately
they did not confine their attentions to the mice, but became
destructive to the birds as well. I frequently watched them at dusk,
beating about the trees and bushes in a systematic manner, often a dozen
or more of them wheeling together about one tree, like so many moths
about a candle, and one occasionally dashing through the branches until
a pigeon--usually the Zenaida maculata--or other bird was scared from
its perch. The instant the bird left the tree they would all give chase,
disappearing in the darkness. I could not endure to see the havoc they
were making amongst the ovenbirds (Furnarius rufus--a species for which
I have a regard and affection almost superstitious), so I began to shoot
the marauders. Very soon, however, I found it was impossible to protect
my little favourites. Night after night the owls mustered in their usual
numbers, so rapidly were the gaps I made in their ranks refilled. I grew
sick of the cruel war in which I had so hopelessly joined, and resolved,
not without pain, to let things take their course. A singular
circumstance was that the owls began to breed in the middle of winter.
The field-labourers and boys found many nests with eggs and young birds
in the neighbourhood. I saw one nest in July, our coldest month, with
three half-grown young birds in it. They were excessively fat, and,
though it was noon-day, had their crops full. There were three mice and
two young cavies (Cavia australis) lying untouched in the nest.

The short-eared owl is of a wandering disposition, ard performs long
journeys at all seasons of the year in search of districts where food is
abundant; and perhaps these winter-breeders came from a region where
scarcity of prey, or some such cause, had prevented them from nesting at
their usual time in summer.

The gradual increase or decrease continually going on in many species
about us is little remarked; but the sudden infrequent appearance in
vast numbers of large and comparatively rare species is regarded by most
people as a very wonderful phenomenon, not easily explained. On the
pampas, whenever grasshoppers, mice, frogs or crickets become
excessively abundant we confidently look for the appearance of
multitudes of the birds that prey on them. However obvious may be the
cause of the first phenomenon--the sudden inordinate increase during a
favourable year of a species always prolific--the attendant one always
creates astonishment: For how, it is asked, do these largo birds, seldom
seen at other times, receive information in the distant regions they
inhabit of an abundance of food in any particular locality? Years have
perhaps passed during which, scarcely an individual of these kinds has
been seen: all at once armies of the majestic white storks are seen
conspicuously marching about the plain in all directions; while the
night air resounds with the solemn hootings of innumerable owls. It is
plain that these birds have been drawn from over an immense area to one
spot; and the question is how have they been drawn?

Many large birds possessing great powers of flight are, when not
occupied with the business of propagation, incessantly wandering from
place to place in search of food. They are not, as a rule, regular
migrants, for their wanderings begin and end irrespective of seasons,
and where they find abundance they remain the whole year. They fly at a
very great height, and traverse immense distances. When the favourite
food of any one of these species is plentiful in any particular region
all the individuals that discover it remain, and attract to them all of
their kind passing overhead. This happens on the pampas with the stork,
the short-eared owl, the hooded gull and the dominican or black-backed
gull--the leading species among the feathered nomads: a few first appear
like harbingers; these are presently joined by new comers in
considerable numbers, and before long they are in myriads. Inconceivable
numbers of birds are, doubtless, in these regions, continually passing
over us unseen. It was once a subject of very great wonder to me that
flocks of black-necked swans should almost always appear flying by
immediately after a shower of rain, even when none had been visible for
a long time before, and when they must have come from a very great
distance. When the reason at length occurred to me, I felt very much
disgusted with myself for being puzzled over so very simple a matter.
After rain a flying swan may be visible to the eye at a vastly greater
distance than during fair weather; the sun shining on its intense white
plumage against the dark background of a rain-cloud making it
exceedingly conspicuous. The fact that swans are almost always seen
after rain shows only that they are almost always passing.

Whenever we are visited by a dust-storm on the pampas myriads of hooded
gulls--Larus macnlipen-nis--appear flying before the dark dust-cloud,
even when not a gull has been seen for months. Dust-storms are of rare
occurrence, and come only after a long drought, and, the water-courses
being all dry, the gulls cannot have been living in the region over
which the storm passes. Yet in seasons of drought gulls must be
continually passing by at a great height, seeing but not seen, except
when driven together and forced towards the earth by the fury of the
storm.

By August (1873) the owls had vanished, and they had, indeed, good cause
for leaving. The winter had been one of continued drought; the dry grass
and herbage of the preceding year had been consumed by the cattle and
wild animals, or had turned to dust, and with the disappearance of their
food and cover the mice had ceased to be. The famine-stricken cats
sneaked back to the house. It was pitiful to see the little burrowing
owls; for these birds, not having the powerful wings and prescient
instincts of the vagrant Otus brachyotus, are compelled to face the
poverty from which the others escape. Just as abundance had before made
the domestic cats wild, scarcity now made the burrowing owls tame and
fearless of man. They were so reduced as scarcely to be able to fly, and
hung about the houses all day long on the look-out for some stray morsel
of food. I have frequently seen one alight and advance within two or
three yards of the door-step, probably attracted by the smell of roasted
meat. The weather continued dry until late in spring, so reducing the
sheep and cattle that incredible numbers perished during a month of cold
and rainy weather that followed the drought.

How clearly we can see in all this that the tendency to multiply
rapidly, so advantageous in normal seasons, becomes almost fatal to a
species in seasons of exceptional abundance. Cover and food without
limit enabled the mice to increase at such an amazing rate that the
lesser checks interposed by predatory species were for a while
inappreciable. But as the mice increased, so did their enemies.
Insectivorous and other species acquired the habits of owls and weasels,
preying exclusively on them; while to this innumerable army of residents
was shortly added multitudes of wandering birds coming from distant
regions. No sooner had the herbage perished, depriving the little
victims of cover and food, than the effects of the war became apparent.
In autumn the earth so teemed with them that one could scarcely walk
anywhere without treading on mice; while out of every hollow weed-stalk
lying on the ground dozens could be shaken; but so rapidly had they
devoured, by the trained army of persecutors, that in spring it was hard
to find a survivor, even in the barns and houses. The fact that species
tend to increase in a geometrical ratio makes these great and sudden
changes frequent in many regions of the earth; but it is not often they
present themselves so vividly as in the foregoing instance, for here,
scene after scene in one of Nature's silent passionless tragedies opens
before us, countless myriads of highly organized beings rising into
existence only to perish almost immediately, scarcely a hard-pressed
remnant remaining after the great reaction to continue the species.




CHAPTER IV.

SOME CURIOUS ANIMAL WEAPONS.


Strictly speaking, the only weapons of vertebrates are teeth, claws,
horns, and spurs. Horns belong only to the ruminants, and the spur is a
rare weapon. There are also many animals in which teeth and claws are
not suited to inflict injury, or in which the proper instincts and
courage to use and develop them are wanted; and these would seem, to be
in a very defenceless condition. Defenceless they are in one sense, but
as a fact they are no worse off than the well-armed species, having
either a protective colouring or a greater swiftness or cunning to
assist them in escaping from their enemies. And there are also many of
these practically toothless and clawless species which have yet been
provided with other organs and means of offence and defence out of
Nature's curious armoury, and concerning a few of these species I
propose to speak in this place.

Probably such distinctive weapons as horns, spurs, tusks and spines
would be much more common in nature if the conditions of life always
remained the same. But these things are long in fashioning; meanwhile,
conditions are changing; climate, soil, vegetation vary; foes and rivals
diminish or increase; the old go, and others with different weapons and
a new strategy take their place; and just as a skilful man "fighting the
wilderness" fashions a plough from a hunting-knife, turns his implements
into weapons of war, and for everything he possesses discovers a use
never contemplated by its maker, so does Nature--only with an ingenuity
exceeding that of man--use the means she has to meet all contingencies,
and enable her creatures, seemingly so ill-provided, to maintain their
fight for life. Natural selection, like an angry man, can make a weapon
of anything; and, using the word in this wide sense, the mucous
secretions the huanaco discharges into the face of an adversary, and the
pestilential drops "distilled" by the skunk, are weapons, and may be as
effectual in defensive warfare as spines, fangs and tushes.

I do not know of a more striking instance in the animal kingdom of
adaptation of structure to habit than is afforded by the hairy
armadillo--Dasypus villosus. He appears to us, roughly speaking, to
resemble an ant-eater saddled with a dish cover; yet this creature, with
the cunning Avhich Nature has given it to supplement all deficiencies,
has discovered in its bony encumbrance a highly efficient weapon of
offence. Most other edentates are diurnal and almost exclusively
insectivorous, some feeding only on ants; they have unchangeable habits,
very limited intelligence, and vanish before civilization. The hairy
armadillo alone has struck out a line for itself. Like its fast
disappearing congeners, it is an insect-eater still, but does not like
them seek its food on the surface and in the ant-hill only; all kinds of
insects are preyed on, and by means of its keen scent it discovers worms
and larvae several inches beneath the surface. Its method of taking
worms and grubs resembles that of probing birds, for it throws up no
earth, but forces its sharp snout and wedge-shaped head down to the
required depth; and probably while working it moves round in a circle,
for the hole is conical, though the head of the animal is flat. Where it
has found a rich hunting-ground, the earth is seen pitted with hundreds
of these neat symmetrical bores. It is also an enemy to ground-nesting
birds, being fond of eggs and fledglings; and when unable to capture
prey it will feed on carrion as readily as a wild dog or vulture,
returning night after night to the carcase of a horse or cow as long as
the flesh lasts. Failing animal food, it subsists on vegetable diet; and
I have frequently found their stomachs stuffed with clover, and,
stranger still, with the large, hard grains of the maize, swallowed
entire.

It is not, therefore, strange that at all seasons, and even when other
animals are starving, the hairy armadillo is always fat and vigorous. In
the desert it is diurnal; but where man appears it becomes more and more
nocturnal, and in populous districts does not go abroad until long after
dark. Yet when a district becomes thickly settled it increases in
numbers; so readily does it adapt itself to new conditions. It is not to
be wondered at that the gauchos, keen observers of nature as they are,
should make this species the hero of many of their fables of the "Uncle
Remus" type, representing it as a versatile creature, exceedingly
fertile in expedients, and duping its sworn friend the fox in various
ways, just as "Brer Rabbit" serves the fox in the North American fables.

The hairy armadillo will, doubtless, long survive all the other
armadillos, and on this account alone it will have an ever-increasing
interest for the naturalist. I have elsewhere described how it captures
mice; when preying on snakes it proceeds in another manner. A friend of
mine, a careful observer, who was engaged in cattle-breeding amongst the
stony sierras near Cape Corrientes, described to me an encounter he
witnessed between an armadillo and a poisonous snake. While seated on
the hillside one day he observed a snake, about twenty inches in length,
lying coiled up on a stoue five or six yards beneath him. By-and-by, a
hairy armadillo appeared trotting directly towards it. Apparently the
snake perceived and feared its approach, for it quickly uncoiled itself
and began gliding away. Instantly the armadillo rushed on to it, and,
squatting close down, began swaying its body backward and forward with a
regular sawing motion, thus lacerating its victim with the sharp,
deep-cut edges of its bony covering. The snake struggled to free itself,
biting savagely at its aggressor, for its head and neck were disengaged.
Its bites made no impression, and very soon it dropped its head, and
when its enemy drew off, it was dead and very much mangled. The
armadillo at once began its meal, taking the tail in its mouth and
slowly progressing towards the head; but when about a third of the snake
still remained it seemed satisfied, and, leaving that portion, trotted
away.

Altogether, in its rapacious and varied habits this armadillo appears to
have some points of resemblance with the hedgehog; and possibly, like
the little European mammal it resembles, it is not harmed by the bite of
venomous snakes.

I once had a cat that killed every snake it found, purely for sport,
since it never ate them. It would jump nimbly round and across its
victim, occasionally dealing it a blow with its cruel claws. The enemies
of the snake are legion. Burrowing owls feed largely on them; so do
herons and storks, killing them with a blow of their javelin beaks, and
swallowing them entire. The sulphur tyrant-bird picks up the young snake
by the tail, and, flying to a branch or stone, uses it like a flail till
its life is battered out. The bird is highly commended in consequence,
reminding one of very ancient words: "Happy shall he be that taketh thy
little ones and dasheth them against the stones." In arraying such a
variety of enemies against the snake, nature has made ample amends for
having endowed it with deadly weapons. Besides, the power possessed by
venomous snakes only seems to us disproportionate; it is not really so,
except in occasional individual encounters. Venomous snakes are always
greatly outnumbered by non-venomous ones in the same district; at any
rate this is the case on the pampas. The greater activity of the latter
counts for more in the result than the deadly weapons of the former.

The large teguexin lizard of the pampas, called iguana by the country
people, is a notable snake-killer. Snakes have in fact, no more
formidable enemy, for he is quick to see, and swift to overtake them. He
is practically invulnerable, and deals them sudden death with his
powerful tail. The gauchos say that dogs attacking the iguana are
sometimes known to have their legs broken, and I do not doubt it. A
friend of mine was out riding one day after his cattle, and having
attached one end of his lasso to the saddle, He let it trail on the
ground. He noticed a large iguana lying apparently asleep in the sun,
and though he rode by it very closely, it did not stir; but no sooner
had he passed it, than it raised its head, and fixed its attention on
the forty feet of lasso slowly trailing by. Suddenly it rushed after the
rope, and dealt it a succession of violent blows with its tail. When the
whole of the lasso, several yards of which had been pounded in vain, had
been dragged by, the lizard, with uplifted head, continued gazing after
it with the greatest astonishment. Never had such a wonderful snake
crossed its path before!

Molina, in his _Natural History of Chill,_ says the vizcacha uses its
tail as a weapon; but then Molina is not always reliable. I have
observed vizcachas all my life, and never detected them making use of
any weapon except their chisel teeth. The tail is certainly very
curious, being straight at the base, then curving up outwardly, and
slightly down again at the tip, resembling the spout of a china teapot.
The under surface of the straight portion of the base is padded with a
thick, naked, corneous skin; and, when the animal performs the curious
sportive antics in which it occasionally indulges, it gives rapid
loud-sounding blows on the ground with this part of the tail. The
peculiar form of the tail also makes it a capital support, enabling the
vizcacha to sit erect, with ease and security.

The frog is a most timid, inoffensive creature, saving itself, when
pursued, by a series of saltatory feats unparalleled amongst
vertebrates. Consequently, when I find a frog, I have no hesitation in
placing my hands upon it, and the cold sensation it gives one is the
worse result I fear. It came to pass, however, that I once encountered a
frog that was not like other frogs, for it possessed an instinct and
weapons of offence which greatly astonished me. I was out snipe shooting
one day when, peering into an old disused burrow, two or three feet
deep, I perceived a burly-looking frog sitting it. It was larger and
stouter-looking than our common Rana, though like it in colour, and I at
once dropped on to my knees and set about its capture. Though it watched
me attentively, the frog remained perfectly motionless, and this greatly
surprised me. Before I was sufficiently near to make a grab, it sprang
straight at my hand, and, catching two of my fingers round with its fore
legs, administered a hug so sudden and violent as to cause an acute
sensation of pain; then, at the very instant I experienced this feeling,
which made me start back quickly, it released its hold and bounded out
and away. I flew after it, and barely managed to overtake it before it
could gain the water. Holding it firmly pressed behind the shoulders, it
was powerless to attack me, and I then noticed the enormous development
of the muscles of the fore legs, usually small in frogs, bulging out in
this individual, like a second pair of thighs, and giving-it a strangely
bold and formidable appearance. On holding my gun within its reach, it
clasped the barrel with such energy as to bruise the skin of its breast
and legs. After allowing it to partially exhaust itself in these
fruitless huggings, I experimented by letting it seize my hand again,
and I noticed that invariably after each squeeze it made a quick,
violent attempt to free itself. Believing that I had discovered a frog
differing in structure from all known species, and possessing a strange
unique instinct of self-preservation, I carried my captive home,
intending to show it to Dr. Burmeister, the director of the National
Museum at Buenos Ayres-Unfortunately, after I had kept it some days, it
effected its escape by pushing up the glass cover of its box, and I have
never since met with another individual like it. That this singular
frog has it in its power to seriously injure an opponent is, of course,
out of the question; but its unexpected attack must be of great
advantage. The effect of the sudden opening of an umbrella in the face
of an angry bull gives, I think, only a faint idea of the astonishment
and confusion it must cause an adversary by its leap, quick as
lightning, and the violent hug it administers; and in the confusion it
finds time to escape. I cannot for a moment believe that an instinct so
admirable, correlated as it is with the structure of the fore legs, can
be merely an individual variation; and I confidently expect that all I
have said about my lost frog will some day be confirmed by others. Rana
luctator would be a good name for this species.

The toad is a slow-moving creature that puts itself in the way of
persecution; yet, strange to say, the acrid juice it exudes when
irritated is a surer protection to it than venomous fangs are to the
deadliest snake. Toads are, in fact, with a very few exceptions, only
attacked and devoured by snakes, by lizards, and by their own venomous
relative, Ceratophrys ornata. Possibly the cold sluggish natures of all
these creatures protects them against the toad's secretion, which would
be poison to most warm-blooded animals, but I am not so sure that all
fish enjoy a like immunity. I one day noticed a good-sized fish (bagras)
floating, belly upmost, on the water. It had apparently just died, and
had such a glossy, well-nourished look about it, and appeared so full, I
was curious to know the cause of its death. On opening it I found its
stomach quite filled with a very large toad it had swallowed. The toad
looked perfectly fresh, not even a faint discoloration of the skin
showing that the gastric juices had begun to take effect; the fish, in
fact, must have died immediately after swallowing the toad. The country
people in South America believe that the milky secretion exuded by the
toad possesses wonderful curative properties; it is their invariable
specific for shingles--a painful, dangerous malady common amongst them,
and to cure it living toads are applied to the inflamed parb. I dare say
learned physicians would laugh at this cure, but then, if I mistake not,
the learned have in past times laughed at other specifics used by the
vulgar, but which now have honourable places in the
pharmacopoeia--pepsine, for example. More than two centuries ago (very
ancient times for South America) the gauchos were accustomed to take
the lining of the rhea's stomach, dried and powdered, for ailments
caused by impaired digestion; and the remedy is popular still. Science
has gone over to them, and the ostrich-hunter now makes a double profit,
one from the feathers, and the other from the dried stomachs which he
supplies to the chemists of Buenos Ayres. Yet he was formerly told that
to take the stomach of the ostrich to improve his digestion was as wild
an idea as it would be to swallow birds' feathers in order to fly.

I just now called Ceratophrys ornata venomous, though its teeth are not
formed to inject poison into the veins, like serpents' teeth. It is a
singular creature, known as _escuerzo_ in the vernacular, and though
beautiful in colour, is in form hideous beyond description. The skin is
of a rich brilliant green, with chocolate-coloured patches, oval in
form, and symmetrically disposed. The lips are bright yellow, the
cavernous mouth pale flesh colour, the throat and under-surface dull
white. The body is lumpy, and about the size of a large man's fist. The
eyes, placed on the summit of a disproportionately large head, are
embedded in horn-like protuberances, capable of being elevated or
depressed at pleasure. When the creature is undisturbed, the eyes, which
are of a pale gold colour, look out as from a couple of watch towers,
but when touched on the head or menaced, the prominences sink down to a
level with the head, closing the eyes completely, and giving the
creature the appearance of being eyeless. The upper jaw is armed with
minute teeth, and there are two teeth in the centre of the lower jaw,
the remaining portions of the jaw being armed with two exceedingly
sharp-edged bony plates. In place of a tongue, it has a round muscular
process with a rough flat disc the size of a halfpenny.

It is common all over the pampas, ranging as far south as the Rio
Colorado in Patagonia. In the breeding season it congregates in pools,
and one is then struck by their extraordinary vocal powers, which they
exercise by night. The performance in no way resembles the series of
percussive sounds uttered by most batrachians. The notes it utters are
long, as of a wind instrument, not unmelodious, and so powerful as to
make themselves heard distinctly a mile off on still evenings. After the
amorous period these toads retire to moist places and sit inactive,
buried just deep enough to leave the broad green back on a level with
the surface, and it is then very difficult to detect them. In this
position they wait for their prey--frogs, toads, birds, and small
mammals. Often they capture and attempt to swallow things too large for
them, a mistake often made by snakes. In very wet springs they sometimes
come about houses and lie in wait for chickens and ducklings. In
disposition they are most truculent, savagely biting at anything that
comes near them; and when they bite they hang on with the tenacity of a
bulldog, poisoning the blood with their glandular secretions. When
teased, the creature swells itself out to such an extent one almost
expects to see him burst; he follows his tormentors about with slow
awkward leaps, his vast mouth wide open, and uttering an incessant harsh
croaking sound. A gaucho I knew was once bitten by one. He sat down on
the grass, and, dropping his hand at his side, had it seized, and only
freed himself by using his hunting knife to force the creature's mouth
open. He washed and bandaged the wound, and no bad result followed; but
when the toad cannot be shaken off, then the result is different. One
summer two horses were found dead on the plain near my home. One, while
lying down, had been seized by a fold in the skin near the belly; the
other had been grasped by the nose while cropping grass. In both
instances the vicious toad was found dead, with jaws tightly closed,
still hanging to the dead horse. Perhaps they are sometimes incapable of
letting go at will, and like honey bees, destroy themselves in these
savage attacks.




CHAPTER V.

FEAR IN BIRDS.


The statement that birds instinctively fear man is frequently met with
in zoological works written since the _Origin of Species_ appeared; but
almost the only reason--absolutely the only plausible reason, all the
rest being mere supposition--given in support of such a notion is that
birds in desert islands show at first no fear of man, but afterwards,
finding him a dangerous neighbour, they become wild; and their young
also grow up wild. It is thus assumed that the habit acquired by the
former has become hereditary in the latter--or, at all events, that in
time it becomes hereditary. Instincts, which are few in number in any
species, and practically endure for ever, are not, presumably, acquired
with such extraordinary facility.

Birds become shy where persecuted, and the young, even when not
disturbed, learn a shy habit from the parents, and from other adults
they associate with. I have found small birds shyer in desert places,
where the human form was altogether strange to them, than in
thickly-settled districts. Large birds are actually shyer than the small
ones, although, to the civilized or shooting man they seem astonishingly
tame where they have never been fired at. I have frequently walked quite
openly to within twenty-five or thirty yards of a flock of flamingoes
without alarming them. This, however, was when they were in the water,
or on the opposite side of a stream. Having no experience of guns, they
fancied themselves secure as long as a strip of water separated them
from the approaching object. When standing on dry land they would not
allow so near an approach. Sparrows in England aro very much tamer than
the sparrows I have observed in desert places, where they seldom see a
human being. Nevertheless young sparrows in England are very much tamer
than old birds, as anyone may see for himself. During the past summer,
while living near Kew Gardens, I watched the sparrows a great deal, and
fed forty or fifty of them every day from a back window. The bread and
seed was thrown on to a low roof just outside the window, and I noticed
that the young birds when first able to fly were always brought by the
parents to this feeding place, and that after two or three visits they
would begin to come of their own accord. At such times they would
venture quite close to me, showing as little suspicion as young
chickens. The adults, however, although so much less shy than birds of
other species, were extremely suspicious, snatching up the bread and
flying away; or, if they remained, hopping about in a startled manner,
craning their necks to view me, and making so many gestures and motions,
and little chirps of alarm, that presently the young would become
infected with fear. The lesson was taught them in a surprisingly short
time; their suspicion was seen to increase day by day, and about a week
later they were scarcely to be distinguished, in behaviour from the
adults. It is plain that, with these little birds, fear of man is an
associate feeling, and that, unless it had been taught them, his
presence would trouble them as little as does that of horse, sheep, or
cow. But how about the larger species, used as food, and which have had
a longer and sadder experience of man's destructive power?

The rhea, or South American ostrich, philosophers tell us, is a very
ancient bird on the earth; and from its great size and inability to
escape by flight, and its excellence as food, especially to savages, who
prefer fat rank-flavoured flesh, it must have been systematically
persecuted by man as long as, or longer than, any bird now existing on
the globe. If fear of man ever becomes hereditary in birds, we ought
certainly to find some trace of such an instinct in this species. I have
been unable to detect any, though I have observed scores of young rheas
in captivity, taken before the parent bird had taught them what to fear.
I also once kept a brood myself, captured just after they had hatched
out. With regard to food they were almost, or perhaps quite,
independent, spending most of the time catching flies, grasshoppers, and
other insects with surprising dexterity; but of the dangers encompassing
the young rhea they knew absolutely frothing. They would follow me about
as if they took me for their parent; and, whenever I imitated the loud
snorting or rasping warning-call emitted the old bird in moments of
danger, they would to me in the greatest terror, though no animal was in
sight, and, squatting at my feet, endeavour to conceal themselves by
thrusting their heads and long necks up my trousers. If I had caused a
person to dress in white or yellow clothes for several consecutive days,
and had then uttered the warning cry each time he showed himself to the
birds, I have no doubt that they would soon have acquired a habit of
running in terror from him, even without the warning cry, and that the
fear of a person in white or yellow would have continued all their
lives. Up to within about twenty years ago, rheas were seldom or never
shot in La Plata and Patagonia, but were always hunted on horseback and
caught with the bolas. The sight of a mounted man would set them off at
once, while a person on foot could walk quite openly to within easy
shooting distance of them; yet their fear of a horseman dates only two
hundred years back--a very short time, when we consider that, before the
Indian borrowed the horse from the invader, he must have systematically
pursued the rhea on foot for centuries. The rhea changed its habits when
the hunter changed his, and now, if an _estanciero_ puts down ostrich
hunting on his estate, in a very few years the birds, although wild
birds still, become as fearless and familiar as domestic animals. I have
known old and ill-tempered males to become a perfect nuisance on some
estancias, running after and attacking every person, whether on foot or
on horseback, that ventured near them. An old instinct of a whole race
could not be thus readily lost here and there on isolated estates
wherever a proprietor chose to protect his birds for half a dozen years.

I suppose the Talegallus--the best-known brush-turkey--must be looked on
as an exception to all other birds with regard to the point I am
considering; for this abnormal form buries its eggs in the huge mound
made by the male, and troubles herself no more about them. When the
young is fully developed it simply kicks the coffin to pieces in which
its mother interred it, and, burrowing its way up to the sunshine,
enters on the pleasures and pains of an independent existence from
earliest infancy--that is, if a species born into the world in full
possession of all the wisdom of the ancients, can be said ever to know
infancy. At all events, from Mr. Bartlett's observations on the young
hatched in the Zoological Gardens, it appears that they took no notice
of the old birds, but lived quite independently from the moment they
came out of the ground, even flying up into a tree and roosting
separately at night. I am not sure, however, that these observations are
quite conclusive; for it is certain that captivity plays strange pranks
with the instincts of some species, and it is just possible that in a
state of nature the old birds exercise at first some slight parental
supervision, and, like all other species, have a peculiar cry to warn
the young of the dangers to be avoided. If this is not so, then the
young Talegallus must fly or hide with instinctive tear from every
living thing that approaches it. I, at any rate, find it hard to believe
that it has a knowledge, independent of experience, of the different
habits of man and kangaroo, and dis-criminates at first sight between
animals that are dangerous to it and those that are not. This
interesting point will probably never be determined, as, most unhappily,
the Australians are just now zealously engaged in exterminating their
most wonderful bird for the sake of its miserable flesh; and with less
excuse than the Maories could plead with regard to the moa, since they
cannot deny that they have mutton and rabbit enough to satisfy hunger.

Whether birds fear or have instinctive knowledge of any of their enemies
is a much larger question. Species that run freely on the ground from
the time of quitting the shell know their proper food, and avoid
whatever is injurious. Have all young birds a similarly discriminating
instinct with regard to their enemies? Darwin says, "Fear of any
particular enemy is certainly an instinctive quality, as may be seen in
nestling birds." Here, even man seems to be included among the enemies
feared instinctively; and in another passage he says, "Young chickens
have lost, wholly from habit, that fear of the dog and cat which, no
doubt, was originally instinctive in them." My own observations point to
a contrary conclusion; and I may say that I have had unrivalled
opportunities for studying the habits of young birds.

Animals of all classes, old and young, shrink with instinctive fear from
any strange object approaching them. A piece of newspaper carried
accidentally by the wind is as great an object of terror to an
inexperienced young bird as a buzzard sweeping down with death in its
talons. Among birds not yet able to fly there are, however, some curious
exceptions; thus the young of most owls and pigeons are excited to anger
rather than fear, and, puffing themselves up, snap and strike at an
intruder with their beaks. Other fledglings simply shrink down in the
nest or squat close on the ground, their fear, apparently, being in
proportion to the suddenness with which the strange animal or object
comes on them; but, if the deadliest enemy approaches with slow caution,
as snakes do--and snakes must be very ancient enemies to birds--there is
no fear or suspicion shown, even when the enemy is in full view and
about to strike. This, it will be understood, is when no warning-cry is
uttered by the parent bird. This shrinking, and, in some cases, hiding
from an object corning swiftly towards them, is the "wildness_"_ of
young birds, which, Darwin says again, is greater in wild than in
domestic species. Of the extreme tameness of the young rhea I have
already spoken; I have also observed young tinamous, plovers, coots,
&c., hatched by fowls, and found them as incapable of distinguishing
friend from foe as the young of domestic birds. The only difference
between the young of wild and tame is that the former are, as a rule,
much more sprightly and active. But there are many exceptions; and if
this greater alertness and activity is what is meant by "wildness," then
the young of some wild birds--rhea, crested screamer, &c.--are actually
much tamer than our newly-hatched chickens and ducklings.

To return to what may be seen in nestling birds, n very young, and
before their education has begun, if quietly approached and touched,
they open their bills and take food as readily from a man as from the
parent bird. But if while being thus fed the parent returns and emits
the warning note, they instantly cease their hunger-cries, close their
gaping mouths, and crouch down frightened in the nest. This fear caused
by the parent bird's warning note begins to manifest itself even before
the young are hatched--and my observations on this point refer to
several species in three widely separated orders. When the little
prisoner is hammering at its shell, and uttering its feeble _peep,_ as
if begging to be let out, if the warning note is uttered, even at a
considerable distance, the strokes and complaining instantly cease, and
the chick will then remain quiescent in the shell for a long time, or
until the parent, by a changed note, conveys to it an intimation that
the danger is over. Another proof that the nestling has absolutely no
instinctive knowledge of particular enemies, but is taught to fear them
by the parents, is to be found in the striking contrast between the
habits of parasitical and genuine young in the nest, and after they have
left it, while still unable to find their own food. I have had no
opportunities of observing the habits of the young cuckoo in England
with regard to this point, and do not know whether other observers have
paid any attention to the matter or not, but I am very familiar with the
manners of the parasitical starling or cow-bird of South America. The
warning cries of the foster parent have no effect on the young cow-bird
at any time. Until they are able to fly they will readily devour worms
from the hand of a man, even when the old birds are hovering close by
and screaming their danger notes, and while their own young, if the
parasite has allowed any to survive in the nest, are crouching down in
the greatest fear. After the cow-bird has left the nest it is still
stupidly tame, and more than once I have seen one carried off from its
elevated perch by a milvago hawk, when, if it had understood the warning
cry of the foster parent, it would have dropped down into the bush or
grass and escaped. But as soon as the young cow-birds are able to shift
for themselves, and begin to associate with their own kind, their habits
change, and they become suspicious and wild like other birds.

On this point--the later period at which the parasitical young bird
acquires fear of man--and also bearing on the whole subject under
discussion, I shall add here some observations I once made on a dove
hatched and reared by a pigeon at my home on the pampas. A very large
ombú tree grew not far from the dove-cote, and some of the pigeons used
to make their nests on the lower horizontal branches. One summer a dove
of the most common species, Zenaida maculata, in size a third less than
the domestic pigeon, chanced to drop an egg in one of these nests, and a
young dove was hatched and reared; and, in due time, when able to fly,
it was brought to the dove-cote. I watched it a great deal, and it was
evident that this foster-young, though' with the pigeons, was not nor
ever would be of them, for it could not take kiudly to their flippant
flirty ways. Whenever a male approached it, and with guttural noises and
strange gestures made a pompous declaration of amorous feelings, the
dove would strike vigorously at its undesirable lover, and drive him
off, big as he was; and, as a rule, it would sit apart, afoot or so,
from the others. The dove was also a male; but its male companions, with
instinct tainted by domestication, were ignorant alike of its sex and
different species. Now, it chanced that my pigeons, never being fed and
always finding their own living on the plain like wild birds, were,
although still domestic, not nearly so tame as pigeons usually are in
England. They would not allow a person to approach within two or three
yards of them without flying, and if grain was thrown to them they would
come to it very suspiciously, or not at all. And, of course, the young
pigeons always acquired the exact degree of suspicion shown by the
adults as soon as they were able to fly and consort with the others. But
the foundling Zenaida did not know what their startled gestures and
notes of fear meant when a person approached too near, and as he saw
none of his own kind, he did not acquire their suspicious habit. On the
contrary, he was perfectly tame, although by parentage a wild bird, and
showed no more fear of a man than of a horse. Throughout the winter it
remained with the pigeons, going afield every day with them, and
returning to the dove-cote; but as spring approached the slight tie
which united him to them began to be loosened; their company grew less
and less congenial, and he began to lead a solitary life. But he did not
go to the trees yet. He came to the house, and his favourite perch was
on the low overhanging roof of a vine-covered porch, just over the main
entrance. Here he would pass several hours every day, taking no notice
of the people passing in and out at all times; and when the weather grew
warm he would swell out his breast and coo mournfully by the hour for
our pleasure.

We can, no doubt, learn best by observing the behaviour of nestlings and
young birds; nevertheless, I find much even in the confirmed habits of
adults to strengthen me in the belief that fear of particular enemies is
in nearly all cases--for I will not say all--the result of experience
and tradition.

Hawks are the most open, violent, and persistent enemies birds have; and
it is really wonderful to see how well the persecuted kinds appear to
know the power for mischief possessed by different raptorial species,
and how exactly the amount of alarm exhibited is in proportion to the
extent of the danger to be apprehended. Some raptors never attack birds,
others only occasionally; still others prey only on the young and
feeble; and, speaking of La Plata district, where I have observed hawks,
from the milvago chimango--chiefly a carrion-eater--to the destructive
peregrine falcon, there is a very great variety of predatory habits, and
all degrees of courage to be found; yet all these raptors are treated
differently by species liable to be preyed on, and have just as much
respect paid them as their strength and daring entitles them to, and no
more, So much discrimination must seem almost incredible to those who
are not very familiar with the manners of wild birds; I do not think it
could exist if the fear shown resulted from instinct or inherited habit.
There would be no end to the blunders of such an instinct as that; and
in regions where hawks are extremely abundant most of the birds would be
in a constant state of trepidation. On the pampas the appearance of the
comparatively harmless chimango excites not the least alarm among small
birds, yet at a distance it closely resembles a henharrier, and it also
readily attacks young, sick, and wounded birds; all others know how
little they have to fear from it. When it appears unexpectedly,
sweeping over a hedge or grove with a rapid flight, it is sometimes
mistaken for a more dangerous species; there is then a little flutter of
alarm, some birds springing into the air, but in two or three seconds of
time they discover their mistake, and settle down quietly again, taking
no further notice of the despised carrion-eater. On the other hand, I
have frequently mistaken a harrier (Circus cinereus, in the brown state
of plumage) for a chimango, and have only discovered my mistake by
seeing the commotion among the small birds. The harrier I have
mentioned, also the C. macropterus, feed partly on small birds, which
they flush from the ground and strike down with their claws. When the
harrier appears moving along with a loitering flight near the surface,
it is everywhere attended by a little whirlwind of alarm, small birds
screaming or chirping excitedly and diving into the grass or bushes; but
the alarm does not spread far, and subsides as soon as the hawk has
passed on its way. Buzzards (Buteo and Urubitinga) are much more feared,
and create a more widespread alarm, and they ars certainly more
destructive to birds than harriers. Another curious instance is that of
the sociable hawk (Rostrhanrus sociabilis). This bird spends the summer
and breeds in marshes in La Plata, and birds pay no attention to it, for
it feeds exclusively on water-snails (Ampullaria). But when it visits
woods and plantations to roost, during migration, its appearance creates
as much alarm as that of a true buzzard, which it closely resembles.
Wood-birds, unaccustomed to see it, do not know its peculiar preying
habits, and how little they need fear its presence. I may also mention
that the birds of La Plata seem to fear the kite-like Elanus less than
other hawks, and I believe that its singular resemblance to the common
gull of the district in its size, snowy-white plumage and manner of
flight, has a deceptive effect on most species, and makes them so little
suspicious of it.

The wide-ranging peregrine falcon is a common species in La Plata,
although, oddly enough, not included in any notice of the avifauna of
that region before 1888. The consternation caused among birds by its
appearance is vastly greater than that produced by any of the raptors I
have mentioned: and it is unquestionably very much more destructive to
birds, since it preys exclusively on them, and, as a rule, merely picks
the flesh from the head and neck, and leaves the untouched body to its
jackal, the carrion-hawk. When the peregrine appears speeding through
the air in a straight line at a great height, the feathered world, as
far as one able to see, is thrown into the greatest commo-tion, all
birds, from the smallest up to species large as duck, ibis, and curlew,
rushing about in the air as if distracted. When the falcon has
disappeared in the sky, and the wave of terror attending its progress
subsides behind it, the birds still continue wild and excited for some
time, showing how deeply they have been moved; for, as a rule, fear is
exceedingly transitory in its effects on animals.

I must, before concluding this part of my subject, mention another
raptor, also a true falcon, but differing from the peregrine in being
exclusively a marsh-hawk. In size it is nearly a third less than the
male peregrine, which it resembles in its sharp wings and manner of
flight, but its flight is much more rapid. The whole plumage, is
uniformly of a dark grey colour. Unfortunately, though I have observed
it not fewer than a hundred times, I have never been able to procure a
specimen, nor do I find that it is like any American falcon already
described; so that for the present it must remain nameless. Judging
solely from the effect produced by the appearance of this hawk, it must
be even more daring and destructive than its larger relation, the
peregrine. It flies at a great height, and sometimes descends vertically
and with extraordinary velocity, the wings producing a sound like a
deep-toned horn. The sound is doubtless produced at will, and is
certainly less advantageous to the hawk than to the birds it pursues. No
doubt it can afford to despise the wing-power of its quarry; and I have
sometimes thought that it takes a tyrannous delight in witnessing the
consternation caused by its hollow trumpeting sound. This may be only a
fancy, but some hawks do certainly take pleasure in pursuing and
striking birds when not seeking prey. The peregrine has been observed,
Baird says, capturing birds, only to kill and drop them. Many of the
Felidae, we know, evince a similar habit; only these prolong their
pleasure by practising a more refined and deliberate cruelty.

The sudden appearance overhead of this hawk produces an effect wonderful
to witness. I have frequently seen all the inhabitants of a marsh struck
with panic, acting as if demented, and suddenly grown careless to all
other dangers; and on such occasions I have looked up confident of
seeing the sharp-winged death, suspended above them in the sky. All
birds that happen to be on the wing drop down as if shot into the reeds
or water; ducks away from the margin stretch out their necks
horizontally and drag their bodies, as if wounded, into closer cover;
not one bird is found bold enough to rise up and wheel about the
marauder--a usual proceeding in the case of other hawks; while, at every
sudden stoop the falcon makes, threatening to dash down on his prey, a
low cry of terror rises from the birds beneath; a sound expressive of an
emotion so contagious that it quickly runs like a murmur all over the
marsh, as if a gust of wind had swept moaning through, the rushes. As
long as the falcon hangs overhead, always at a height of about forty
yards, threatening at intervals to dash down, this murmuring sound, made
up of many hundreds of individual cries, is heard swelling and dying
away, and occasionally, when he drops lower than usual, rising to a
sharp scream of terror.

Sometimes when I have been riding over marshy ground, one of these hawks
has placed himself directly over my head, within fifteen or twenty yards
of me; and it has perhaps acquired the habit of following a horseman in
this way in order to strike at any birds driven up. On one occasion my
horse almost trod on a couple of snipe squatting terrified in the short
grass. The instant they rose the hawk struck at one, the end of his wing
violently smiting my cheek as he stooped, and striking at the snipe on a
level with the knees of my horse. The snipe escaped by diving under the
bridle, and immediately dropped down on the other side of me, and the
hawk, rising up, flew away.

To return. I think I am justified in believing that fear of hawks, like
fear of men, is, in very nearly all cases, the result of experience and
tradition. Nevertheless, I think it probable that in some species which
have always lived in the open, continually exposed to attack, and which
are preferred as food by raptors, such as duck, snipe, and plover, the
fear of the falcon may be an inherited habit. Among passerine birds I am
also inclined to think that swallows show inherited fear of hawks.
Swallows and humming-birds have least to fear from raptors; yet, while
humming-birds readily pursue and tease hawks, thinking as little of them
as of pigeons or herons, swallows everywhere manifest the greatest
terror at the approach of a true falcon; and they also fear other birds
of prey, though in a much less degree. It has been said that the
European hobby occasionally catches swal-lows on the wing, but this
seems a rare and exceptional habit, and in South America I have never
seen any bird of prey attempt the pursuit of a swallow. The question
then arises, how did this unnecessary fear, so universal in swallows,
originate? Can it be a survival of a far past--a time when some
wide-ranging small falcon, aerial in habits as the swallow itself,
preyed by preference on hirundines only?

[NOTE.-Herbert Spencer, who accepts Darwin's inference, explains how the
fear of man, acquired by experience, becomes instinctive in birds, in
the following passage: "It is well known that in newly-discovered lands
not inhabited by man, birds are so devoid of fear as to allow themselves
to be knocked over with sticks; but that, in the course of generations,
they acquire such a dread of man as to fly on his approach: and that
this dread is manifested by young as well as by old. Now unless this
change be ascribed to the killing-off of the least fearful, and the
preservation and multiplication of the most fearful which, considering
the comparatively small number killed by man, is an inadequate cause, it
must be ascribed to accumulated experience; and each experience must be
held to have a share in producing it. We must conclude that in each bird
that escapes with injuries inflicted by man, or is alarmed by the
outcries of other members of the flock (gregarious creatures of any
intelligence being necessarily more or less sympathetic), there is
established an association of ideas between the human aspect and the
pains, direct and in-direct, suffered from human agency. And we must
further con-clude, that the state of consciousness which compels the
bird to take flight, is at first nothing more than an ideal reproduction
of those painful impressions which before followed man's approach; that
such ideal reproduction becomes more vivid and more massive as the
painful experiences, direct or sympathetic, increase; and that thus the
emotion, in its incipient state, is nothing else than an aggregation of
the revived pains before experience.

"As, in the course of generations, the young birds of this race begin to
display a fear of man before yet they have been injured by him, it is an
unavoidable inference that the nervous system of the race has been
organically modified by these experiences, we have no choice but to
conclude, that when a young bird is led to fly, it is because the
impression produced in its senses by the approaching man entails,
through an incipiently reflex action, a partial excitement of all those
nerves which in its ancestors had been excited under the like
conditions; that this partial excitement has its accompanying painful
consciousness, and that the vague painful consciousness thus arising
constitutes emotion proper--_emotion undecomposable into specific
experiences, and, therefore, seemingly homogeneous"_ (Essays, vol. i. p.
320.)]

It is comforting to know that the "unavoidable inference" is, after all,
erroneous, and that the nervous system in birds has not yet been
organically altered as a result of man's persecution; for in that case
it would take long to undo the mischief, and we should be indeed far
from that "better friendship" with the children of the air which many of
us would like to see.




CHAPTER VI.

PARENTAL AND EARLY INSTINCTS.


Under this heading I have put together several notes from my journals on
subjects which have no connection with each other, except that they
relate chiefly to the parental instincts of some animals I have
observed, and to the instincts of the young at a very early period of
life.

While taking bats one day in December, I captured a female of our common
Buenos Ayrean species (Molossus bonariensis), with her two young
attached to her, so large that it seemed incredible she should be able
to fly and take insects with such a weight to drag her down. The young
were about a third less in size than the mother, so that she had to
carry a weight greatly exceeding that of her own body. They were
fastened to her breast and belly, one on each side, as when first born;
and, possibly, the young bat does not change its position, or move, like
the young developed opossum, to other parts of the body, until mature
enough to begin an independent life. On forcibly separating them from
their parent, I found that they were not yet able to fly, but when set
free fluttered feebly to the ground. This bat certainly appeared more
burdened with its young than any animal I had ever observed. I have seen
an old female opossum (Didelphys azarae) with eleven young, large as old
rats--the mother being less than a cat in size--all clinging to various
parts of her body; yet able to climb swiftly and with the greatest
agility in the higher branches of a tree. The actual weight was in this
case relatively much greater than in that of the female bat: but then
the opossum never quitted its hold on the tree, and it also supplemented
its hand-like feet, furnished with crooked claws, with its teeth and
long prehensile tail. The poor bat had to seek its living in the empty
air, pursuing its prey with the swiftness of a swallow, and it seemed
wonderful to me that she should have been able to carry about that great
burden with her one pair of wings, and withal to be active enough to
supply herself and her young with food.

In the end I released her, and saw her fly away and disappear among the
trees, after which I put back the two young bats in the place I had
taken them from, among the thick-clustering foliage of a small acacia
tree. When set free they began to work their way upwards through the
leaves and slender twigs in the most adroit manner, catching a twig with
their teeth, then embracing a whole cluster of leaves with their wings,
just as a person would take up a quantity of loose clothes and hold them
tight by pressing them against the chest. The body would then emerge
above the clasped leaves, and a higher twig would be caught by the
teeth; and so on successively, until they had got as high as they
wished, when they proceeded to hook themselves to a twig and assume the
inverted position side by side; after which, one drew in its head and
went to sleep, while the other began licking the end of its wing, where
my finger and thumb had pressed the delicate membrane. Later in the day
I attempted to feed them with small insects, but they rejected my
friendly attentions in the most unmistakable manner, snapping viciously
at me every time I approached them. In the evening, I stationed myself
close to the tree, and presently had the satisfaction of seeing the
mother return, flying straight to the spot where I had taken her, and in
a few moments she was away again and over the trees with her twins.

Assuming that these two young bats had, before I found them, existed
like parasites clinging to the parent, their adroit actions when
liberated, and their angry demonstrations at my approach, were very
astonishing; for in all other mammals born in a perfectly helpless
state, like rodents, weasels, edentates, and even marsupials, the
instincts of self-preservation are gradually developed after the period
of activity begins, when the mother leads them out, and they play with
her and Avith each other. In the bat the instincts must ripen to
perfection without exercise or training, and while the animal exists as
passively as a fruit on its stem.

I have observed that the helpless young of some of the mammals I have
just mentioned seem at first to have no instinctive understanding of the
language of alarm and fear in the parent, as all young-birds have, even
before their eyes are open. Nor is it necessary that they should have
such an instinct, since, in most cases, they are well concealed in
kennels or other safe places; but when, through some accident, they are
exposed, the want of such an instinct makes the task of protecting them
doubly hard for the parent. I once surprised a weasel (Galictis barbara)
in the act of removing her young, or conducting them, rather; and when
she was forced to quit them, although still keeping close by, and
uttering the most piercing cries of anger and solicitude, the young
continued piteously crying out in their shrill voices and moving about
in circles, without making the slightest attempt to escape, or to
conceal themselves, as young birds do.

Some field mice breed on the surface of the ground in ill-constructed
nests, and their young are certainly the most helpless things in nature.
It is possible that where this dangerous habit exists, the parent has
some admirable complex instincts to safeguard her young, in addition to
the ordinary instincts of most animals of this kind. This idea was
suggested to me by the action of a female mouse which I witnessed by
chance. While walking in a field of stubble one day in autumn, near
Buenos Ayres, I suddenly heard, issuing from near my feet, a chorus of
shrill squealing voices--the familiar excessively sharp little needles
of sound emitted by young, blind and naked mice, when they are disturbed
or in pain. Looking down, I saw close to my foot a nest of them--there
were nine in all, wriggling about and squealing; for the parent,
frightened at my step, had just sprung from them, overturning in her
hurry to escape the slight loosely-felted dome of fine grass and
thistledown which had covered them. I saw her running away, but after
going six or seven yards she stopped, and, turning partly round so as to
watch me, waited in fear and trembling. I remained perfectly
motionless--a sure way to allay fear and suspicion in any wild
creature,--and in a few moments she returned, but with the utmost
caution, frequently pausing to start and tremble, and masking her
approach with corn stumps and little inequalities in the surface of the
ground, until, reaching the nest, she took one of the young in her
mouth, and ran rapidly away to a distance of eight or nine yards and
concealed it in a tuft of dry grass.

Leaving it, she returned a second time, in the same cautious manner, and
taking another, ran with it to the same spot, and concealed it along
with the first. It was curious that the first young mouse had continued
squealing after being hidden by the mother, for I could hear it
distinctly, the air being very still, but when the second mouse had been
placed with it, the squealing ceased. A third time the old mouse came,
and then instead of going to the same spot, as I had expected, she ran
off in an opposite direction and disappeared among the dry weeds; a
fourth was carried to the same place as the third; and in this way they
were all removed to a distance of some yards from the nest, and placed
in couples, until the last and odd one remained. In due time she came
for it, and ran away with it in a new direction, and was soon out of
sight; and although I waited fully ten minutes, she did not return; nor
could I afterwards find any of the young mice when I looked for them, or
even hear them squeal.

I have frequently observed newly-born lambs on the pampas, and have
never failed to be surprised at the extreme imbecility they display in
their actions; although this may be due partly to inherited degeneracy
caused by domestication. This imbecile condition continues for two,
sometimes for three days, during which time the lamb apparently acts
purely from instincts, which are far from perfect; but after that,
experience and its dam teach it a better way. When born its first
impulse is to struggle up on to its feet; its second to suck, but here
it does not discriminate like the newly-hatched bird that picks up its
proper food, or it does not know what to suck. It will take into its
mouth whatever comes near, in most cases a tuft of wool on its dam's
neck; and at this it will continue sucking for an indefinite time. It is
highly probable that the strong-smelling secretion of the sheep's udder
attracts the lamb at length to that part; and that without something of
the kind to guide it, in many cases it would actually starve without
finding the teats. I have often seen lambs many hours after birth still
confining their attention to the most accessible locks of wool on the
neck or fore legs of the dams, and believe that in such cases the long
time it took them to find the source of nourishment arose from a
defective sense of smell. Its next important instinct, which comes into
play from the moment it can stand on its feet, impels it to follow after
any object receding from it, and, on the other hand, to run from
anything approaching it. If the dam turns round and approaches it from
even a very short distance, it will start back and run from her in fear,
and will not understand her voice when she bleats to it: at the same
time it will confidently follow after a man, dog, horse, or any other
animal moving from it. A very common experience on the pampas, in the
sheep-country, is to see a lamb start up from sleep and follow the
rider, running along close to the heels of the horse. This is
distressing to a merciful man, tor he cannot shake the little simpleton
off, and if he rides on, no matter how fast, it will keep up him, or
keep him in sight, for half a mile or a mile, and never recover its dam.
The gaucho, who is not merciful, frequently saves himself all trouble
and delay by knocking it senseless with a blow of his whip-handle, and
without checking his horse. I have seen a lamb, about two days old,
start up from sleep, and immediately start off in pursuit of a puff ball
about as big as a man's head, carried past it over the smooth turf by
the wind, and chase it for a distance of five hundred yards, until the
dry ball was brought to a stop by a tuft of coarse grass. This
blundering instiuct is quickly laid aside when the lamb has learned to
distinguish its dam from other objects, and its dam's voice from other
sounds. When four or five days old it will start from sleep, but instead
of rushing blindly away after any receding object, it first looks about
it, and will then recognize and run to its dam.

I have often been struck with the superiority of the pampa or
creolla--the old native breed of sheep--in the greater vigour of the
young when born over the improved European varieties. The pampa descends
to us from the first sheep introduced into La Plata about three
centuries ago, and is a tall, gaunt bony animal, with lean dry flesh,
like venison, and long straight wool, like goats' hair. In their
struggle for existence in a country subject to sudden great changes of
temperature, to drought, and failure of grass, they have in a great
measure lost the qualities which make the sheep valuable to man as a
food and wool-producing animal; but on the other hand they have to some
extent recovered the vigour of a wild animal, being hardy enough to
exist without any shelter, and requiring from their master man only
protection from the larger carnivores. They are keen-scented, swift of
foot and Wonderfully active, and thrive where other breeds would quickly
starve. I have often seen a lamb dropped on the frosty ground in
bitterly cold windy weather in midwinter, and in less than five seconds
struggle to its feet, and seem as vigorous as any day-old lamb of other
breeds. The dam, impatient at the short delay, and not waiting to give
it suck, has then started off at a brisk trot after the flock, scattered
and galloping before the wind like huanacos rather than sheep, with the
lamb, scarcely a minute in the world, running freely at her side.
Notwithstanding its great vigour it has been proved that the pampa sheep
has not so far outgrown the domestic taint as to be able to maintain its
own existence when left entirely to itself. During the first half of
this century, when cattle-breeding began to be profitable, and wool was
not worth the trouble of shearing, and the gaucho workman would not eat
mutton when beef was to be had, some of the estancieros on the southern
pampas determined to get rid of their sheep, which were of no value to
them; and many flocks were driven a distance out and lost in the wilds.
Out of many thousands thus turned loose to shift for themselves, not one
pair survived to propagate a new race of feral sheep; in a short time
pumas, wild dogs, and other beasts of prey, had destroyed them all. The
sterling qualities of the pampa sheep had their value in other times; at
present the improved kinds are alone considered worth having, and the
original sheep of the country is now rapidly disappearing, though still
found in remote and poor districts, especially in the province of
Cordova; and probably before long it will become extinct, together with
the curious pug-nosed cow of the pampas.

I have had frequent opportunities of observing the young, from one to
three days old, of the Cervus campestris--the common deer of the pampas,
and the perfection of its instincts at that tender age seem very
wonderful in a ruminant. When the doe with, fawn is approached by a
horseman, even when accompanied with dogs, she stands perfectly
motionless, gazing fixedly at the enemy, the fawn motionless at her
side; and suddenly, as if at a preconcerted signal, the fawn rushes
directly away from her at its utmost speed; and going to a distance of
six hundred to a thousand yards conceals itself in a hollow in the
ground or among the long grass, lying down very close with neck
stretched out horizontally, and will thus remain until sought by the
dam. When very young if found in its hiding-place it will allow itself
to be taken, making no further effort to escape. After the fawn has run
away the doe still maintains her statuesque attitude, as if resolved to
await the onset, and only when the dogs are close to her she also rushes
away, but invariably in a direction as nearly opposite to that taken by
the fawn as possible. At first she runs slowly, with a limping gait, and
frequently pausing, as if to entice her enemies on, like a partridge,
duck or plover when driven from its young; but as they begin to press
her more closely her speed increases, becoming greater the further she
succeeds in leading them from the starting-point.

The alarm-cry of this deer is a peculiar whistling bark, a low but
far-reaching sound; but when approaching a doe with young I have never
been able to hear it, nor have I seen any movement on the part of the
doe. Yet it is clear that in some mysterious way she inspires the fawn
with sudden violent fear; while the fawn, on its side, instead of being
affected like the young in other mammals, and sticking closer to its
mother, acts in a contrary way, and runs from her.

Of the birds I am acquainted with, the beautiful jacana (Parra jacana)
appears to come into the world with its faculties and powers in the most
advanced state. It is, in fact, ready to begin active life from the very
moment of leaving the shell, as I once accidentally observed. I found a
nest on a small mound of earth in a shallow lagoon, containing four
eggs, with the shells already chipped by the birds in them. Two yards
from the small nest mound there was a second mound covered with coarse
grass. I got off my horse to examine the nest, and the old birds,
excited beyond measure, fluttered round me close by pouring out their
shrill rapidly-reiterated cries in an unbroken stream, sounding very
much like a policeman's rattle. While I was looking closely at one of
the eggs lying on the palm of my hand, all at once the cracked shell
parted, and at the same moment the young bird leaped from my hand and
fell into the water. I am quite sure that the young bird's sudden escape
from the shell and my hand was the result of a violent effort on its
part to free itself; and it was doubtless inspired to make the effort by
the loud persistent screaming of the parent birds, which it heard while
in the shell. Stooping to pick it up to save it from perishing, I soon
saw that my assistance was not required, for immediately on dropping
into the water, it put out its neck, and with the body nearly submerged,
like a wounded duck trying to escape observation, it swam rapidly to the
second small mound I have mentioned, and, escaping from the water,
concealed itself in the grass, lying close and perfectly motionless like
a young plover.

In the case of the pampa or creolla sheep, I have shown that during its
long, rough life in La Plata, this variety has in some measure recovered
the natural vigour and ability to maintain existence in adverse
circumstances of its wild ancestors. As much can be said of the creolla
fowl of the pampas; and some observations of mine on the habits of this
variety will perhaps serve to throw light on a vexed question of Natural
History--namely, the cackling of the hen after laying, an instinct which
has been described as "useless" and "disadvantageous." In fowls that
live unconfined, and which are allowed to lay where they like, the
instinct, as we know it, is certainly detrimental, since egg-eating dogs
and pigs soon learn the cause of the outcry, and acquire a habit of
rushing off to find the egg when they hear it. The question then arises:
Does the wild jungle fowl possess the same pernicious instinct?

The creolla is no doubt the descendant of the fowl originally introduced
about three centuries ago by the first colonists in La Plata, and has
probably not only been uncrossed with any other improved variety, such
as are now fast taking its place, and has lived a much freer life than
is usual with the fowl in Europe. It is a rather small, lean, extremely
active bird, lays about a dozen eggs, and hatches them all, and is of a
yellowish red colour--a hue which is common, I believe, in the old
barn-door fowl of England. The creolla fowl is strong on the wing, and
much more carnivorous and rapacious in habits than other breeds; mice,
frogs, and small snakes are eagerly hunted and devoured by it. At my
home on the pampas a number of these fowls were kept, and were allowed
to range freely about the plantation, which was large, and the adjacent
grounds, where there were thickets of giant cardoon thistle, red-weed,
thorn apple, &c. They always nested at a distance from the house, and it
was almost impossible ever to find their eggs, on account of the extreme
circumspection they observed in going to and from their nests; and when
they succeeded in escaping foxes, skunks, weasels, and opossums, which,
strange to say, they often did, they would rear their chickens away out
of sight and hearing of the house, and only bring them home when winter
deprived them of their leafy covering and made food scarce. During the
summer, in my rambles about the plantation, T would occasionally
surprise one of these half-wild hens with her brood; her distracted
screams and motions would then cause her chicks to scatter and vanish in
all directions, and, until the supposed danger was past, they would lie
as close and well-concealed as young partridges. These fowls in summer
always lived in small parties, each party composed of one cock and as
many hens as he could collect--usually three or four. Each family
occupied its own feeding ground, where it would pass a greater portion
of each day. The hen would nest at a considerable distance from the
feeding ground, sometimes as far as four or five hundred yards away.
After laying an egg she would quit the nest, not walking from it as
other fowls do, but flying, the flight extending to a distance of from
fifteen to about fifty yards; after which, still keeping silence, she
would walk or run, until, arrived at the feeding ground, she would begin
to cackle. At once the cock, if within hearing, would utter a responsive
cackle, whereupon she would run to him and cackle no more. Frequently
the cackling call-note would not be uttered more than two or three
times, sometimes only once, and in a much lower tone than in fowls of
other breeds.

If we may assume that these fowls, in their long, semi-independent
existence in La Plata, have reverted to the original instincts of the
wild Gallus bankiva, we can see here how advantageous the cackling
instinct must be in enabling the hen in dense tropical jungles to rejoin
the flock after laying an egg. If there are egg-eating animals in the
jungle intelligent enough to discover the meaning of such a short,
subdued cackling call, they would still be unable to find the nest by
going back on the bird's scent, since she flies from the nest in the
first place; and the wild bird probably flies further than the creolla
hen of La Plata. The clamorous cackling of our fowls would appear then
to be nothing more than a perversion of a very useful instinct.




CHAPTER VII.

THE MEPHITIC SKUNK.


It might possibly give the reader some faint conception of the odious
character of this creature (for adjectives are weak to describo it) when
I say that, in talking to strangers from abroad, I have never thought it
necessary to speak of sunstroke, jaguars, or the assassin's knife, but
have never omitted to warn them of the skunk, minutely describing its
habits and personal appearance.

I knew an Englishman who, on taking a first gallop across the pampas,
saw one, and, quickly dismounting, hurled himself bodily on to it to
effect its capture. Poor man! he did not know that the little animal is
never unwilling to be caught. Men have been blinded for ever by a
discharge of the fiery liquid full in their faces. On a mucous membrane
it burns like sulphuric acid, say the unfortunates who have had the
experience. How does nature protect the skunk itself from the injurious
effects of its potent fluid? I have not unfrequently found individuals
stone-blind, sometimes moving so briskly about that the blindness must
have been of long standing--very possibly in some cases an accidental
drop discharged by the animal itself has caused the loss of sight. When
coming to close quarters with a skunk, by covering up the face, one's
clothes only are ruined. But this is not all one has to fear from an
encounter; the worst is that effluvium, after which crushed garlic is
lavender, which tortures the olfactory nerves, and appears to pervade
the whole system like a pestilent ether, nauseating one until
sea-sickness seems almost a pleasant sensation in comparison.

To those who know the skunk only from reputation, my words might seem
too strong; many, however, who have come to close quarters with the
little animal will think them ridiculously weak. And consider what must
the feelings be of one who has had the following experience--not an
uncommon experience on the pampas. There is to be a dance at a
neighbouring house a few miles away; he has been looking forward to it,
and, dressing himself with due care, mounts his horse and sets out full
of joyous anticipations. It is a dark windy evening, but there is a
convenient bridle-path through the dense thicket of giant thistles, and
striking it he puts his horse into a swinging gallop. Unhappily the path
is already occupied by a skunk, invisible in the darkness, that, in
obedience to the promptings of its insane instinct, refuses to get out
of it, until the flying hoofs hit it and sand it like a well-kicked
football into the thistles. But the forefoot of the horse, up as high as
his knees perhaps, have been sprinkled, and the rider, after coming out
into the open, dismounts and walks away twenty yards from his animal,
and literally _smells_ himself all over, and with a feeling of profound
relief pronounces himself Not the minutest drop of the diabolical spray
has touched his dancing shoes! Springing into the saddle he proceeds to
his journey's end, is warmly welcomed by his host, and speedily
forgetting his slight misadventure, mingles with a happy crowd of
friends. In a little while people begin exchanging whispers and
significant glances; men are seen smiling at nothing in particular; the
hostess wears a clouded face; the ladies cough and put their scented
handkerchiefs to their noses, and presently they begin to feel faint and
retire from the room. Our hero begins to notice that there is something
wrong, and presently discovers its cause; he, unhappily, has been the
last person in the room to remark that familiar but most abominable
odour, rising like a deadly exhalation from the floor, conquering all
other odours, and every moment becoming more powerful. A drop _has_
touched his shoe after all; and fearing to be found out, and edging
towards the door, he makes his escape, and is speedily riding home
again; knowing full well that his sudden and early departure from the
scene will be quickly discovered and set down to the right cause.

In that not always trustworthy book _The Natural History of Chili,_
Molina tells us how they deal with the animal in the trans-Andine
regions. "When one appears," he says, "some of the company begiu by
caressing it, until an opportunity offers for one of them to seize it by
the tail. In this position the muscles become contracted, the animal is
unable to eject its fluid, and is quickly despatched." One might just as
well talk of caressing a cobra de capello; yet this laughable fiction
finds believers all over South and North America. Professor Baird
gravely introduces it into his great work on the mammalia. I was once
talking about animals in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine
officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encampment, he had asked
the savages how they contrived to kill skunks without making even a life
in the desert intolerable. A grave old Cacique informed him that the
secret was to go boldly up to the animal, take it by the tail, and
despatch it; for, he said, when you fear it not at all, then it respects
your courage and dies like a lamb--sweetly. The officer, continuing his
story, said that on quitting the Indian camp he started a skunk, and,
glad of an opportunity to test the truth of what he had heard,
dismounted and proceeded to put the Indian plan in practice. Here the
story abruptly ended, and when I eagerly demanded to hear the sequel,
the amateur hunter of furs lit a cigarette and vacantly watched the
ascending smoke. The Indians aro grave jokers, they seldom smile; and
this old traditional skunk-joke, which has run the length of a
continent, finding its way into many wise books, is their revenge on a
superior race.

I have shot a great many eagles, and occasionally a carancho (Polyborus
tharus), with the plumage smelling strongly of skunk, which shows that
these birds, pressed by hunger, often commit the fearful mistake of
attacking the animal. My friend Mr. Ernest Gibson, of Buenos Ayres, in a
communication to the _Ibis,_ describes an encounter he actually
witnessed between a carancho and a skunk. Riding home one afternoon, he
spied a skunk "shuffling along in the erratic manner usual to that
odoriferous quadruped;" following it at a very short distance was an
eagle-vulture, evidently bent on mischief. Every time the bird came near
the bushy tail rose menacingly; then the carancho would fall behind,
and, after a few moments' hesitation, follow on again. At length,
growing bolder, it sprung forward, seizing the threatening tail with its
claw, but immediately after "began staggering about with dishevelled
plumage, tearful eyes, and a profoundly woe-begone expression on its
vulture face. The skunk, after turning and regarding its victim with an
I-told-you-so look for a few moments, trotted unconcernedly off."

I was told in Patagonia by a man named Molinos, who was frequently
employed by the Government as guide to expeditions in the desert, that
everywhere throughout that country the skunk is abundant. Some years ago
he was sent with two other men to find and treat with an Indian chief
whose whereabouts were not known. Far in the interior Molinos was
overtaken by a severe winter, his horses died of thirst and fatigue, and
during the three bitterest months of the year he kept himself and his
followers alive by eating the flesh of skunks, the only wild animal that
never failed them. No doubt, on those vast sterile plains where the
skunk abounds, and goes about by day and by night careless of enemies,
the terrible nature of its defensive weapon is the first lesson
experience teaches to every young eagle, fox, wild cat, and puma.

Dogs kill skunks when made to do so, but it is not a sport they delight
in. One moonlight night, at home, I went out to where the dogs, twelve
in number, were sleeping: while I stood there a skunk appeared and
deliberately came towards me, passing through the dogs where they lay,
and one by one as he passed them they rose up, and, with their tails
between their legs, skulked off. When made to kill skunks often they
become seasoned; but always perform the loathsome task expeditiously,
then rush away with frothing mouths to rub their faces in the wet clay
and rid themselves of the fiery sensation. At one time I possessed only
one dog that could be made to face a skunk, and as the little robbers
were very plentiful, and continually coining about the house in their
usual open, bold way, it was rather hard for the poor brute. This dog
detested them quite as strongly as the others, only he was more
obedient, faithful, and brave. Whenever I bade him attack one of them
he would come close up to me and look up into my face with piteous
pleading eyes, then, finding that he was not to be let off from the
repulsive task, he would charge upon the doomed animal with a blind fury
wonderful to see. Seizing it between his teeth, he would shake it madly,
crushing its bones, then hurl it several feet from him, only to rush
again and again upon it to repeat the operation, doubtless with a
Caligula-like wish in his frantic breast that all the skunks on the
globe had but one backbone.

I was once on a visit to a sheep-farming brother, far away on the
southern frontier of Buenos Ayres, and amongst the dogs I found there
was one most interesting creature, He was a great, lumbering, stupid,
good-tempered brute, so greedy that when you offered him a piece of meat
he would swallow half your arm, and so obedient that at a word he would
dash himself against the horns of a bull, and face death and danger in
any shape. But, my brother told me, he would not face a skunk--he would
die first. One day I took him out and found a skunk, and for upwards of
half an hour I sat on my horse vainly cheering on my cowardly follower,
and urging him to battle. The very sight of the enemy gave him a fit of
the shivers; and when the irascible little enemy began to advance
against us, going through the performance by means of which he generally
puts his foes to flight without resorting to malodorous
measures--stamping his little feet in rage, jumping up, spluttering and
hissing and flourishing his brush like a warlike banner above his
head--then hardly could I restrain my dog from turning tail and flying
home in abject terror. My cruel persistence was rewarded at last.
Continued shouts, cheers, and hand-clappings began to stir the brute to
a kind of frenzy. Torn by conflicting emotions, he began to revolve
about the skunk at a lumbering gallop, barking, howling, and bristling
up his hair; and at last, shutting his eyes, and with a yell of
desperation, he charged. I fully expected to see the enemy torn to
pieces in a few seconds, but when the dog was still four or five feet
from him the fatal discharge came, and he dropped down as if shot dead.
For some time he lay on the earth perfectly motionless, watched and
gently bedewed by the victorious skunk; then he got up and crept whining
away. Gradually he quickened his pace, finally breaking into a frantic
run. In vain I followed him, shouting at the top of my lungs; he stayed
not to listen, and very speedily vanished from sight--a white speck on
the vast level plain. At noon on the following day he made his
appearance, gaunt and befouled with mud, staggering forward like a
galvanized skeleton. Too worn out even to eat, he flung himself down,
and for hours lay like a dead thing, sleeping off the effects of those
few drops of perfume.

Dogs, I concluded, like men, have their idiosyncrasies; but I had gained
my point, and proved once more--if any proof were needed--the truth of
that noble panegyric of Bacon's on our faithful servant and companion.




CHAPTER VIII.

MIMICRY AND WARNING COLOURS IN GRASSHOPPERS.


There is in La Plata a large handsome grasshopper (Zoniopoda tarsata),
the habits of which in its larva and imago stages are in strange
contrast, like those in certain lepidoptera, in which the caterpillars
form societies and act in concert. The adult has a greenish protective
colouring, brown and green banded thighs, bright red hind wings, seen
only during flight. It is solitary and excessively shy in its habits,
living always in concealment among the dense foliage near the surface of
the ground. The yonng are intensely black, like grasshoppers cut out of
jet or ebony, and gregarious in habit, living in bands of forty or fifty
to three or four hundred; and so little shy, that they may sometimes be
taken up by handfuls before they begin to scatter in alarm. Their
gregarious habits and blackness--of all hues in nature the most obvious
to the sight--would alone be enough to make them the most conspicuous of
insects; but they have still other habits which appear as if specially
designed to bring them more prominently into notice. Thus, they all keep
so close together at all times as to have their bodies actually
touching, and when travelling, move so slowly that the laziest snail
might easily overtake and pass one of their bands, and even disappear
beyond their limited horizon in a very short time.

They often select an exposed weed to feed on, clustering together on its
summit above the surrounding verdure, an exceedingly conspicuous object
to every eye in the neighbourhood. They also frequently change their
feeding-ground; at such times they deliberately cross wide roads and
other open spaces, barren of grass, where, moving so slowly that they
scarcely seem to move at all, they look at a distance like a piece of
black velvet lying on the ground. Thus in every imaginable way they
expose themselves and invite attack; yet, in spite of it all, I have
never detected birds preying on them, and I have sometimes kept one of
these black societies under observation near my house for several days,
watching them at intervals, in places where the trees overhead were the
resort of Icterine and tyrant birds, Guira cuckoos, and other species,
all great hunters after grasshoppers. A young grasshopper is, moreover,
a morsel that seldom comes amiss to any bird, whether insect or seed
eater; and, as a rule, it is extremely shy, nimble, and inconspicuous.
It seems clear that, although the young Zoniopoda does not mimic in its
form any black protected insect, it nevertheless owes its safety to its
blackness, together with the habit it possesses of exposing itself in so
open and bold a manner. Blackness is so common in large protected
insects, as, for instance, in the un-palatable leaf-cutting ants,
scorpions, mygale spiders, wasps, and other dangerous kinds, that it is
manifestly a "warning colour," the most universal and best known in
nature; and the grasshopper, I believe, furthermore mimics the fearless
demeanour of the protected or venomous species, which birds and other
insect-eaters know and respect. It might be supposed that the young
Zoniopoda is itself unpalatable; but this is scarcely probable, for when
the deceptive black mask is once dropped, the excessive shyness, love of
concealment, and protective colouring of the insect show that it is much
sought after by birds.

While setting this down as an undoubted case of "mimicry," although it
differs in some respects from all other cases I have seen reported, I
cannot help remarking that this most useful word appears to be in some
danger of losing the meaning originally attached to it in zoology. There
are now very few cases of an accidental resemblance found between two
species in nature which are not set down by someone to "mimicry," some
in which even the wildest imagination might well fail to see any
possible benefit to the supposed mimic. In cases where the outward
resemblance of some feeble animal to a widely different and
well-protected species, or to some object like a leaf or stick, and
where such resemblance is manifestly advantageous and has reacted on and
modified the life habits, it is conceivable that slight spontaneous
variations in the structure and colouring of the unprotected species
have been taken advantage of by the principle of natural selection, and
a case of "mimicry" set up, to become more and more perfect in time, as
successive casual variations in the same direction increased the
resemblance.

The stick-insect is perhaps the most perfect example where resemblance
to an inanimate object has been the result aimed at, so to speak, by
nature; the resemblance of the volucella fly to the humble-bee, on which
it is parasitical, is the most familiar example of one species growing
like another to its own advantage, since only by means of its deceptive
likeness to the humble-bee is it able to penetrate into the nest with
impunity. These two cases, with others of a similar character, were
first called cases of "mimicry" by Kirby and Spence, in their
ever-delightful _Introduction to Entomology--_an old book, but,
curiously enough in these days of popular treatises on all matters of
the kind, still the only general work on insects in the English language
which one who is not an entomologist can read with pleasure.

A second case of mimicry not yet noticed by any naturalist is seen in
another grasshopper, also common in La Plata (Rhomalea speciosa of
Thun-berg). This is an extremely elegant insect; the head and thorax
chocolate, with cream-coloured markings; the abdomen steel-blue or
purple, a colour I have not seen in any other insects of this family.
The fore wings have a protective colouring; the hind wings are bright
red. When at rest, with the red and purple tints concealed, it is only a
very pretty grasshopper, but the instant it takes wing it becomes the
fac-simile of a very common wasp of the genus Pepris. These wasps vary
greatly in size, some being as large as the hornet; they are solitary,
and feed on the honey of flowers and on fruit, and, besides being
furnished with stings like other wasps--though their sting is nok so
venomous as in other genera--they also, when angry, emit a most
abominable odour, and are thus doubly protected against their enemies.
Their excessive tameness, slow flight, and indolent motions serve to
show that they are not accustomed to be interfered with. All these
strong-smelling wasps have steel-blue or purple bodies, and bright red
wings. So exactly does the Rhomalea grasshopper mimic the Pepris when
flying, that I have been deceived scores of times. I have even seen it
on the leaves, and, after it has flown and settled once more, I have
gone to look at it again, to make sure that my eyes had not deceived me.
It is curious to see how this resemblance has reacted on and modified
the habits of the grasshopper. It is a great flyer, and far more aerial
in its habits than any other insect I am acquainted with in this family,
living always in trees, instead of on or near the surface of the ground.
It is abundant in orchards and plantations round Buenos Ayres, where its
long and peculiarly soft, breezy note may be heard all summer. If the
ancient Athenians possessed so charming an insect as this, their great
regard for the grasshopper was not strange: I only wish that the
"Athenians of South America," as my fellow-townsmen sometimes call
themselves in moments of exaltation, had a feeling of the samo kind--the
regard which does _not_ impale its object on a pin--for the pretty
light-hearted songster of their groves and gardens.

When taken in the hand, it has the habit, common to most grasshoppers,
of pouring out an inky fluid from its mouth; only the discharge is
unusually copious in this species. It has another habit in defending
itself which is very curious. When captured it instantly curls its body
round, as a wasp does to sting. The suddenness of this action has more
than once caused me to drop an insect I had taken, actually thinking for
the moment that I had taken hold of a wasp. Whether birds would be
deceived and made to drop it or not is a question it would not be easy
to settle; but the instinct certainly looks like 'one of a series of
small adaptations, all tending to make the resemblance to a wasp more
complete and effective.





CHAPTER IX.

DRAGON-FLY STORMS.


One of the most curious things I have encountered in my observations on
animal life relates to a habit of the larger species of dragon-flies
inhabiting the Pampas and Patagonia. Dragon-flies are abundant
throughout the country wherever there is water. There are several
species, all more or less brilliantly coloured. The kinds that excited
my wonder, from their habits, are twice as large as the common widely
distributed insects, being three inches to four inches in length, and as
a rule they are sober-coloured, although there is one species--the
largest among them--entirely of a brilliant scarlet. This kind is,
however, exceedingly rare. All the different kinds (of the large
dragon-flies) when travelling associate together, and occasionally, in a
flight composed of countless thousands, one of these brilliant-hued
individuals will catch the eye, appearing as conspicuous among the
others as a poppy or scarlet geranium growing alone in an otherwise
flowerless field. The most common species--and in some cases the entire
flight seems to be composed of this kind only--is the Aeschna
bonariensis Raml, the prevailing colour of which is pale blue. But the
really wonderful thing about them all alike is, that they appear only
when flying before the southwest wind, called _pampero_--the wind that
blows from the interior of the pampas. The pampero is a dry, cold wind,
exceedingly violent. It bursts on the plains very suddenly, and usually
lasts only a short time, sometimes not more than ten minutes; it comes
irregularly, and at all seasons of the year, but is most frequent in the
hot season, and after exceptionally sultry weather. It is in summer and
autumn that the large dragon-flies appear; not _with_ the wind, but--and
this is the most curious part of the matter--in advance of it; and
inasmuch as these insects are not seen in the country at other times,
and frequently appear in seasons of prolonged drought, when all the
marshes and watercourses for many hundreds of miles are dry, they must
of course traverse immense distances, flying before the wind at a speed
of seventy or eighty miles an hour. On some occasions they appear almost
simultaneously with the wind, going by like a flash, and instantly
disappearing from sight. You have scarcely time to see them before the
wind strikes you. As a rule, however, they make their appearance from
five to fifteen minutes before the wind strikes; and when they are in
great numbers the air, to a height of ten or twelve feet above the
surface of the ground, is all at once seen to be full of them, rushing
past with extraordinary velocity in a north-easterly direction. In very
oppressive weather, and when the swiftly advancing pampero brings no
moving mountains of mingled cloud and dust, and is consequently not
expected, the sudden apparition of the dragon-fly is a most welcome one,
for then an immediate burst of cold wind is confidently looked for. In
the expressive vernacular of the gauchos the large dragon-fly is called
_hijo del pampero_--son of the south-west wind.

It is clear that these great and frequent dragonfly movements are not
explicable on any current hypothesis regarding the annual migrations of
birds, the occasional migrations of butterflies, or the migrations of
some mammals, like the reindeer and buffalo of Arctic America, which,
according to Rae and other observers, perform long journeys north and
south at regular seasons, "from a sense of polarity." Neither this
hypothetical sense in animals, nor "historical memory" will account for
the dragon-fly storms, as the phenomenon of the pampas might be called,
since the insects do not pass and repass between "breeding and
subsistence areas," but all journey in a north-easterly direction; and
of the countless millions flying like thistledown before the great
pampero wind, not one solitary traveller ever returns.

The cause of the flight is probably dynamical, affecting the insects
with a sudden panic, and compelling them to rush away before the
approaching tempest. The mystery is that they should fly from the wind
before it reaches them, and yet travel in the same direction with it.
When they pass over the level, treeless country, not one insect lags
behind, or permits the wind to overtake it; but, on arriving at a wood
or large plantation they swarm into it, as if seeking shelter from some
swift-pursuing enemy, and on such occasions they sometimes remain
clinging to the trees while the wind spends its force. This is
particularly the case when the wind blows up at a late hour of the day;
then, on the following morning, the dragon-flies are seen clustering to
the foliage in such numbers that many trees are covered with them, a
large tree often appearing as if hung with curtains of some brown
glistening material, too thick to show the green leaves beneath.

In Patagonia, where the phenomenon of dragon-fly storms is also known,
an Englishman residing at the Rio Negro related to me the following
occurrence which he witnessed there. A race meeting was being held near
the town of El Carmen, on a high exposed piece of ground, when, shortly
before sunset, a violent pampero wind came up, laden with dense
dust-clouds. A few moments before the storm broke, the air all at once
became obscured with a prodigious cloud of dragon-flies. About a hundred
men, most of them on horseback, were congregated on the course at the
time, and the insects, instead of rushing by in their usual way, settled
on the people in such quantities that men and horses were quickly
covered with clinging masses of them. My informant said--and this agrees
with my own observation--that he was greatly impressed by the appearance
of terror shown by the insects; they clung to him as if for dear life,
so that he had the greatest difficulty in ridding himself of them.

Weissenborn, in London's _Magazine of Natural History_ (N. S. vol. iii.)
describes a great migration of dragon-flies which he witnessed in
Germany in 1839, and also mentions a similar phenomenon occurring in
1816, and extending over a large portion of Europe. But in these cases
the movement took place at the end of May, and the insects travelled due
south; their migrations were therefore similar to those of birds and
butterflies, and were probably due to the same cause. I have been unable
to find any mention of a phenomenon resembling the one with which we are
so familiar on the pampas, and which, strangely enough, has not been
recorded by any European naturalists who have travelled there.




CHAPTER X.

MOSQUITOES AND PARASITE PROBLEMS.


There cannot be a doubt that some animals possess an instinctive
knowledge of their enemies--or, at all events, of some of their
enemies--though I do not believe that this faculty is so common as many
naturalists imagine. The most striking example I am acquainted with is
seen in gnats or mosquitoes, and in the minute South American sandflies
(Simulia), when a dragon-fly appears in a place where they are holding
their aerial pastimes. The sudden appearance of a ghost among human
revellers could not produce a greater panic. I have spoken in the last
chapter of periodical storms or waves of dragon-flies in the Plata
region, and mentioned incidentally that the appearance of these insects
is most welcome in oppressively hot weather, since they are known to
come just in advance of a rush of cool wind. In La Plata we also look
for the dragon-fly, and rejoice at its coming, for another reason. We
know that the presence of this noble insect will cause the clouds of
stinging gnats and flies, which make life a burden, to vanish like
smoke.

When a flight of dragon-flies passes over the country many remain along
the route, as I have said, sheltering themselves wherever trees occur;
and, after the storm blows over, these strangers and stragglers remain
for some days hawking for prey in the neighbourhood. It is curious to
note that they do not show any disposition to seek for watercourses. It
may be that they feel lost in a strange region, or that the panic they
have suffered, in their long flight before the wind, has unsettled their
instincts; for it is certain that they do not, like the dragon-fly in
Mrs. Browning's poem, "return to dream upon the river." They lead
instead a kind of vagabond existence, hanging about the plantations, and
roaming over the surrounding plains. It is then remarked that gnats and
sand-flies apparently cease to exist, even in places where they have
been most abundant. They have not been devoured by the dragon-flies,
which are perhaps very few in number; they have simply got out of the
way, and will remain in close concealment until their enemies take their
departure, or have all been devoured by martins, tyrant birds, and the
big robber-flies or devil's dykes--no name is bad enough for them--of
the family Asilidaa. During these peaceful gnatless days, if a person
thrusts himself into the bushes or herbage in some dark sheltered place,
he will soon begin to hear the thin familiar sounds, as of "horns of
elf-land faintly blowing"; and presently, from the ground and the under
surface of every leaf, the ghost-like withered little starvelings will
appear in scores and in hundreds to settle on him, fear not having
blunted their keen appetites.

When riding over the pampas on a hot still day, with a pertinacious
cloud of gnats or sandflies hovering just above my head and keeping me
company for miles, I have always devoutly wished for a stray dragon-fly
to show himself. Frequently the wish has been fulfilled, the dragon-fly,
apparently "sagacious of his quarry from afar," sweeping straight at his
prey, and instantly, as if by miracle, the stinging rain has ceased and
the noxious cloud vanished from overhead, to be re-formed no more. This
has always seemed very extraordinary to me; for in other matters gnats
do not appear to possess even that proverbial small dose of intellect
for which we give most insects credit. Before the advent of the
dragon-fly it has perhaps happened that I have been vigorously striking
at them, making it very unpleasant for them, and also killing and
disabling many hundreds--a larger number than the most voracious
dragon-fly could devour in the course of a whole day; and yet, after
brushing and beating them off until my arms have ached with the
exertion, they have continued to rush blindly on their fate, exhibiting
not the faintest symptom of fear. I suppose that for centuries
mosquitoes have, in this way, been brushed and beaten away with hands
and with tails, without learning caution. It is not in their knowledge
that there are hands and tails. A large animal is simply a field on
which they confidently settle to feed, sounding shrill flourishes on
their little trumpets to show how fearless they are. But the dragon-fly
is very ancient on the earth, and if, during the Devonian epoch, when it
existed, it preyed on some blood-sucking insect from which or Culicidae
have come, then these stupid little insects have certainly had ample
time in which to learn well at least one lesson.

There is not in all organic nature, to my mind, any instance of wasted
energy comparable in magnitude with the mosquito's thirst for blood, and
the instincts and elaborate blood-pumping apparatus with which it is
related. The amount of pollen given off by some wind-fertilized
trees--so great in some places that it covers hundreds of square miles
of earth and water with a film of yellow dust---strikes us as an amazing
waste of material on the part of nature; but in these cases we readily
see that this excessive prodigality is necessary to continue the
species, and that a sufficient number of flowers would not be
impregnated unless the entire trees were bathed for days in the
fertilizing cloud, in which only one out of many millions of floating
particles can ever hit the mark. The mosquito is able to procreate
without ever satisfying its ravenous appetite for blood. To swell its
grey thread-like abdomen to a coral bead is a delight to the insect, but
not necessary to its existence, like food and water to ours; it is the
great prize in the lottery of life, which few can ever succeed in
drawing. In a hot summer, when one has ridden perhaps for half a day
over a low-lying or wet district, through an atmosphere literally
obscured with a fog of mosquitoes, this fact strikes the mind very
forcibly, for in such places it frequently is the case that mammals do
not exist, or are exceedingly rare. In Europe it is different. There, as
Reaumur said, possibly one gnat in every hundred may be able to gratify
its appetite for blood; but of the gnats in many districts in South
America it would be nearer the mark to say that only one in a hundred
millions can ever do so.

Curtis discovered that only the female mosquito bites or sucks blood,
the male being without tongue or mandibles; and he asks, What, then,
does the male feed on? He conjectures that it feeds on flowers; but, had
he visited some swampy places in hot countries, where flowers are few
and the insects more numerous than the sands on the seashore, he would
most probably have said that the males subsist on decaying vegetable
matter and moisture of slime. It is, however, more important to know
what the female subsists on. We know that she thirsts for warm mammalian
blood, that she seeks it with avidity, and is provided with an admirable
organ for its extraction--only, unfortunately for her, she does not get
it, or, at all events, the few happy individuals that do get it are
swamped in the infinite multitude of those that are doomed by nature to
total abstinence.

I should like to know whether this belief of Curtis, shared by Westwood
and other distinguished entomologists, but originally put forward merely
as a conjecture, has ever been tested by careful observation and
experiment. If not, then it is strange that it should have crept into
many important works, where it is stated not as a mere guess, but as an
established fact. Thus, Van Beneden, in his work on parasites, while
classing female mosquitoes with his "miserable wretches," yet says, "If
blood fails them, they live, like the males, on the juices of flowers."
If this be so, it is quite certain that the juices fail to satisfy them;
and that, like Dr. Tanner, who was ravenously hungry during his forty
days' fast, in spite of his frequent sips of water, the mosquito still
craves for something better than a cool vegetarian diet. I cannot help
thinking, though the idea may seem fanciful, that mosquitoes feed on
nothing. We know that the ephemerae take no refreshment in the imago
state, the mouth being aborted or atrophied in these short-lived
creatures; but we also know that they belong to an exceedingly ancient
tribe, and possibly, after the earth had ceased to produce their proper
nourishment there came in their history a long hungry period, which did
not kill them, but lasted until their feeding instincts became obsolete,
the mouth lost its use, and their life in its perfect state dwindled to
its present length.

In any case, how unsatisfactory is the mosquitoes' existence, and what a
curious position they occupy in nature! Let us suppose that, owing to
some great change in the conditions of the earth, rapacious birds were
no longer able to capture prey, and that, by a corresponding change in
their organizations, they were able to subsist on the air they breathed,
with perhaps an occasional green leaf and a sip of water, and yet
retained the old craving for solid food, and the old predatory instincts
and powers undiminished; they would be in the position of mosquitoes in
the imago state. And if then fifty or a hundred individuals were to
succeed every year in capturing something and making one hearty meal,
these few fortunate diners would bear about the same proportion to all
the raptors on the globe as the mosquitoes that succeed in sucking blood
to their unsuccessful fellows. In the case of the hawks, the effect of
the few meals on the entire rapacious family or order would certainly be
_nil;_ and it is impossible to believe for a moment that the
comparatively infinitesimal amount of blood sucked by mosquitoes can.
serve to invigorate the species. The wonder is that the machinery, which
accomplishes nothing, should continue in such perfect working order.

When we consider the insect's delicate organ, so admirably fitted for
the purpose to which it is applied, it becomes difficult to believe that
it could have been so perfected except in a condition of things utterly
unlike the present. There must have been a time when mosquitoes found
their proper nourishment, and when warm mammalian blood was as necessary
to their existence as honey is to that of the bee, or insect food to the
dragon-fly.

This applies to many blood-sucking insects besides mosquitoes, and with
special force to the tick tribes (Ixodes), which swarm throughout
Central and South America; for in these degraded spiders the whole body
has been manifestly modified to fit it for a parasitical life; while the
habits of the insect during its blind, helpless, waiting existence on
trees, and its sudden great development when it succeeds in attaching
itself to an animal body, also point irresistibly to the same
conclusion. In the sunny uplands they act (writes Captain Burton) like
the mosquitoes of the hot, humid Beiramar. "The nuisance is general; it
seems to be in the air; every blade of grass has its colony; clusters of
hundreds adhere to the twigs; myriads are found in the bush clumps. Lean
and flat when growing to the leaves, the tick catches man or beast
brushing by, fattens rapidly, and, at the end-of a week's good living,
drops off, _plena cruoris."_ When on trees, Belt says, they
instinctively place themselves on the extreme tips of leaves and shoots,
with their hind legs stretching out, each foot armed with two hooks or
claws, with which to lay hold of any animal brushing by. During this
wretched, incom-plete existence (from which, in most cases, it is never
destined to emerge), its greatest length is about one-fourth of an inch;
but where it fastens itself to an animal the abdomen increases to a
globe as big as a medium-sized Barcelona nut. Being silvery-grey or
white in colour, it becomes, when thus distended, very conspicuous on
any dark surface. I have frequently seen black, smooth-haired dogs with
their coats, turned into a perfect garden of these white spider-flowers
or mushrooms. The white globe is leathery, and nothing can injure it;
and the poor beast cannot rub, bite, or scratch it off, as it is
anchored to his flesh by eight sets of hooks and a triangle of teeth.

The ticks inhabiting regions rich in bird and insect life, but with few
mammals, are in the same condition as mosquitoes, as far as the supply
of blood goes; and, like the mosquitoes, they are compelled and able to
exist without the nourishment best suited to them. They are nature's
miserable castaways, parasitical tribes lost in a great dry wilderness
where no blood is; and every marsh-born mosquito, piping of the hunger
gnawing its vitals, and every forest tick, blindly feeling with its
grappling-irons for the beast that never brushes by, seems to tell us of
a world peopled with gigantic forms, mammalian and reptilian, which once
afforded abundant pasture to the parasite, and which the parasite
perhaps assisted to overthrow.

It is almost necessary to transport oneself to the vast tick-infested
wilderness of the New World to appreciate the full significance of a
passage in Belt's _Naturalist in Nicaragua,_ in which it is suggested
that man's hairless condition was perhaps brought about by natural
selection in tropical regions, where he was greatly troubled with
parasites of this kind. It is certain that if in such a country as
Brazil he possessed a hairy coat, affording cover to the tick and
enabling it to get a footing on the body, his condition would be a very
sad one. Savages abhor hairs on the body, and even pluck them off their
faces. This seems like a survival of an ancient habit acquired when the
whole body was clothed with hair; and if primitive man ever possessed
such a habit, nature only followed his lead in giving him a hairless
offspring.

Is it not also probable that the small amount of mammalian life in South
America, and the aquatic habits of nearly all the large animals in the
warmer districts, is due to the persecutions of the tick?

The only way in which a large animal can rid itself of the pest is by
going into the water or wallowing in the mud; and this perhaps accounts
for the more or less aquatic habits of the jaguar, aguará-guazú, the
large Cervus paluclosus, tapir, capybara, and peccary. Monkeys, which
are most abundant, are a notable exception; but these animals have the
habit of attending to each other's skins, and spend a great deal of
their time in picking off the parasites. But how do birds escape the
ticks, since these parasites do not confine their attacks to any one
class of aninials, but attach themselves impartially to any living thing
coming within reach of their hooks, from snake to man? My own
observations bearing on this point refer less to the Ixodes than to the
minute bete-rouge, which is excessively abundant in the Plata district,
where it is known as _bicho colorado,_ and in size and habits resembles
the English Leptus autumnalis. It is so small that, notwithstanding its
bright scarlet colour, it can only be discerned by bringing the eye
close to it; and being, moreover, exceedingly active and abundant in all
shady places in summer--making life a misery to careless human
beings--it must be very much more dangerous to birds than the larger
sedentary Ixodes. The bete-rouge invariably lodges beneath the wings of
birds, where the loose scanty plumage affords easy access to the skin.
Domestic birds suffer a great deal from its persecutions, and their
young, if allowed to run about in shady places, die of the irritation.
Wild birds, however, seem to be very little troubled, and most of those
I have examined have been almost entirely free from parasites. Probably
they are much more sensitive than the domestic birds, and able to feel
and pick off the insects with their beaks before they have penetrated
into the skin. I believe they are also able to protect themselves in
another way, namely, by preventing the parasites from reaching their
bodies at all. I was out under the trees one day with a pet oven-bird
(Furnarius rufus), which had full liberty to range about at will, and
noticed that at short intervals it went through the motions of picking
something from its toes or legs, though I could see nothing on them. At
length I approached my eyes to within a few inches of the bird's feet,
and discovered that the large dry branch on which it stood was covered
with a multitude of parasites, all running rapidly about like foraging
ants, and whenever one came to the bird's feet it at once ran up the
leg. Every time this happened, so far as I could see, the bird felt it.
and quickly and deftly picked it off with the point of its bill. It
seemed very astonishing that the horny covering of the toes and legs
should be so exquisitely sensitive, for the insects are so small and
light that they cannot be felt on the hand, even when a score of them
are running over it; but the fact is as I have stated, and it is highly
probable, I think, that most wild birds keep themselves free from these
little torments in the same way.

Some observations of mine on a species of Orni-thomyia--a fly
parasitical on birds--might possibly be of use in considering the
question of the anomalous position in nature of insects possessing the
instincts and aptitudes of parasites, and organs manifestly modified to
suit a parasitical mode of life, yet compelled and able to exist free,
feeding, perhaps, on vegetable juices, or, like the ephemerae, on
nothing at all. For it must be borne in mind that I do not assert that
these "occasional" or "accidental" parasites, as some one calls them,
explaining nothing, do not feed on such juices. I do not know what they
feed on. I only know that the joyful alacrity with which gnats and
stinging flies of all kinds abandon the leaves, supposed to afford them
pasture, to attack a warm-blooded animal, serves to show how strong the
impulse is, and how ineradicable the instinct, which must have had an
origin. Perhaps the habits of the bird-fly I have mentioned will serve
to show how, in some cases, the free life of some blood-sucking flies
and other insects might have originated.

Kirby and Spence, in their _Introduction,_ mention that one or two
species of Ornithomyia have been observed flying about and alighting on
men; and in one case the fly extracted blood and was caught, the species
being thus placed beyond doubt. This circumstance led the authors to
believe that the insect, when the bird it is parasitical on dies,
takes to flight and migrates from body to body, occasionally tasting
blood until, coming to the right body--to wit, that of a bird, or of a
particular species of bird--it once more establishes itself permanently
in the plumage. I fancy that the insect sometimes leads a freer life and
ranges much more than the authors imagined; and I refer to Kirby and
Spence, with apologies to those who regard the _Introduction_ as out of
date, only because I am not aware that we have any later observations on
the subject.

There is in La Plata a small very common Dendrocolaptine bird--Anumbius
acuticaudatus--much infested by an Ornithomyia, a pretty, pale insect,
half the size of a house-fly, and elegantly striped with green. It is a
very large parasite for so small a bird, yet so cunning and alert is it,
and so swiftly is it able to swim through the plumage, that the bird is
unable to rid itself of so undesirable a companion. The bird lives with
its mate all the year round, much of the time with its grown-up young,
in its nest--a large structure, in which so much building-material is
used that the bird is called in the vernacular Leñatero, or
Firewood-gatherer. On warm bright days without wind, during the absence
of the birds, I have frequently seen a company of from half a dozen to a
dozen or fifteen of the parasitical fly wheeling about in the air above
the nest, hovering and gambolling together, just like house-flies in a
room in summer; but always on the appearance of the birds, returning
from their feeding-ground, they would instantly drop down and disappear
into the nest. How curious this instinct seems! The fly regards the
bird, which affords it the warmth and food essential to life, as its
only deadly enemy; and with an inherited wisdom, like that of the
mosquito with regard to the dragon-fly, or of the horse-fly with regard
to the Monedula wasp, vanishes like smoke from its presence, and only
approaches the bird secretly from a place of concealment.

The parasitical habit tends inevitably to degrade the species acquiring
it, dulling its senses and faculties, especially those of sight and
locomotion; but the Ornithomyia seems an exception, its dependent life
having had a contrary effect; the extreme sensitiveness, keenness of
sight, and quickness of the bird having reacted on the insect, giving it
a subtlety in its habits and motions almost without a parallel even
among free insects. A man with a blood-sucking flat-bodied flying
squirrel, concealing itself among his clothing and gliding and dodging
all over his body with so much artifice and rapidity as to defeat all
efforts made to capturo it or knock it off, would be a case parallel to
that of the bird-fly on the small bird. It might be supposed that the
Firewood-gatherer, like some ants that keep domestic pets, makes a pet
of the fly; for it is a very pretty insect, barred with green, and with
rainbow reflections on its wings--and birds are believed by some
theorists to possess aesthetic tastes; but the discomfort of having such
a vampire on the body would, I imagine, be too great to allow a kindly
instinct of that nature to grow up. Moreover, I have on several
occasions seen the bird making frantic efforts to capture one of the
flies, which had incautiously flown up from the nest at the wrong
moment. Bird and fly seem to know each other wonderfully well.

Here, then, we have a parasitical insect specialized in the highest
degree, yet retaining all its pristine faculties unimpaired, its love of
liberty, and of associating in numbers together for sportive exercises,
and well able to take care of itself during its free intervals. And
probably when thrown on the world, as when nests are blown down, or the
birds get killed, or change their quarters, as they often do, it is able
to exist for some time without avian blood. Let us then imagine some of
these orphaned colonies, unable to find birds, but through a slight
change in habits or organization able to exist in the imago state
without sucking blood until they laid their eggs; and succeeding
generations, still better able to stand the altered conditions of life
until they become practically independent (like gnats), multiplying
greatly, and disporting themselves in clouds over forests, yet still
retaining the old hunger for blood and the power to draw it, and ready
at any moment to return to the ancestral habit. It might be said that if
such a result were possible it would have occurred, but that we find no
insect like the Ornithomyia existing independently. With the bird-fly it
has not occurred, as far as we know; but in the past history of some
independent parasites it is possible that something similar to the
imaginary case I have sketched may have taken place. The bush-tick is a
more highly specialized, certainly a more degraded, creature than the
bird-fly, and the very fact of its existence seems to show that it is
possible for even the lowest of the fallen race of parasites to start
afresh in life under new conditions, and to reascend in the scale of
being, although still bearing about it the marks of former degeneracy.

The connection between the flea and the mammal it feeds on is even less
close than that which exists between the Ornithomyia and bird. The fact
that fleas are so common and universal--for in all lands we have them,
like the poor, always with us; and that they are found on all mammals,
from the king of beasts to the small modest mouse--seems to show a great
amount of variability and adaptiveness, as well as a very high
antiquity. It has often been reported that fleas have been found hopping
on the ground in desert places, where they could not have been dropped
by man or beast; and it has been assumed that these "independent" fleas
must, like gnats and ticks, subsist on vegetable juices. There is no
doubt that they are able to exist and propagate for one or two years
after being deprived of their proper aliment; houses shut up for a year
or longer are sometimes found infested with them; possibly in the
absence of "vegetable juices" they flourish on dust. I have never
detected them hopping on the ground in uninhabited places, although I
once found them in Patagonia, in a hamlet which had been attacked and
depopulated by the Indians about twenty months before my visit. On
entering one of the deserted huts I found the floor literally swarming
with fleas, and in less than ten seconds my legs, to the height of my
knees, were almost black with their numbers. This proves that they are
able toincrease greatly for a period without blood; but I doubt that
they can go on existing and increasing for an indefinite time; perhaps
their true position, with regard to the parasitical habit, is midway
between that of the strict parasite which never leaves the body, and
that of independent parasites like the Culex and the Ixodes, and all
those which are able to exist free for ever, and are parasitical only
when the opportunity offers.

Entomologists regard the flea as a degraded fly. Certainly it is very
much more degraded than the bird-borne Ornithomyia, with its subtle
motions and instinct, its power of flight and social pastimes. The poor
pulex has lost every trace of wings; nevertheless, in its fallen
condition it has developed some remarkable qualities and saltatory
powers, which give it a lower kind of glory; and, compared with another
parasite with which it shares the human species, it is almost a noble
insect. Darwin has some remarks about the smallness of the brain of an
ant, assuming that this insect possesses a very high intelligence, but I
doubt very much that the ant, which moves in a groove, is mentally the
superior of the unsocial flea. The last is certainly the most teachable;
and if fleas were generally domesticated and made pets of, probably
there would be as many stories about their marvellous intelligence and
fidelity to man as we now hear about our over-praised "friend" the dog.

With regard to size, the flea probably started on its downward course as
a comparatively large insect, probably larger than the Ornithomyia. That
insect has been able to maintain its existence, without dwindling like
the Leptus into a mere speck, through the great modification in organs
and instinct, which adapt it so beautifully to the feathery element in
which it moves. The bush-tick, wingless from the beginning, and
diverging in another direction, has probably been greatly increased in
size by its parasitical habit; this seems proven by the fact, that as
long as it is parasitical on nothing it remains small, but when able to
fasten itself to an animal it rapidly developes to a great size. Again,
the big globe of its abdomen is coriaceous and elastic, and is probably
as devoid of sensation as a ball of india-rubber. The insect, being made
fast by hooks and teeth to its victim, all efforts to remove it only
increase the pain it causes; and animals that know it well do not
attempt to rub, scratch, or bite it off, therefore the great size and
the conspicuous colour of the tick are positive advantages to it. The
flea, without the subtlety and highly-specialized organs of the
Ornithomyia, or the stick-fast powers and leathery body of the Ixodes,
can only escape its vigilant enemies by making itself invisible; hence
every variation, i.e. increase in jumping-power and diminished bulk,
tending towards this result, has been taken advantage of by natural
selection.




CHAPTER XI

HUMBLE-BEES AND OTHER MATTERS.


Two humble-bees, Bombus thoracicus and B. violaceus, are found on the
pampas; the first, with a primrose yellow thorax, and the extremity of
the abdomen bright rufous, slightly resembles the English B. terrestris;
the rarer species, which is a trifle smaller than the first, is of a
uniform intense black, the body having the appearance of velvet, the
wings being of a deep violaceous blue.

A census of the humble-bees in any garden or field always shows that the
yellow bees outnumber the black in the proportion of about seven to one;
and I have also found their nests for many years in the same proportion;
about seven nests of the yellow to one nest of the black species. In
habits they are almost identical, and when two species so closely allied
are found inhabiting the same locality, it is only reasonable to infer
that one possesses some advantage over the other, and that the least
favoured species will eventually disappear. In this case, where one so
greatly outnumbers the other, it might be thought that the rarer species
is dying out, or that, on the contrary, it is a new-comer destined to
supplant the older more numerous species. Yet, during the twenty years I
have observed them, there has occurred no change in their relative
positions; though both have greatly increased in numbers during that
time, owing to the spread of cultivation. And yet it would scarcely be
too much to expect some marked change in a period so long as that, even
through the slow-working agency of natural selection; for it is not as
if there had been an exact balance of power between them. In the same
period of time I have seen several species, once common, almost or quite
disappear, while others, very low down as to numbers, have been exalted
to the first rank. In insect life especially, these changes have been
numerous, rapid, and widespread.

In the district where, as a boy, I chased and caught tinamous, and also
chased ostriches, but failed to catch them, the continued presence of
our two humble-bees, sucking the same flowers and making their nests in
the same situations, has remained a puzzle to my mind.

The site of the nest is usually a slight depression in the soil in the
shelter of a cardoon bush. The bees deepen the hollow by burrowing in
the earth; and when the spring foliage sheltering it withers up, they
construct a dome-shaped covering of small sticks, thorns, and leaves
bitten into extremely minute pieces. They sometimes take possession of a
small hole or cavity in the ground, and save themselves the labour of
excavation.

Their architecture closely resembles that of B. terrestris. They make
rudely-shaped oval honey-cells, varying from half an inch to an inch and
a half in length, the smaller ones being the first made; later in the
season the old cocoons are utilized for storing honey. The wax is
chocolate-coloured, and almost the only difference I can find in the
economy of the two species is that the black bee uses a large quantity
of wax in plastering the interior of its nest. The egg-cell of the
yellow bee always contains from twelve to sixteen eggs; that of the
black bee from ten to fourteen; and the eggs of this species are the
largest though the bee is smallest. At the entrance on the edge of the
mound one bee is usually stationed, and, when approached, it hums a
shrill challenge, and throws itself into a menacing attitude. The sting
is exceedingly painful.

One summer I was so fortunate as to discover two nests of the two kinds
within twelve yards of each other, and I resolved to watch them very
carefully, in order to see whether the two species ever came into
collision, as sometimes happens with ants of different species living
close together. Several times I saw a yellow bee leave its own nest and
hover round or settle on the neighbouring one, upon which the sentinel
black bee would attack and drive it off. One day, while watching, I was
delighted to see a yellow bee actually enter its neighbour's nest, the
sentinel being off duty. In about five minutes' time it came out again
and flew away unmolested. I concluded from this that humble-bees, like
their relations of the hive, occasionally plunder each other's sweets.
On another occasion I found a black bee dead at the entrance of the
yellow bees' nest; doubtless this individual had been caught in the act
of stealing honey, and, after it had been stung to death, it had been
dragged out and left there as a warning to others with like felonious
intentions.

There is one striking difference between the two species. The yellow bee
is inodorous; the black bee, when angry and attacking, emits an
exceedingly powerful odour: curiously enough, this smell is identical in
character with that made when angry by all the wasps of the South
American genus Pepris--dark blue wasps with red wings. This odour at
first produces a stinging sensation on the nerve of smell, but when
inhaled in large measure becomes very nauseating. On one occasion, while
I was opening a nest, several of the bees buzzing round my head and
thrusting their stings through the veil I wore for protection, gave out
so pungent a smell that I found it unendurable, and was compelled to
retreat.

It seems strange that a species armed with a venomous sting and
possessing the fierce courage of the humble-bee should also have this
repulsive odour for a protection. It is, in fact, as incongruous as it
would be were our soldiers provided with guns and swords first, and
after with phials of assafoatida to be uncorked in the face of an enemy.

Why, or how, animals came to be possessed of the power of emitting
pestiferous odours is a mystery; we only see that natural selection has,
in some mstances, chiefly among insects, taken advantage of it to
furnish some of the weaker, more unprotected species with a means of
escape from their enemies. The most stinking example I know is that of a
large hairy caterpillar I have found on dry wood in Patagonia, and
which, when touched, emits an intensely nauseous effluvium. Happily it
is very volatile, but while it lasts it is even more detestable than
that of the skunk.

The skunk itself offers perhaps the one instance amongst the higher
vertebrates of an animal in which all the original instincts of
self-preservation have died out, giving place to this lower kind of
protection. All the other members of the family it belongs to are
cunning, swift of foot, and, when overtaken, fierce-tempered and well
able to defend themselves with their powerful well-armed jaws.

For some occult reason they are provided with a gland charged with a
malodorous secretion; and out of this mysterious liquor Nature has
elaborated the skunk's inglorious weapon. The skunk alone when attacked
makes no attempt to escape or to defend itself by biting; but, thrown by
its agitation into a violent convulsion, involuntarily discharges its
foetid liquor into the face of an opponent. When this animal had once
ceased to use so good a weapon as its teeth in defending itself,
degenerating at the same time into a slow-moving creature, without fear
and without cunning, the strength and vileness of its odour would be
continually increased by the cumulative process of natural selection:
and how effective the protection has become is shown by the abundance of
the species throughout the whole American continent. It is lucky for
mankind--especially for naturalists and sportsmen--that other species
have not been improved in the same direction.

But what can we say of the common deer of the pampas (Cervus
campestris), the male of which gives out an effluvium quite as
far-reaching although not so abominable in character as that of the
Mephitis? It comes in disagreeable whiffs to the human nostril when the
perfumer of the wilderness is not even in sight. Yet it is not a
protection; on the contrary, it is the reverse, and, like the dazzling
white plumage so attractive to birds of prey, a direct disadvantage,
informing all enemies for leagues around of its whereabouts. It is not,
therefore, strange that wherever pumas are found, deer are never very
abundant; the only wonder is that, like the ancient horse of America,
they have not become extinct.

The gauchos of the pampas, however, give _a reason_ for the powerful
smell of the male deer; and, after some hesitation, I have determined to
set it down here, for the reader to accept or reject, as he thinks
proper. I neither believe nor disbelieve it; for although I do not put
great faith in gaucho natural history, my own observations have not
infrequently confirmed statements of theirs, which a sceptical person
would have regarded as wild indeed. To give one instance: I heard a
gaucho relate that while out riding he had been pursued for a
considerable distance by a large spider; his hearers laughed at him for
a romancer; but as I myself had been attacked and pursued, both when on
foot and on horseback, by a large wolf-spider, common on the pampas, I
did not join in the laugh. They say that the effluvium of C. campestris
is abhorrent to snakes of all kinds, just as pyrethrum powder is to most
insects, and even go so far as to describe its effect as fatal to them;
according to this, the smell is therefore a protection to the deer. In
places where venomous snakes are extremely abundant, as in the Sierra
district on the southern pampas of Buenos Ayres, the gaucho frequently
ties a strip of the male deer's skin, which retains its powerful odour
for an indefinite time, round the neck of a valuable horse as a
protection. It is certain that domestic animals are frequently lost here
through snake-bites. The most common poisonous species--the
Craspedo-cephalus alternatus, called _Vivora de la Cruz_ in the
vernacular--has neither bright colour nor warning rattle to keep off
heavy hoofs, and is moreover of so sluggish a temperament that it will
allow itself to be trodden on before stirring, with the result that its
fangs are not infrequently struck into the nose or foot of browsing
beast. Considering, then, the conditions in which C. campestris is
placed--and it might also be supposed that venomous snakes have in past
times been much more numerous than they are now--it is not impossible to
believe that the powerful smell it emits has been made protective,
especially when we see in other species how repulsive odours have been
turned to account by the principle of natural selection.

After all, perhaps the wild naturalist of the pampas knows what he is
about when he ties a strip of deer-skin to the neck of his steed and
turns him loose to graze among the snakes.

The gaucho also affirms that the deer cherishes a wonderful animosity
against snakes; that it becomes greatly excited when it sees one, and
proceeds at once to destroy it; _they say,_ by running round and round
it in a circle, emitting its violent smell in larger measure, until the
snake dies of suffocation. It is hard to believe that the effect can be
so great; but that the deer is a snake hater and killer is certainly
true: in North America, Ceylon, and other districts deer have been
observed excitedly leaping on serpents, and killing them with their
sharp cutting hoofs.




CHAPTER XII.

A NOBLE WASP.

_(Monedula punctata.)_


Naturalists, like kings and emperors, have their favourites, and as my
zoological sympathies, which are wider than my knowledge, embrace all
classes of beings, there are of course several insects for which I have
a special regard; a few in each of the principal orders. My chief
favourite among the hymenopteras is the one representative of the
curious genus Monedula known in La Plata. It is handsome and has
original habits, but it is specially interesting to me for another
reason: I can remember the time when it was extremely rare on the
pampas, so rare that in boyhood the sight of one used to be a great
event to me; and I have watched its rapid increase year by year till it
has come to be one of our commonest species. Its singular habits and
intelligence give it a still better claim to notice. It is a big, showy,
loud-buzzing insect, with pink head and legs, wings with brown
reflections, and body encircled with alternate bands of black and pale
gold, and has a preference for large composite flowers, on the honey of
which it feeds. Its young is, however, an insect-eater; but the Monedula
does not, like other burrowing or sand wasps, put away a store of
insects or spiders, partially paralyzed, as a provision for the grub
till it reaches the pupa state; it actually supplies the grub with
fresh-caught insects as long as food is required, killing the prey it
captures outright, and bringing it in to its young; so that its habits,
in this particular, are more bird- than wasp-like.

The wasp lays its solitary egg at the extremity of a hole it excavates
for itself on a bare hard piece of ground, and many holes are usually
found close together. When the grub--for I have never been able to find
more than one in a hole--has come out from the egg, the parent begins to
bring in insects, carefully filling up the mouth of the hole with loose
earth after every visit. Without this precaution, which entails a vast
amount of labour, I do not believe one grub out of every fifty would
survive, so overrun are these barren spots of ground used as
breeding-places with hunting spiders, ants, and tiger-beetles. The grub
is a voracious eater, but the diligent mother brings in as much as it
can devour. I have often found as many as six or seven insects,
apparently fresh killed, and not yet touched by the pampered little
glutton, coiled up in the midst of them waiting for an appetite.

The Monedula is an adroit fly-catcher, for though it kills numbers of
fire-flies and other insects, flies are always preferred, possibly
because they are so little encumbered with wings, and are also more
easily devoured. It occasionally captures insects on the wing, but the
more usual method is to pounce down on its prey when it is at rest. At
one time, before I had learnt their habits, I used frequently to be
startled by two or three or more of these wasps rushing towards my face,
and continuing hovering before it, loudly buzzing, attending me in my
walks about the fields. The reason of this curious proceeding is that
the Monedula preys largely on stinging flies, having learnt from
experience that the stinging fly will generally neglect its own safety
when it has once fastened on a good spot to draw blood from. When a man
or horse stands perfectly motionless the wasps take no notice, but the
moment any movement is made of hand, tail, or stamping hoof, they rush
to the rescue, expecting to find a stinging fly. On the other hand, the
horse has learnt to know and value this fly-scourge, and will stand very
quietly with half a dozen loud Avasps hovering in an alarming manner
close to his head, well knowing that every fly that settles on him will
be instantly snatched away, and that the boisterous Monedula is a better
protection even than the tail--which, by the way, the horse wears very
long in Buenos Ayres.

I have, in conclusion, to relate an incident I onco witnessed, and which
does not show the Monedula in a very amiable light. I was leaning over a
gate watching one of these wasps feeding on a sunflower. A small
leaf-cutting bee was hurrying about with its shrill busy hum in the
vicinity, and in due time came to the sunflower and settled on it. The
Monedula became irritated, possibly at the shrill voice and bustling
manner of its neighbour, and, after watching it for a few moments on the
flower, deliberately rushed at and drove it off. The leaf-cutter quickly
returned, however--for bees are always extremely averse to leaving a
flower unexplored--but was again driven away with threats and
demonstrations on the part of the Monedula. The little thing went off
and sunned itself on a leaf for a time, then returned to the flower,
only to be instantly ejected again. Other attempts were made, but the
big wasp now kept a jealous watch on its neighbour's movements, and
would not allow it to come within several inches of the flower without
throwing itself into a threatening attitude. The defeated bee retired to
sun itself once more, apparently determined to wait for the big tyrant
to go away; but the other seemed to know what was wanted, and spitefully
made up its mind to stay where it was. The leaf-cutter then gave up the
contest. Suddenly rising up into the air, it hovered, hawk-like, above
the Monedula for a moment, then pounced down on its back, and clung
there, furiously biting, until its animosity was thoroughly appeased;
then it flew off, leaving the other master of the field certainly, but
greatly discomposed, and perhaps seriously injured about the base of the
wings. I was rather surprised that they were not cut quite off, for a
leaf-cutting bee can use its teeth as deftly as a tailor can his shears.

Doubtless to bees, as to men, revenge is sweeter than honey. But, in the
face of mental science, can a creature as low down in the scale of
organization as a leaf-cutting bee be credited with anything so
intelligent and emotional as deliberate anger and revenge, "which
implies the need of retaliation to satisfy the feelings of the person
(or bee) offended?" According to Bain _(Mental and Moral Science)_ only
the highest animals--stags and bulls he mentions-can be credited with
the developed form of anger, which, he describes as an excitement caused
by pain, reaching the centres of activity, and containing an impulse
knowingly to inflict suffering on another sentient being. Here, if man
only is meant, the spark is perhaps accounted for, but not the barrel of
gunpowder. The explosive material is, however, found in the breast of
nearly every living creature. The bull--ranking high according to Bain,
though I myself should place him nearly on a level mentally with the
majority of the lower animals, both vertebrate and insect--is capable of
a wrath exceeding that of Achilles; and yet the fact that a red rag can
manifestly have no associations, personal or political, for the bull,
shows how uniutcllectual his anger must be. Another instance of
misdirected anger in nature, not quite so familiar as that of the bull
and red rag, is used as an illustration by one of the prophets: "My
heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round, about are
against it." I have frequently seen the birds of a thicket gather round
some singularly marked accidental visitor, and finally drive him with
great anger from the neighbourhood. Possibly association comes in a
little here, since any bird, even a small one, strikingly coloured or
marked, might be looked on as a bird of prey.

The flesh-fly laying its eggs on the carrion-flower is only a striking
instance of the mistakes all instincts are liable to, never more
markedly than in the inherited tendency to fits of frenzied excitement:
the feeling is frequently excited by the wrong object, and explodes at
inopportune moments.




CHAPTER XIII.

NATURE'S NIGHT LIGHTS.

_(Remarks about Fireflies and other matters.)_


It was formerly supposed that the light of the firefly (in any family
possessing the luminous power) was a safeguard against the attacks of
other insects, rapacious and nocturnal in their habits. This was Kirby
and Spence's notion, but it might just as well be Pliny's for all the
attention it would receive from modern entomologists: just at present
any observer who lived in the pre-Darwin days is regarded as one of the
ancients. The reasons given for the notion or theory in the celebrated
_Introduction to Entomology_ were not conclusive; nevertheless it was
not an improbable supposition of the authors'; while the theory which
has taken its place in recent zoological writings seems in every way
even less satisfactory.

Let us first examine the antiquated theory, as it must now be called. By
bringing a raptorial insect and a firefly together, we find that the
flashing light of the latter does actually scare away the former, and is
therefore, for the moment, a protection as effectual as the camp-fire
the traveller lights in a district abounding with beasts of prey.
Notwithstanding this fact, and assuming that we have here the whole
reason of the existence of the light-emitting power, a study of the
firefly's habits compels us to believe that the insect would be just as
well off without the power as with it. Probably it experiences some
pleasure in emitting flashes of light during its evening pastimes, but
this could scarcely be considered an advantage in its struggle for
existence, and it certainly does not account for the possession of the
faculty.

About the habits of Pyrophorus, the large tropical firefly which has the
seat of its luminosity on the upper surface of the thorax, nothing
definite appears to be known; but it has been said that this instinct is
altogether nocturnal. The Pyrophorus is only found in the sub-tropical
portion of the Argentine country, and I have never met with it. With the
widely-separated Cratomorphus, and the tortoise-shaped Aspisoma, which
emit the light from the abdomen, I am familiar; one species of
Cratomorphus--a long slender insect with yellow wing-cases marked with
two parallel black lines--is "the firefly" known to every one and
excessively abundant in the southern countries of La Plata. This insect
is strictly diurnal in its habits--as much so, in fact, as diurnal
butterflies. They are seen flying about, wooing their mates, and feeding
on composite and umbelliferous flowers at all hours of the day, and are
as active as wasps during the full glare of noon. Birds do not feed on
them, owing to the disagreeable odour, resembling that of phosphorus,
they emit, and probably because they are to be uneatable; but their
insect enemies are not so squeamish, and devour them readily, just as
they also do the blister-fly, which one would imagine a morsel fitted to
disagree with any stomach. One of their enemies is the Monedula wasp;
another, a fly, of the rapacious Asilidas family; and this fly is also a
wasp in appearance, having a purple body and bright red wings, like a
Pepris, and this mimetic resemblance doubtless serves it as a protection
against birds. A majority of raptorial insects are, however, nocturnal,
and from all these enemies that go about under cover of night, the
firefly, as Kirby and Spence rightly conjectured, protects itself, or
rather is involuntarily protected, by means of its frequent flashing
light. We are thus forced to the conclusion that, while the common house
fly and many other diurnal insects spend a considerable portion of the
daylight in purely sportive exercises, the firefly, possessing in its
light a protection from nocturnal enemies, puts off its pastimes until
the evening; then, when its carnival of two or three hours' duration is
over, retires also to rest, putting out its candle, and so exposing
itself to the dangers which surround other diurnal species during the
hours of darkness. I have spoken of the firefly's pastimes advisedly,
for I have really never been able to detect it doing anything in the
evening beyond flitting aimlessly about, like house flies in a room,
hovering and revolving in company by the hour, apparently for amusement.
Thus, the more closely we look at the facts, the more unsatisfactory
does the explanation seem. That the firefly should have become possessed
of so elaborate a machinery, producing incidentally such splendid
results, merely as a protection against one set of enemies for a portion
only of the period during which they are active, is altogether
incredible.

The current theory, which we owe to Belt, is a prettier one. Certain
insects (also certain Batrachians, reptiles, &c.) are unpalatable to the
rapacious kinds; it is therefore a direct advantage to these unpalatable
species to be distinguishable from all the persecuted, and the more
conspicuous and well-known they are, the less likely are they to be
mistaken by birds, insectivorous mammals, &c., for eatable kinds and
caught or injured. Hence we find that many such species have acquired
for their protection very brilliant or strongly-contrasted
colours--warning colours--which insect-eaters come to know.

The firefly, a soft-bodied, slow-flying insect, is easily caught and
injured, but it is not fit for food, and, therefore, says the theory,
lest it should be injured or killed by mistake, it has a fiery spark to
warn enemies---birds, bats, and rapacious insects--that it is uneatable.

The theory of warning colours is an excellent one, but it has been
pushed too far. We have seen that one of the most common fireflies is
diurnal in habits, or, at any rate, that it performs all the important
business of its life by day, when it has neither bright colour nor light
to warn its bird enemies; and out of every hundred species of
insect-eating birds at least ninety-nine are diurnal. Raptorial insects,
as I have said, feed freely on fireflies, so that the supposed warning
is not for them, and it would be hard to believe that the magnificent
display made by luminous insects is useful only in preventing accidental
injuries to them from a few crepuscular bats and goatsuckers. And to
believe even this we should first have to assume that bats and
goatsuckers are differently constituted from all other creatures; for in
other animals--insects, birds, and mammalians--the appearance of fire by
night seems to confuse and frighten, but it certainly cannot be said to
_warn,_ in the sense in which that word is used when we speak of the
brilliant colours of some butterflies, or even of the gestures of some
venomous snakes, and of the sounds they emit.

Thus we can see that, while the old theory of Kirby and Spence had some
facts to support it, the one now in vogue is purely fanciful. Until some
better suggestion is made, it would perhaps be as well to consider the
luminous organ as having "no very close and direct relation to present
habits of life." About their present habits, however, especially their
crepuscular habits, there is yet much to learn. One thing I have
observed in them has always seemed very strange to me. Occasionally an
individual insect is seen shining with a very large and steady light, or
with a light which very gradually decreases and increases in power, and
at such times it is less active than at others, remaining for long
intervals motionless on the leaves, or moving with a very slow flight.
In South America a firefly displaying this abnormal splendour is said to
be dying, and it is easy to imagine how such a notion originated. The
belief is, however, erroneous, for sometimes, on very rare occasions,
all the insects in one place are simultaneously affected in the same
way, and at such times they mass themselves together in myriads, as if
for migration, or for some other great purpose. Mr. Bigg-Wither, in
South Brazil, and D'Albertis, in New Guinea, noticed these firefly
gatherings; I also once had the rare good fortune to witness a
phenomenon of the kind on a very grand scale. Riding on the pampas one
dark evening an hour after sunset, and passing from high ground
overgrown with giant thistles to a low plain covered with long grass,
bordering a stream of water, I found it all ablaze with myriads of
fireflies. I noticed that all the insects gave out an exceptionally
large, brilliant light, which shone almost steadily. The long grass was
thickly studded with them, while they literally swarmed in the air, all
moving up the valley with a singularly slow and languid flight. When I
galloped down into this river of phosphorescent fire, my horse plunged
and snorted with alarm. I succeeded at length in quieting him, and then
rode slowly through, compelled to keep my mouth and eyes closed, so
thickly did the insects rain on to my face. The air was laden with the
sickening phosphorous smell they emit, but when I had once got free of
the broad fiery zone, stretching away on either hand for miles along the
moist valley, I stood still and gazed back for some time on a scene the
most wonderful and enchanting I have ever witnessed.

The fascinating and confusing effect which the appearance of fire at
night has on animals is a most interesting subject; and although it is
not probable that anything very fresh remains to be said about it, I am
tempted to add here the results of my own experience.

When travelling by night, I have frequently been struck with the
behaviour of my horse at the sight of natural fire, or appearance of
fire, always so different from that caused by the sight of fire
artificially created. The steady gleam from the open window or door of a
distant house, or even the unsteady wind-tossed flame of some lonely
camp-fire, has only served to rouse a fresh spirit in him and the desire
to reach it; whereas those infrequent displays of fire which nature
exhibits, such as lightning, or the ignis fatuus, or even a cloud of
fireflies, has always produced a disquieting effect. Experience has
evidently taught the domestic horse to distinguish a light kindled by
man from all others; and, knowing its character, he is just as well able
as his rider to go towards it without experiencing that confusion of
mind caused by a glare in the darkness, the origin and nature of which
is a mystery. The artificially-lighted fire is to the horse only the
possible goal of the journey, and is associated with the thought of rest
and food. Wild animals, as a rule, at any rate in thinly-settled
districts, do not know the meaning of any fire; it only excites
curiosity and fear in them; and they are most disturbed at the sight of
fires made by man, which are brighter and steadier than most natural
fires. We can understand this sensation in animals, since we ourselves
experience a similar one (although in a less degree and not associated
with fear) in the effect which mere brightness has on us, both by day
and night.

On riding across the monotonous grey Patagonian uplands, where often for
hours one sees not the faintest tinge of bright colour, the intense
glowing crimson of a cactus-fruit, or the broad shining white bosom of
the Patagonian eagle-buzzard (Buteo erythronotus), perched on the summit
of a distant bush, has had a strangely fascinating effect on me, so that
I have been unable to take my eyes off it as long as it continued before
me. Or in passing through extensive desolate marshes, the dazzling white
plumage of a stationary egret has exercised the same attraction. At
night we experience the sensation in a greater degree, when the silver
sheen of the moon makes a broad path on the water; or when a meteor
leaves a glowing track across the sky; while a still more familiar
instance is seen in the powerful attraction on the sight of glowing
embers in a darkened room. The mere brightness, or vividness of the
contrast, fascinates the mind; but the effect on man is comparatively
weak, owing to his fiery education and to his familiarity with brilliant
dyes artificially obtained from nature. How strong this attraction of
mere brightness, even where there is no mystery about it, is to wild
animals is shown by birds of prey almost invariably singling out white
or bright-plumaged birds for attack where bright and sober-coloured
kinds are mingled together. By night the attraction is immeasurably
greater than by day, and the light of a fire steadily gazed at quickly
confuses the mind. The fires which, travellers make for their protection
actually serve to attract the beasts of prey, but the confusion and fear
caused by the bright glare makes it safe for the traveller to lie down
and sleep in the light. Mammals do not lose their heads altogether,
because they are walking on firm ground where muscular exertion and an
exercise of judgment are necessary at every step; whereas birds floating
buoyantly and with little effort through the air are quickly bewildered.
Incredible numbers of migratory birds kill them-selves by dashing
against the windows of lighthouses; on bright moonlight nights the
voyagers are comparatively safe; but during dark cloudy weather the
slaughter is very great; over six hundred birds were killed by striking
a lighthouse in Central America in a single night. On insects the effect
is the same as on the higher animals: on the ground they are attracted
by the light, but keep, like wolves and tigers, at a safe distance from
it; when rushing through the air and unable to keep their eyes from it
they fly into it, or else revolve about it, until, coming too close,
their wings are singed.

I find that when I am on horseback, going at a swinging gallop, a bright
light affects me far more powerfully than when I am trudging along on
foot. A person mounted on a bicycle and speeding over a level plain on a
dark night, with nothing to guide him except the idea of the direction
in his mind, would be to some extent in the position of the migratory
bird. An exceptionally brilliant ignis fatuus flying before him would
affect him as the gleam of a lamp placed high above the surface affects
the migrants: he would not be able to keep his eyes from it, but would
quickly lose the sense of direction, and probably end his career much as
the bird does, by breaking his machine and perhaps his bones against
some unseen obstruction in the way.





CHAPTER XIV.

FACTS AND THOUGHTS ABOUT SPIDERS.


Some time ago, while turning over a quantity of rubbish in a little-used
room, I disturbed a large black spider. Rushing forth, just in time to
save itself from destruction through the capsizing of a pile of books,
it paused for one moment, took a swift comprehensive glance at the
position, then scuttled away across the floor, and was lost in an
obscure corner of the room. This incident served to remind me of a fact
I was nearly forgetting, that England is not a spiderless country. A
foreigner, however intelligent, coming from warmer regions, might very
easily make that mistake. In Buenos Ayres, the land of my nativity,
earth teems with these interesting little creatures. They abound in and
on the water, they swarm in the grass and herbage, which everywhere
glistens with the silvery veil they spin over it. Indeed it is scarcely
an exaggeration to say that there is an atmosphere of spiders, for they
are always floating about invisible in the air; their filmy threads are
unfelt when they fly against you; and often enough you are not even
aware of the little arrested aeronaut hurrying over your face with feet
lighter than the lightest thistledown.

It is somewhat strange that although, where other tribes of living
creatures are concerned, I am something of a naturalist, spiders I have
always observed and admired in a non-scientific spirit, and this must be
my excuse for mentioning the habits of some spiders without giving their
specific names--an omission always vexing to the severely-technical
naturalist. They have ministered to the love of the beautiful, the
grotesque, and the marvellous in me; but I have never _collected_ a
spider, and if I wished to preserve one should not know how to do it. I
have been "familiar with the face" of these monsters so long that I have
even learnt to love them; and I believe that if Emerson rightly predicts
that spiders are amongst the things to be expelled from earth by the
perfected man of the future, then a great charm and element of interest
will be lost to nature. Though loving them, I cannot, of course, feel
the same degree of affection towards all the members of so various a
family. The fairy gossamer, scarce seen, a creature of wind and
sunshine; the gem-like Epeira in the centre of its Starry web; even the
terrestrial Salticus, with its puma-like strategy, certainly appeal more
to our aesthetic feelings than does the slow heavy Mygale, looking at a
distance of twenty yards away, as he approaches you, like a gigantic
cockroach mounted on stilts. The rash fury with which the female
wolf-spider defends her young is very admirable; but the admiration she
excites is mingled with other feelings when we remember that the brave
mother proves to her consort a cruel and cannibal spouse.

Possibly my affection for spiders is due in a great measure to the
compassion I have always felt for them. Pity, 'tis said, is akin to
love; and who can help experiencing that tender emotion that considers
the heavy affliction nature has laid on the spiders in compensation for
the paltry drop of venom with which she, unasked, endowed them! And
here, of course, I am alluding to the wasps. These insects, with a
refinement of cruelty, prefer not to kill their victims outright, but
merely maim them, then house them in cells where the grubs can vivisect
them at leisure. This is one of those revolting facts the fastidious
soul cannot escape from in warm climates; for in and out of open windows
and doors, all day long, all the summer through, comes the busy
beautiful mason-wasp. A long body, wonderfully slim at the waist, bright
yellow legs and thorax, and a dark crimson abdomen,--what object can be
prettier to look at? But in her life this wasp is not beautiful. At
home in summer they were the pests of my life, for nothing would serve
to keep them out. One day, while we were seated at dinner, a clay nest,
which a wasp had succeeded in completing unobserved, detached itself
from the ceiling and fell with a crash on to the table, where it was
shattered to pieces, scattering a shower of green half-living spiders
round it. I shall never forget the feeling of intense repugnance I
experienced at the sight, coupled with detestation of the pretty but
cruel little architect. There is, amongst our wasps, even a more
accomplished spider-scourge than the mason-wasp, and I will here give a
brief account of its habits. On the grassy pampas, dry bare spots of
soil are resorted to by a class of spiders that either make or take
little holes in the ground to reside in, and from which they rush forth
to seize their prey. They also frequently sit inside their dens and
patiently wait there for the intrusion of some bungling insect. Now, in
summer, to a dry spot of ground like this, comes a small wasp, scarcely
longer than a blue-bottle fly, body and wings of a deep shining purplish
blue colour, with only a white mark like a collar on the thorax. It
flirts its blue wings, hurrying about here and there, and is extremely
active, and of a slender graceful figure--the type of an assassin. It
visits and explores every crack and hole in the ground, and, if you
watch it attentively, you will at length see it, on arriving at a hole,
give a little start backwards. It knows that a spider lies concealed
within. Presently, having apparently matured a plan of attack, it
disappears into the hole and remains there for some time. Then, just
when you are beginning to think that the little blue explorer has been
trapped, out it rushes, flying in terror, apparently, from the spider
who issues close behind in hot pursuit; but, before they are three
inches away from the hole, quick as lightning the wasp turns on its
follower, and the two become locked together in a deadly embrace.
Looking like one insect, they spin rapidly round for a few moments, then
up springs the wasp--victorious. The wretched victim is not dead; its
legs move a little, but its soft body is paralyzed, and lies collapsed,
flabby, and powerless as a stranded jellyfish. And this is the
invariable result of every such conflict. In other classes of beings,
even the weakest hunted thing occasionally succeeds in inflicting pain
on its persecutor, and the small trembling mouse, unable to save itself,
can sometimes make the cat shriek with paiu; but there is no weak spot
in the wasp's armour, no fatal error of judgment, not even an accident,
ever to save the wretched victim from its fate. And now comes the most
iniquitous part of the proceeding. When the wasp has sufficiently rested
after the struggle, it deliberately drags the disabled spider back into
its own hole, and, having packed it away at the extremity, lays an egg
alongside of it, then, coming out again, gathers dust and rubbish with
which it fills up and obliterates the hole; and, having thus concluded
its Machiavellian task, it flies cheerfully off in quest of another
victim.

The extensive Epeira family supply the mason-wasps and other
spider-killers with the majority of their victims. These spiders have
soft, plump, succulent bodies like pats of butter; they inhabit trees
and bushes chiefly, where their geometric webs-betray their whereabouts;
they are timid, comparatively innocuous, and reluctant to quit the
shelter of their green bower, made of a rolled-up leaf; so that there
are many reasons why they should be persecuted. They exhibit a great
variety of curious forms; many are also very richly coloured; but even
their brightest hues--orange, silver, scarlet--have not been given
without regard to the colouring of their surroundings. Green-leafed
bushes arc frequented by vividly green Epeiras, but the imitative
resemblance does not quite end here. The green spider's method of
escape, when the bush is roughly shaken, is to drop itself down on the
earth, where it lies simulating death. In falling, it drops just as a
green leaf would drop, that is, not quite so rapidly as a round, solid
body like a beetle or spider. Now in the bushes there is another Epeira,
in size and form like the last, but differing in colour; for instead of
a vivid green, it is of a faded yellowish white--the exact hue of a
dead, dried-up leaf. This spider, when it lets itself drop--for it has
the same protective habit as the other--falls not so rapidly as a green
freshly broken off leaf or as the green spider would fall, but with a
slower motion, precisely like a leaf withered up till it has become
almost light as a feather. It is not difficult to imagine how this comes
about: either a thicker line, or a greater stiffness or tenacity of the
viscid fluid composing the web and attached to the point the spider
drops from, causes one to fall slower than the other. But how many
tentative variations in the stiffness of the web material must there
have been before the precise degree was attained enabling the two
distinct species, differing in colour, to complete their resemblance to
falling leaves--a fresh green leaf in one case and a dead, withered leaf
in the other!

The Tetragnatha--a genus of the Epeira family, and known also in
England--are small spiders found on the margin of streams. Their bodies
are slender, oblong, and resembling a canoe in shape; and when they sit
lengthwise on a stem or blade of grass, their long, hair-like legs
arranged straight before and behind them, it is difficult to detect
them, so closely do they resemble a discoloured stripe on the herbage. A
species of Tetragnatha with a curious modification of structure abounds
on the pampas. The long leg of this spider is no thicker than a bristle
from a pig's back, but at the extremity it is flattened and broad,
giving it a striking resemblance to an oar. These spiders are only found
in herbage overhanging the borders of streams: they are very numerous,
and, having a pugnacious temper, are incessantly quarrelling; and it
frequently happens that in these encounters, or where they are pursuing
each other through the leaves, they drop into the water below. I
believe, in fact, that they often drop themselves purposely into it as
the readiest means of escape when hard pressed. When this happens, the
advantage of the modified structure of the legs is seen. The fallen
spider, sitting boat-like on the surface, throws out its long legs, and,
dipping the broad ends into the water, literally rows itself rapidly to
land.

The gossamer-spider, most spiritual of living things, of which there are
numerous species, some extremely beautiful in colouring and markings, is
the most numerous of our spiders. Only when the declining sun flings a
broad track of shiny silver light on the plain does one get some faint
conception of the unnumbered millions of these buoyant little creatures
busy weaving their gauzy veil over the earth and floating unseen, like
an ethereal vital dust, in the atmosphere.

This spider carries within its diminutive abdomen a secret which will
possibly serve to vex subtle intellects for a long time to come; for it
is hard to believe that merely by mechanical force, even aided by
currents of air, a creature half as big as a barley grain can
instantaneously snoot out filaments twenty or thirty inches long, and by
means of which it floats itself in the air.

Naturalists are now giving a great deal of attention to the migrations
of birds in different parts of the world: might not insect and spider
migrations be included with advantage to science in their observations?
The common notion is that the gossamer makes use of its unique method of
locomotion, only to shift its quarters, impelled by want of food or
unfavourable conditions--perhaps only by a roving disposition. I believe
that besides these incessant flittings about from place to place
throughout the summer the gossamer-spiders have great periodical
migrations which are, as a rule, in-visible, since a single floating web
cannot be remarked, and each individual rises and floats away by itself
from its own locality when influenced by the instinct. When great
numbers of spiders rise up simultaneously over a large area, then,
sometimes, the movement forces itself on our attention; for at such
times the whole sky may be filled with visible masses of floating web.
All the great movements of gossamers I have observed have occurred in
the autumn, or, at any rate, several weeks after the summer solstice;
and, like the migrations of birds at the same season of the year, have
been in a northerly direction. I do not assert or believe that the
migratory instinct in the gossamer is universal. In a moist island, like
England, for instance, where the condition of the atmosphere is seldom
favourable, and where the little voyagers would often be blown by
adverse winds to perish far out at sea, it is difficult to believe that
such migrations take place. But where they inhabit a vast area of land,
as in South America, extending without interruption from the equator to
the cold Magellanic regions, and where there is a long autumn of dry,
hot weather, then such an instinct as migration might have been
developed. For this is not a faculty merely of a few birds: the impulse
to migrate at certain seasons affects birds, insects, and even mammals.
In a few birds only is it highly developed, but the elementary feeling,
out of which the wonderful habit of the swallow has grown, exists widely
throughout animated nature. On the continent of Europe it also seems
probable that a great autumnal movement of these spiders takes place;
although, I must confess, I have no grounds for this statement, except
that the floating gossamer is called in Germany "Der fliegender
Summer"--the flying or departing summer.

I have stated that all migrations of gossamers I have witnessed have
been in the autumn; excepting in one instance, these flights occurred
when the weather was still hot and dry. The exceptionally late migration
was on March 22--a full month after the departure of martins,
humming-birds, flycatchers, and most other true bird-migrants. It struck
me as being so remarkable, and seems to lend so much force to the idea I
have suggested, that I wish to give here an exact copy of the entries
made at the time and on the spot in my notebook.

"March 22. This afternoon, while I was out shooting, the
gossamer-spiders presented an appearance quite new to me. Walking along
a stream (the Conchitas, near Buenos Ayres), I noticed a broad white
line skirting the low wet ground. This I found was caused by gossamer
web lying in such quantities over the earth as almost to hide the grass
ad thistles under it. The white zone was about twenty yards wide, and
outside it only a few scattered webs were visible on the grass; its
exact length I did not ascertain, but followed it for about two miles
without finding the end. The spiders were so numerous that they
continually baulked one another in their efforts to rise in the air. As
soon as one threw out its lines they would become entangled with those
of another spider, lanced out at the same moment; both spiders would
immediately seem to know the cause of the trouble, for as soon as their
lines fouled they would rush angrily towards each other, each trying to
drive the other from the elevation. Notwithstanding these difficulties,
numbers were continually floating off on the breeze which blew from the
south.

"I noticed three distinct species: one with a round scarlet body;
another, velvet black, with large square cephalothorax and small pointed
abdomen; the third and most abundant kind were of different shades of
olive green, and varied greatly in size, the largest being fully a
quarter of an inch in length. Apparently these spiders had been driven
up from the low ground along the stream where it was wet, and had
congregated along the borders of the dry ground in readiness to migrate.

"25th. Went again to visit the spiders, scarcely expecting to find them,
as, since first seeing them, we have had much wind and rain. To my
surprise I found them in greatly increased numbers: on the tops of
cardoons, posts, and other elevated situations they were literally lying
together in heaps. Most of them were large and of the olive-coloured
species; their size had probably prevented them from getting away
earlier, but they were now floating off in great numbers, the weather
being calm and tolerably dry. To-day I noticed a new species with a grey
body, elegantly striped with black, and pink legs--a very pretty spider.

"26th. Went again to-day and found that the whole vast army of
gossamers, with the exception of a few stragglers sitting on posts and
dry stalks, had vanished. They had taken advantage of the short spell of
fine weather we are now having, after an unusually wet and boisterous
autumn, to make their escape."

Here it seemed to me that a conjunction of circumstances--first, the
unfavourable season preventing migration at the proper time, and
secondly, the strip of valley out of which the spiders had been driven
to the higher ground till they were massed together--only served to make
visible and evident that a vast annual migration takes place which we
have only to look closely for to discover.

One of the most original spiders in Buenos Ayres--mentally original, I
mean--is a species of Pholcus; a quiet, inoffensive creature found in
houses, and so abundant that they literally swarm where they are not
frequently swept away from ceilings and obscure corners. Certainly it
seems a poor spider after the dynamical and migratory gossamer; but it
happens, curiously enough, that a study of the habits of this dusty
domestic creature leads us incidentally into the realms of fable and
romance. It is remarkable for the extreme length of its legs, and
resembles in colour and general appearance a crane fly, but is double
the size of that insect. It has a singular method of protecting itself:
when attacked or approached even, gathering its feet together and
fastening them to the centre of its web, it swings itself round and
round with the velocity of a whirligig, so that it appears like a mist
on the web, offering no point for an enemy to strike at. "When a fly is
captured the spider approaches it cautiously and spins a web round it,
continually narrowing the circle it describes, until the victim is
inclosed in a cocoon-like covering. This is a common method with
spiders; but the intelligence--for I can call it by no other word--of
the Pholcus has supplemented this instinctive procedure with a very
curious and unique habit. The Pholcus, in spite of its size, is a weak
creature, possessing little venom to despatch its prey with, so that it
makes a long and laborious task of killing a fly. A fly when caught in
a web is a noisy creature, and it thus happens that when the
Daddylonglegs--as Anglo-Argentines have dubbed this species--succeeds in
snaring a captive the shrill outrageous cries of the victim are heard
for a long time--often for ten or twelve minutes. This noise greatly
excites other spiders in the vicinity, and presently they are seen
quitting their webs and flurrying to the scene of conflict. Sometimes
the captor is driven off, and then the strongest or most daring spider
carries away the fly. But where a large colony are allowed to continue
for a long time in undisturbed possession of a ceiling, when one has
caught a fly he proceeds rapidly to throw a covering of web over it,
then, cutting it away, drops it down and lets it hang suspended by a
line at a distance of two or three feet from the ceiling. The other
spiders arrive on the scene, and after a short investigation retreat to
their own webs, and when the coast is clear our spider proceeds to draw
up the captive fly, which is by this time exhausted with its struggles."

Now, I have repeatedly remarked that all spiders, when the shrill
humming of an insect caught in a web is heard near them, become
agitated, like the Pholcus, and will, in the same way, quit their own
webs and hurry to the point the sound proceeds from. This fact convinced
me many years ago that spiders are attracted by the sound of musical
instruments, such as violins, concertinas, guitars, &c., simply because
the sound produces the same effect on them as the shrill buzzing of a
captive fly. I have frequently seen spiders come down walls or from
ceilings, attracted by the sound of a guitar, softly played; and by
gently touching metal strings, stretched on a piece of wood, I have
succeeded in attracting spiders on to the strings, within two or three
inches of my fingers; and I always noticed that the spiders seemed to be
eagerly searching for something which they evidently expected to find
there, moving about in an excited manner and looking very hungry and
fierce. I have no doubt that Pelisson's historical spider in the
Bastille came down in a mood and with a manner just as ferocious when
the prisoner called it with musical sounds to be fed.

The spiders I have spoken of up till now are timid, inoffensive
creatures, chiefly of the Epeira family; but there are many others
exceedingly high-spirited and, like some of the most touchy
hymenopteras, always prepared to "greatly quarrel" over matters of
little moment. The Mygales, of which we have several species, are not to
be treated with contempt. One is extremely abundant on the pampas, the
Mygale fusca, a veritable monster, covered with dark brown hair, and
called in the vernacular _aranea peluda_--hairy spider. In the hot
month of December these spiders take to roaming about on the open plain,
and are then everywhere seen travelling in a straight line with a slow
even pace. They are very great in attitudes, and when one is approached
it immediately throws itself back, like a pugilist preparing for an
encounter, and stands up so erect on its four hind feet that the under
surface of its body is displayed. Humble-bees are commonly supposed to
carry the palm in attitudinizing; and it is wonderful to see the
grotesque motions of these irascible insects when their nest is
approached, elevating their abdomens and two or three legs at a time, so
that they resemble a troupe of acrobats balancing themselves on their
heads or hands, and kicking their legs about in the air. And to impress
the intruder with the dangerous significance of this display they hum a
shrill warning or challenge, and stab at the air with their naked
stings, from which limpid drops of venom are seen to exude. These
threatening gestures probably have an effect. In the case of the hairy
spider, I do not think any creature, however stupid, could mistake its
meaning when it stands suddenly up, a figure horribly grotesque; then,
dropping down on all eights, charges violently forwards. Their long,
shiny black, sickle-shaped falces are dangerous weapons. I knew a native
woman who had been bitten on the leg, and who, after fourteen years,
still suffered at intervals acute pains in the limb.

The king of the spiders on the pampas is, however, not a Mygale, but a
Lycosa of extraordinary size, light grey in colour, with a black ring
round its middle. It is active and swift, and irritable to such a degree
that one can scarcely help thinking that in this species nature has
overshot her mark.

When a person passes near one--say, within three or four yards of its
lurking-place--it starts up and gives chase, and will often follow for a
distance of thirty or forty yards. I came once very nearly being bitten
by one of these savage creatures Riding at an easy trot over the dry
grass, I suddenly observed a spider pursuing me, leaping swiftly along
and keeping up with my beast. I aimed a blow with my whip, and the point
of the lash struck the ground close to it, when it instantly leaped upon
and ran up the lash, and was actually within three or four inches of my
hand when I flung the whip from me.

The gauchos have a very quaint ballad which tells that the city of
Cordova was once invaded by an army of monstrous spiders, and that the
townspeople went out with beating drums and flags flying to repel the
invasion, and that after firing several volleys they were forced to turn
and fly for their lives. I have no doubt that a sudden great increase of
the man-chasing spiders, in a year exceptionally favourable to them,
suggested this fable to some rhyming satirist of the town.

In conclusion of this part of my subject, I will describe a single
combat of a very terrible nature I once witnessed between two little
spiders belong-ing to the same species. One had a small web against a
wall, and of this web the other coveted possession. After vainly trying
by a series of strategic movements to drive out the lawful owner, it
rushed on to the web, and the two envenomed httle duellists closed in
mortal combat. They did nothing so vulgar and natural as to make use of
their falces, and never once actually touched each other, but the fight
was none the less deadly. Rapidly revolving about, or leaping over, or
passing under, each other, each endeavoured to impede or entangle his
adversary, and the dexterity with which each avoided the cunningly
thrown snare, trying at the same time to entangle its opponent, was
wonderful to see. At length, after this equal battle had raged for some
time, one of the combatants made some fatal mistake, and for a moment
there occurred a break in his motions; instantly the other perceived his
advantage, and began leaping backwards and forwards across his
struggling adversary with such rapidity as to confuse the sight,
producing the appearance of two spiders attacking a third one lying
between them. He then changed his tactics, and began revolving round and
round his prisoner, and very soon the poor vanquished wretch--the
aggressor, let us hope, in the interests of justice--was closely wrapped
in a silvery cocoon, which, unlike the cocoon the caterpillar weaves for
itself, was also its winding-sheet.

In the foregoing pages I have thrown together some of the most salient
facts I have noted; but the spider-world still remains to me a
wonderland of which I know comparatively nothing. Nor is any very
intimate knowledge of spiders to be got from books, though numberless
lists of new species are constantly being printed; for they have not yet
had, like the social bees and ants, many loving and patient chroniclers
of their ways. The Hubens and Lubbocks have been many; the Moggridges
few. But even a very slight study of these most versatile and
accomplished of nature's children gives rise to some interesting
reflections. One fact that strikes the mind very forcibly is the
world-wide distribution of groups of species possessing highly developed
instincts. One is the zebra-striped Salticus, with its unique
strategy--that is to say, unique amongst spiders. It is said that the
Australian savage approaches a kangaroo in the open by getting up in
sight of its prey and standing perfectly motionless till he is regarded
as an inanimate object, and every time the animal's attention wanders
advancing a step or two until sufficiently near to hurl his spear. The
Salticus approaches a fly in the same manner, till near enough to make
its spring. Another is the Trapdoor spider. Another the Dolomedes, that
runs over the surface of the water in pursuit of its prey, and dives
down to escape from its enemies; and, strangest of all, the Argyroneta,
that has its luminous dwelling at the bottom of streams; and just as a
mason carries bricks and mortar to its building, so does this spider
carry down bubbles of air from the surface to enlarge its mysterious
house, in which it lays its eggs and rears its young. Community of
descent must be supposed of species having such curious and complex
instincts; but how came these feeble creatures, unable to transport
themselves over seas and continents like the aerial gossamer, to be so
widely distributed, and inhabiting regions with such different
conditions? This can only be attributed to the enormous antiquity of the
species, and of this antiquity the earliness in which the instinct
manifests itself in the young spiders is taken as evidence.

A more important matter, the intelligence of spiders, has not yet
received the attention it deserves. The question of insect
intelligence--naturalists are agreed that insects do possess
intelligence--is an extremely difficult one; probably some of our
conclusions on this matter will have to be reconsidered. For instance,
we regard the Order Hymenoptera as the most intelligent because most of
the social insects are included in it; but it has not yet been proved,
probably never will be proved, that the social instincts resulted from
intelligence which has "lapsed." Whether ants and bees were more
intelligent than other insects during the early stages of their organic
societies or not, it will hardly be disputed by any naturalist who has
observed insects for long that many solitary species display more
intelligence in their actions than those that live in communities.

The nature of the spider's food and the difficulties in the way of
providing for their wants impose on them a life of solitude: hunger,
perpetual watchfulness, and the sense of danger have given them a
character of mixed ferocity and timidity. But these very conditions,
which have made it impossible for them to form societies like some
insects and progress to a state of things resembling civilization in
men, have served to develop the mind that is in a spider, making of him
a very clever barbarian-The spider's only weapon of defence---his
falces--are as poor a protection against the assaults of his insect foes
as are teeth and finger-nails in man employed against wolves, bears, and
tigers. And the spider is here even worse off than man, since his
enemies are winged and able to sweep down instantly on him from above;
they are also protected with an invulnerable shield, and are armedwith
deadly stings. Like man, also, the spider has a soft, unprotected body,
while his muscular strength, compared with that of the insects he has to
contend with, is almost _nil._ His position in nature then, with
relation to his enemies, is like that of man; only the spider has this
disadvantage, that he cannot combine with others for protection. That he
does protect himself and maintains his place in nature is due, not to
special instincts, which are utterly insufficient, but to the
intelligence which supplements them. At the same time this superior
cunning is closely related with, and probably results indirectly from,
the web he is provided with, and which is almost of the nature of an
artificial aid. Let us take the imaginary case of a man-like monkey, or
of an arboreal man, born with a cord of great length attached to his
waist, which could be either dragged after him or carried in a coil.
After many accidents, experience would eventually teach him to put it to
some use; practice would make him more and more skilful in handling it,
and, indirectly, it would be the means of developing his latent mental
faculties. He would begin by using it, as the monkey does its prehensile
tail, to swing himself from branch to branch, and finally, to escape
from an enemy or in pursuit of his prey, he would be able by means of
his cord to drop himself with safety from the tallest trees, or fly down
the steepest precipices. He would coil up his cord to make a bed to lie
on, and also use it for binding branches together when building himself
a refuge. In a close fight, he would endeavour to entangle an adversary,
and at last he would learn to make a snare with it to capture his prey.
To all these, and to a hundred other uses, the spider has put his web.
And when we see him spread his beautiful geometric snare, held by lines
fixed to widely separated points, while he sits concealed in his
web-lined retreat amongst the leaves where every touch on the
far-reaching structure is telegraphed to him by the communicating line
faithfully as if a nerve had been touched, we must admire the wonderful
perfection to which he has attained in the use of his cord. By these
means he is able to conquer creatures too swift and strong for him, and
make them his prey. When we see him repairing damages, weighting his
light fabric in windy weather with pebbles or sticks, as a fisher
weights his net, and cutting loose a captive whose great strength
threatens the destruction of the web, then we begin to suspect that he
has, above his special instinct, a reason that guides, modifies, and in
many ways supplements it. It is not, however, only on these great
occasions, when the end is sought by unusual means, that spiders show
their intelligence; for even these things might be considered by some as
merely parts of one great complex instinct; but at all times, in all
things, the observer who watches them closely cannot fail to be
convinced that they possess a guiding principle which is not mere
instinct. What the stick or stone was to primitive man, when he had made
the discovery that by holding it in his hand he greatly increased the
force of his blow, the possession of a web has been to the spider in
developing that spark of intellect which it possesses in common with all
animal organisms.




CHAPTER XV.

THE DEATH-FEIGNING INSTINCT.


Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of "death-feigning,"
commonly seen in coleopterous insects, and in many spiders. This highly
curious instinct is also possessed by some vertebrates. In insects it is
probably due to temporary paralysis occasioned by sudden concussion, for
when beetles alight abruptly, though voluntarily, they assume that
appearance of death, which lasts for a few moments. Some species,
indeed, are so highly sensitive that the slightest touch, or even a
sudden menace, will instantly throw them into this motionless,
death-simulating condition. Curiously enough, the same causes which
produce this trance in slow-moving species, like those of Scarabseus for
example, have a precisely contrary effect on species endowed with great
activity. Rapacious beetles, when disturbed, scuttle quickly out of
sight, and some water-beetles spin about the surface, in circles or
zigzag lines, so rapidly as to confuse the eye. Our common long-legged
spiders (Pholcus) when approached draw their feet together in the middle
of the web, and spin the body round with such velocity as to resemble a
whirligig.

Certain mammals and birds also possess the death-simulating instinct,
though it is hardly possible to believe that the action springs from the
same immediate cause in vertebrates and in insects. In the latter it
appears to be a purely physical instinct, the direct result of an
extraneous cause, and resembling the motions of a plant. In mammals and
birds it is evident that violent emotion, and not the rough handling
experienced, is the final cause of the swoon.

Passing over venomous snakes, skunks, and a few other species in which
the presence of danger excites only anger, fear has a powerful, and in
some cases a disabling, effect on animals; and it is this paralyzing
effect of fear on which the death-feigning instinct, found only in a few
widely-separated species, has probably been built up by the slow
cumulative process of natural selection.

I have met with some curious instances of the paralyzing effect of fear.
I was told by some hunters in an outlying district of the pampas of its
effect on a jaguar they started, and which took refuge in a dense clump
of dry reeds. Though they could see it, it was impossible to throw the
lasso over its head, and, after vainly trying to dislodge it, they at
length set fire to the reeds. Still it refused to stir, but lay with
head erect, fiercely glaring at them through the flames. Finally it
disappeared from sight in the black smoke; and when the fire had burnt
itself out, it was found, dead and charred, in the same spot.

On the pampas the gauchos frequently take the black-necked swan by
frightening it. When the birds are feeding or resting on the grass, two
or three men or boys on horseback go quietly to leeward of the flock,
and when opposite to it suddenly wheel and charge it at full speed,
uttering loud shouts, by which the birds are thrown into such terror
that they are incapable of flying, and are quickly despatched.

I have also seen gaucho boys catch the Silver-bill (Lichenops
perspicillata) by hurling a stick or stone at the bird, then rushing at
it, when it sits perfectly still, disabled by fear, and allows itself to
be taken. I myself once succeeded in taking a small bird of another
species in the same way.

Amongst mammals our common fox (Canis azarae), and one of the opossums
(Didelphys azarae), are strangely subject to the death-simulating swoon.
For it does indeed seem strange that animals so powerful, fierce, and
able to inflict such terrible injury with their teeth should also
possess this safeguard, apparently more suited to weak inactive
creatures that cannot resist or escape from an enemy and to animals very
low down in the scale of being. When a fox is caught in a trap or run
down by dogs he fights savagely at first, but by-and-by relaxes his
efforts, drops on the ground, and apparently yields up the ghost. The
deception is so well carried out, that dogs are constantly taken in by
it, and no one, not previously acquainted with this clever trickery of
nature, but would at once pronounce the creature dead, and worthy of
some praise for having perished in so brave a spirit. Now, when in this
condition of feigning death, I am quite sure that the animal does not
altogether lose consciousness. It is exceedingly difficult to discover
any evidence of life in the opossum; but when one withdraws a little way
from the feigning fox, and watches him very attentively, a slight
opening of the eye may be detected; and, finally, when left to himself,
he does not recover and start up like an animal that has been stunned,
but slowly and cautiously raises his head first, and only gets up when
his foes are at a safe distance. Yet I have seen gauchos, who are very
cruel to animals, practise the most barbarous experiments on a captive
fox without being able to rouse it into exhibiting any sign of life.
This has greatly puzzled me, since, if death-feigning is simply a
cunning habit, the animal could not suffer itself to be mutilated
without wincing. I can only believe that the fox, though not insensible,
as its behaviour on being left to itself appears to prove, yet has its
body thrown by extreme terror into that benumbed condition which
simulates death, and during which it is unable to feel the tortures
practised on it.

The swoon sometimes actually takes place before the animal has been
touched, and even when the exciting cause is at a considerable distance.
I was once riding with a gaucho, when we saw, on the open level ground
before us, a fox, not yet fully grown, standing still and watching our
approach. All at once it dropped, and when we came up to the spot it was
lying stretched out, with eyes closed, and apparently dead. Before
passing on my companion, who said it was not the first time he had seen
such a thing, lashed it vigorously with his whip for some moments, but
without producing the slightest effect.

The death-feigning instinct is possessed in a very marked degree by the
spotted tinamou or common partridge of the pampas (Nothura maculosa).
When captured, after a few violent struggles to escape, it drops its
head, gasps two or three times, and to all appearances dies. If, when
you have seen this, you release your hold, the eyes open instantly, and,
with startling suddenness and a noise of wings, it is up and away, and
beyond your reach for ever. Possibly, while your grasp is on the bird it
does actually become insensible, though its recovery from that condition
is almost instantaneous. Birds when captured do sometimes die in the
hand, purely from terror. The tinamou is excessively timid, and
sometimes when birds of this species are chased--for gaucho boys
frequently run them down on horseback--and when they find no burrows or
thickets to escape into, they actually drop down dead on the plain.
Probably, when they feign death in their captor's hand, they are in
reality very near to death.




CHAPTER XVI.

HUMMING-BIRDS.


Humming-birds are perhaps the very loveliest things in nature, and many
celebrated writers have exhausted their descriptive powers in vain
efforts to picture them to the imagination. The temptation was certainly
great, after describing the rich setting of tropical foliage and flower,
to speak at length of the wonderful gem contained within it; but they
would in this case have been wise to imitate that modest novel-writer
who introduced a blank space on the page where the description of his
matchless heroine should have appeared. After all that has been written,
the first sight of a living humming-bird, so unlike in its beauty all
other beautiful things, comes like a revelation to the mind. To give any
true conception of it by means of mere word-painting is not more
impossible than it would be to bottle up a supply of the "living
sunbeams" themselves, and convey them across the Atlantic to scatter
them in a sparkling shower over the face of England.

Doubtless many who have never seen them in a state of nature imagine
that a tolerably correct idea of their appearance can be gained from
Gould's colossal monograph. The pictures there, however, only represent
dead humming-birds. A dead robin is, for purposes of bird-portraiture,
as good as a live robin; the same may be said of even many
brilliant-plumaged species less aerial in their habits than
humming-birds. In butterflies the whole beauty is seldom seen until the
insect is dead, or, at any rate, captive. It was not when Wallace saw
the Ornithoptera croesus flying about, but only when he held it in his
hands, and opened its glorious wings, that the sight of its beauty
overcame him so powerfully. The special kind of beauty which makes the
first sight of a humming-bird a revelation depends on the swift singular
motions as much as on the intense gem-like and metallic brilliancy of
the plumage.

The minute exquisite form, when the bird hovers on misty wings, probing
the flowers with its coral spear, the fan-like tail expanded, and
poising motionless, exhibits the feathers shot with many hues; and the
next moment vanishes, or all but vanishes, then reappears at another
flower only to vanish again, and so on successively, showing its
splendours not continuously, but like the intermitted flashes of the
firefly--this forms a picture of airy grace and loveliness that baffles
description. All this glory disappears when the bird is dead, and even
when it alights to rest on a bough. Sitting still, it looks like an
exceedingly attenuated kingfisher, without the pretty plumage of that
bird, but retaining its stiff artificial manner. No artist has been so
bold as to attempt to depict the bird as it actually appears, when
balanced before a flower the swift motion of the wings obliterates their
form, making them seem like a mist encircling the body; yet it is
precisely this formless cloud on which the glittering body hangs
suspended, which contributes most to give the humming-bird its wonderful
sprite-like or extra-natural appearance. How strange, then, to find
bird-painters persisting in their efforts to show the humming-bird
flying! When they draw it stiff and upright on its perch the picture is
honest, if ugly; the more ambitious representation is a delusion and a
mockery.

Coming to the actual colouring--the changeful tints that glow with such
intensity on the scale-like feathers, it is curious to find that Gould
seems to have thought that all difficulties here had been successfully
overcome. The "new process" he spoke so confidently about might no doubt
be used with advantage in reproducing the coarser metallic reflections
on a black plumage, such as we see in the corvine birds; but the
glittering garment of the humming-bird, like the silvery lace woven by
the Epeira, gemmed with dew and touched with rainbow-coloured light, has
never been and never can be imitated by art.

On this subject one of the latest observers of humming-birds, Mr.
Everard im Thurn, in his work on British Guiana, has the following
passage:--"Hardly more than one point of colour is in reality ever
visible in any one humming-bird at one and the same time, for each point
only shows its peculiar and glittering colour when the light falls upon
it from a particular direction. A true representation of one of these
birds would show it in somewhat sombre colours, except just at the one
point which, when the bird is in the position chosen for representation,
meets the light at the requisite angle, and that point alone should be
shown in full brilliance of colour. A flowery shrub is sometimes seen
surrounded by a cloud of humming-birds, all of one species, and each, of
course, in a different position. If someone would draw such a scene as
that, showing a different detail of colour in each bird, according to
its position, then some idea of the actual appearance of the bird might
be given to one who had never seen an example."

It is hardly to be expected that anyone will carry out the above
suggestion, and produce a monograph with pages ten or fifteen feet wide
by eighteen feet long, each one showing a cloud of humming-birds of one
species flitting about a flowery bush; but even in such a picture as
that would be, the birds, suspended on unlovely angular projections
instead of "hazy semicircles of indistinctness," and each with an
immovable fleck of brightness on the otherwise sombre plumage, would be
as unlike living humming-birds as anything in the older monographs.

Whether the glittering iridescent tints and singular ornaments for which
this family is famous result from the cumulative process of conscious or
voluntary sexual selection, as Darwin thought, or are merely the outcome
of a superabundant vitality, as Dr. A. R.. Wallace so strongly
maintains, is a question which science has not yet answered
satisfactorily. The tendency to or habit of varying in the direction of
rich colouring and beautiful or fantastic ornament, might, for all we
know to the contrary, have descended to humming-birds from some
diminutive, curiously-shaped, bright-tinted, flying reptile of arboreal
habits that lived in some far-off epoch in the world's history. It is
not, at all events, maintained by anyone that _all_ birds sprang
originally from one reptilian stock; and the true position of
humming-birds in a natural classification has not yet been settled, for
no intermediate forms exist connecting them with any other group, To the
ordinary mind they appear utterly unlike all other feathered creatures,
and as much entitled to stand apart as, for instance, the pigeon and
ostrich families. It has been maintained by some writers that they are
anatomically related to the swifts, although the differences separating
the two families appear so great as almost to stagger belief in this
notion. Now, however, the very latest authority on this subject, Dr.
Schufeldt, has come to the conclusion that swifts are only greatly
modified Passeres, and that the humming-birds should form an order by
themselves.

Leaving this question, and regarding them simply with the ornithological
eye that does not see far below the surface of things, when we have
sufficiently admired the unique beauty and marvellous velocity of
humming-birds, there is little more to be said about them. They are
lovely to the eye--indescribably so; and it is not strange that Gould
wrote rapturously of the time when he was at length "permitted to revel
in the delight of seeing the humming-bird in a state of nature." The
feeling, he wrote, which animated him with regard to these most
wonderful works of creation it was impossible to describe, and could
only be appreciated by those who have made natural history a study, and
who "pursue the investigations of her charming mysteries with ardour and
delight." This we can understand; but to what an astonishing degree the
feeling was carried in him, when, after remarking that enthusiasm and
excitement with regard to most things in life become lessened and
eventually deadened by time in most of us, he was able to add, "not
so, however, I believe, with those who take up the study of the Family
of Humming-birds!" It can only be supposed that he regarded natural
history principally as a "science of dead animals--a _necrology_," and
collected humming-birds just as others collect Roman coins, birds' eggs,
old weapons, or blue china, their zeal in the pursuit and faith in its
importance increasing with the growth of their treasures, until they at
last come to believe that though all the enthusiasms and excitements
which give a zest to the lives of other men fade and perish with time,
it is not so with their particular pursuit. The more rational kind of
pleasure experienced by the ornithologist in studying habits and
disposition no doubt results in a great measure from the fact that the
actions of the feathered people have a savour of intelligence in them.
Whatever his theory or conviction about the origin of instincts may
happen to be, or even if he has no convictions on the subject, it must
nevertheless seem plain to him that intelligence is, after all, in most
cases, the guiding principle of life, supplementing and modifying habits
to bring them into closer harmony with the environment, and enlivening
every day with countless little acts which result from judgment and
experience, and form no part of the inherited complex instincts. The
longer he observes any one species or individual, the more does he find
in it to reward his attention; this is not the case, however, with
humming-birds, which possess the avian body but do not rank mentally
with birds. The pleasure one takes in their beauty soon evaporates, and
is succeeded by no fresh interest, so monotonous and mechanical are all
their actions; and we accordingly find that those who are most familiar
with them from personal observation have very little to say about them.
A score of hummingbirds, of as many distinct species, are less to the
student of habits than one little brown-plurnaged bird haunting his
garden or the rush-bed of a neighbouring stream; and, doubtless, for a
reason similar to that which makes a lovely human face uninformed by
intellect seem less permanently attractive than many a homelier
countenance. He grows tired of seeing the feathered fairies perpetually
weaving their aerial ballet-dance about the flowers, and finds it a
relief to watch the little finch or wren or flycatcher of shy temper and
obscure protective colouring. Perhaps it possesses a graceful form and
melodious voice to give it aesthetic value, but even without such
accessories he can observe it day by day with increasing interest and
pleasure; and it only adds piquancy to the feeling to know that the
little bird also watches him with a certain amount of intelligent
curiosity and a great deal of suspicion, and that it studiously
endeavours to conceal from him all the little secrets its life which he
is bent on discovering.

It has frequently been remarked that humming birds are more like insects
than birds in disposition. Some species, on quitting their perch,
perform wide bee-like circles about the tree before shooting away in a
straight line. Their aimless attacks on other species approaching or
passing near them, even on large birds like hawks and pigeons, is a
habit they have in common with many solitary wood-boring bees. They
also, like dragon-flies and other insects, attack each other when they
come together while feeding; and in this case their action strangely
resembles that of a couple of butterflies, as they revolve about each
other and rise vertically to a great height in the air. Again, like
insects, they are undisturbed at the presence of man while feeding, or
even when engaged in building and incubation; and like various solitary
bees, wasps, &c., they frequently come close to a person walking or
standing, to hover suspended in the air within a few inches of his face;
and if then struck at they often, insect-like, return to circle round
his head. All other birds, even those which display the least
versatility, and in districts where man is seldom seen, show as much
caution as curiosity in his presence; they recognize in the upright
unfamiliar form a living being and a possible enemy. Mr. Whiteley, who
observed humming-birds in Peru, says it is an amusing sight to watch the
Lesbia nuna attempting to pass to a distant spot in a straight line
during a high wind, which, acting on the long tail feathers, carries it
quite away from the point aimed at. Insects presenting a large surface
to the wind are always blown from their course in the same way, for even
in the most windy districts they never appear to learn to guide
themselves; and I have often seen a butterfly endeavouring to reach an
isolated flower blown from it a dozen times before it finally succeeded
or gave up the contest. Birds when shaping their course, unless young
and inexperienced, always make allowance for the force of the wind.
Humming-birds often fly into open rooms, impelled apparently by a
fearless curiosity, and may then be chased about until they drop
exhausted or are beaten down and caught, and, as Gould says, "if then
taken into the hand, they almost immediately feed on any sweet, or pump
up any liquid that may be offered to them, without betraying either fear
or resentment at the previous treatment." Wasps and bees taken in the
same way endeavour to sting their captor, as most people know from
experience, nor do they cease struggling violently to free themselves;
but the dragon-fly is like the humming-bird, and is no sooner caught
after much ill-treatment, than it will greedily devour as many flies and
mosquitoes as one likes to offer it. Only in beings very low in the
scale of nature do we see the instinct of self-preservation in this
extremely simple condition, unmixed with reason or feeling, and so
transient in its effects. The same insensibility to danger is seen when
humming-birds are captured and confined in a room, and when, before a
day is over, they will flutter about their captor's face and even take
nectar from his lips.

Some observers have thought that hummingbirds come nearest to
humble-bees in their actions. I do not think so. Mr. Bates writes: "They
do not proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow, taking the
flowers seriatim, but skip about from one part of a tree to another in
the most capricious manner." I have observed humble-bees a great deal,
and feel convinced that they arc among the most highly intelligent of
the social hymenoptera. Humming-birds, to my mind, have a much closer
resemblance to the solitary wood-boring bees and to dragon-flies. It
must also be borne in mind that insects have very little time in which
to acquire experience, and that a large portion of their life, in the
imago state, is taken up with the complex business of reproduction.

The Trochilidae, although confined to one continent, promise to exceed
all other families--even the cosmopolitan finches and warblers--in
number of species. At present over five hundred are known, or as many as
all the species of birds in Europe together; and good reasons exist for
believing that very many more--not less perhaps than one or two hundred
species--yet remain to be discovered. The most prolific region, and
where humming-birds are most highly developed, is known to be West
Brazil and the eastern slopes of the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes. This
is precisely the least known portion of South America; the few
naturalists and collectors who have reached it have returned laden with
spoil, to tell us of a region surpassing all others in the
superabundance and beauty of its bird life. Nothing, however, which can
be said concerning these vast unexplored areas of tropical mountain and
forest so forcibly impresses us with the idea of the unknown riches
contained in them as the story of the Loddigesia mirabilis. This is
perhaps the most wonderful humming-bird known, and no one who had not
previously seen it figured could possibly form an idea of what it is
like from a mere description. An outline sketch of it would probably be
taken by most people as a fantastic design representing a bird-form in
combination with leaves, in size and shape resembling poplar leaves, but
on leaf-stalks of an impossible length, curving and crossing each other
so as to form geometrical figures unlike anything in nature. Yet this
bird (a single specimen) was obtained in Peru half a century ago, and
for upwards of twenty years after its discovery Gould tried to obtain
others, offering as much as fifty pounds for one; but no second specimen
ever gladdened his eyes, nor was anything more heard of it until
Stolzmann refound it in the year 1880.

The addition of many new species to the long list would, however, be a
matter of small interest, unless fresh facts concerning their habits and
structure were at the same time brought to light; but we can scarcely
expect that the as yet unknown species will supply any link connecting
the Trochilidae with other existing families of birds. The eventual
conclusion will perhaps be that this family has come down independently
from an exceedingly remote past, and with scarcely any modification.
While within certain very narrow limits humming-birds vary more than
other families, outside of these limits they appear relatively
stationary; and, conversely, other birds exhibit least variability in
the one direction in which humming-birds vary excessively. On account of
a trivial difference in habit they have sometimes been separated in two
sub-families: the Phaethornithinae, found in shady tropical forests; and
the Trochilinae, comprising humming-birds which inhabit open sunny
places--and to this division they mostly belong. In both of these purely
arbitrary groups, however, the aerial habits and manner of feeding
poised in the air are identical, although the birds living in shady
forests, where flowers are scarce, obtain their food principally from
the under surfaces of leaves. In their procreant habits the uniformity
is also very great. In all cases the nest is small, deep, cup-shaped, or
conical, composed of soft felted materials, and lined inside with
vegetable down. The eggs are white, and never exceed two in number.
Broadly speaking, they resemble each other as closely in habits as in
structure; the greatest differences in habit in the most widely
separated genera being no greater than may be found in two wrens or
sparrows of the same genus.

This persistence of character in humming-birds, both as regards
structure and habit, seems the more remarkable when we consider their
very wide distribution over a continent so varied in its conditions, and
where they range from the lowest levels to the limit of perpetual snow
on the Andes, and from the tropics to the wintry Magellanic district;
also that a majority of genera inhabit very circumscribed areas--these
facts, as Dr. Wallace remarks, clearly pointing to a very high
antiquity.

It is perhaps a law of nature that when a species (or group) fits itself
to a place not previously occupied, and in which it is subject to no
opposition from beings of its own class, or where it attains so great a
perfection as to be able easily to overcome all opposition, the
character eventually loses its original plasticity, or tendency to vary,
since improvement in such a case would be superfluous, and becomes, so
to speak, crystallized in that form which continues thereafter
unaltered. It is, at any rate, clear that while all other birds rub
together in the struggle for existence, the humming-bird, owing to its
aerial life and peculiar manner of seeking its food, is absolutely
untouched by this kind of warfare, and is accordingly as far removed
from all competition with other birds as the solitary savage is removed
from the struggle of life affecting and modifying men in crowded
communities. The lower kind of competition affecting hummingbirds, that
with insects and, within the family, of species with species, has
probably only served to intensify their unique characteristics, and,
perhaps, to lower their intelligence.

Not only are they removed from that indirect struggle for existence
which acts so powerfully on other families, but they are also, by their
habits and the unequalled velocity of their flight, placed out of reach
of that direct war waged on all other small birds by the rapacious
kinds--birds, mammals, and reptiles. One result of this immunity is that
humming-birds are excessively numerous, albeit such slow breeders; for,
as we have seen, they only lay two eggs, and not only so, but the second
egg is often dropped so long after incubation has begun in the first
that only one is really hatched. Yet Belt expressed the opinion that in
Nicaragua, where he observed humming-birds, they out-numbered all the
other birds together. Considering how abundant birds of all kinds are in
that district, and that most of them have a protective colouring and lay
several eggs, it would be impossible to accept such a statement unless
we believed that humming-birds have, practically, no enemies.

Another result of their immunity from persecution is the splendid
colouring and strange and beautiful feather ornaments distinguishing
them above all other birds; and excessive variation in this direction is
due, it seems to me, to the very causes which serve to check variation
in all other directions. In their plumage, as Martin long ago wrote,
nature has strained at every variety of effect and revelled in an
infinitude of modifications. How wonderful their garb is, with colours
so varied, so intense, yet seemingly so evanescent!--the glittering
mantle of powdered gold; the emerald green that changes to velvet black;
ruby reds and luminous scarlets; dull bronze that brightens and burns
like polished brass, and pale neutral tints that kindle to rose and
lilac-coloured flame. And to the glory of prismatic colouring are added
feather decorations, such as the racket-plumes and downy muffs of
Spathura, the crest and frills of Lophornis, the sapphire gorget burning
on the snow-white breast of Oreotrochilus, the fiery tail of Cometes,
and, amongst grotesque forms, the long pointed crest-feathers,
representing horns, and flowing-white beard adorning the piebald
goat-like face of Oxypogon.

Excessive variation in this direction is checked in nearly all other
birds by the need of a protective colouring, few kinds so greatly
excelling in strength and activity as to be able to maintain their
existence without it. Bright feathers constitute a double danger, for
not only do they render their possessor conspicuous, but, just as the
butterfly chooses the gayest flower, so do hawks deliberately single out
from many obscure birds the one with brilliant plumage; but the
rapacious kinds do not waste their energies in the vain pursuit of
hummingbirds. These are in the position of neutrals, free to range at
will amidst the combatants, insulting all alike, and flaunting their
splendid colours with impunity. They are nature's favourites, endowed
with faculties bordering on the miraculous, and all other kinds, gentle
or fierce, ask only to be left alone by them.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE CRESTED SCREAMER.

_(Chalina chavarria.)_


Amongst the feathered notables from all parts of the world found
gathered at the Zoological Gardens in London is the Crested Screamer
from South America. It is in many respects a very singular species, and
its large size, great strength, and majestic demeanour, with the
surprising docility and intelligence it displays when domesticated, give
it a character amongst birds somewhat like that of the elephant amongst
mammals. Briefly and roughly to describe it: in size it is like a swan,
in shape like a lapwing, only with a powerful curved gallinaceous beak.
It is adorned with a long pointed crest and a black neck-ring, the
plumage being otherwise of a pale slaty blue, while the legs and the
naked skin about the eyes are bright red. On each wing, in both sexes,
there are two formidable spurs; the first one, on the second joint, is
an inch and a half long, nearly straight, triangular, and exceedingly
sharp; the second spur, on the last joint, being smaller, broad, and
curved, and roughly resembling in shape and size a lion's claw. There is
another stinking peculiarity. The skin is _emphysematous_--that is,
bloated and yielding to pressure. It crackles when touched, and the
surface, when the feathers are removed, presents a swollen bubbly
appearance; for under the skin there is a layer of air-bubbles extending
over the whole body and even down the legs under the horny tesselated
skin to the toes, the legs thus having a somewhat massive appearance.

And now just a few words about the position of the screamer in
systematic zoology. It is placed in the Family Palamedeidae, which
contains only three species, but about the Order it belongs to there is
much disagreement. It was formerly classed with the rails, and in
popular books of Natural History still keeps its place with them. "Now
the rail-tribe," says Professor Parker, speaking on this very matter,
"has for a long time been burdened (on paper) with a very false army
list. Everything alive that has had the misfortune to be possessed of
large unwieldy feet has been added to this feeble-minded cowardly group,
until it has become a mixed multitude with discordant voices and with
manners and customs having no consonance or relation." He takes the
screamer from the rail-tribe and classes it with the geese (as also does
Professor Huxley), and concludes his study with these words:--"Amongst
living birds there is not one possessing characters of higher interest,
none that I am acquainted with come nearer, in some important points, to
the lizard; and there are parts of the organization which make it very
probable that it is one of the nearest living relations of the
marvellous _Archaeopteryx_"--an intermediate form between birds and
reptiles belonging to the Upper Jurassic period.

The screamer's right to dwell with the geese has not been left
unchallenged. The late Professor Garrod finds that "from considerations
of pterylosis, visceral anatomy, myology, and osteology the screamer
cannot be placed along with the Anserine birds." He finds that in some
points it resembles the ostrich and rhea, and concludes: "It seems
therefore to me that, summing these results, the screamer must have
sprung from the primary avian stock as an independent offshoot at much
the same time as did most of the other important families." This time,
he further tells us, was when there occurred a general break-up of the
ancient terrestrial bird-type, when the acquisition of wings brought
many intruders into domains already occupied, calling forth a new
struggle for existence, and bringing out many special qualities by means
of natural selection.

With this archaeological question I have little to do, and only quote
the above great authorities to show that the screamer appears to be
nearly the last descendant of an exceedingly ancient family, with little
or no relationship to other existing families, and that its pedigree has
been hopelessly lost in the night of an incalculable antiquity. I have
only to speak of the bird as a part of the visible world and as it
appears to the non-scientific lover of nature; for, curiously enough,
while anatomists nave been laboriously seeking for the screamer's
affinities in that "biological field which is as wide as the earth and
deep as the sea," travellers and ornithologists have told us almost
nothing about its strange character and habits.

Though dressed with Quaker-like sobriety, and without the elegance of
form distinguishing the swan or peacock, this bird yet appeals to the
aesthetic feelings in man more than any species I am acquainted with.
Voice is one of its strong points, as one might readily infer from the
name: nevertheless the name is not an appropriate one, for though the
bird certainly does scream, and that louder than the peacock, its scream
is only a powerful note of alarm uttered occasionally, while the notes
uttered at intervals in the night, or in the day-time, when it soars
upwards like the lark of some far-off imaginary epoch in the world's
history when all tilings, larks included, were on a gigantic scale, are.
properly speaking, singing notes and in quality utterly unlike screams.
Sometimes when walking across Regent's Park I bear the resounding cries
of the bird confined there attempting to sing; above the concert of
cranes, the screams of eagles and macaws, the howling of dogs and wolves
and the muffled roar of lions, one can hear it all over the park. But
those loud notes only sadden me. Exile and captivity have taken all
joyousness from the noble singer, and a moist climate has made him
hoarse; the long clear strains are no more, and he hurries through his
series of confused shrieks as quickly as possible, as if ashamed of the
performance. A lark singing high up in a sunny sky and a lark singing in
a small cage hanging against a shady wall in a London street produce
very different effects; and the spluttering medley of shrill and harsh
sounds from the street singer scarcely seems to proceed from the same
kind of bird as that matchless melody filling the blue heavens. There is
even a greater difference in the notes of the crested screamer when
heard in Regent's Park and when heard on the pampas, where the bird
soars upwards until its bulky body disappears from sight, and from that
vast elevation pours down a perpetual rain of jubilant sound.

_Screamer_ being a misnomer, I prefer to call the bird by its vernacular
name of _chajá,_ or _chakar_, a more convenient spelling.

With the chakar the sexes are faithful, even in very large flocks the
birds all being ranged in couples. When one bird begins to sing its
partner immediately joins, but with notes entirely different in quality.
Both birds have some short deep notes, the other notes of the female
being long powerful notes with a trill in them; but over them sounds the
clear piercing voice of the male, ringing forth at the close with great
strength and purity. The song produces the effect of harmony, but,
comparing it with human singing, it is less like a _duo_ than a
_terzetto_ composed of bass, contralto, and soprano.

At certain times, in districts favourable to them, the chakars often
assemble in immense flocks, thousands of individuals being sometimes
seen congregated together, and in these gatherings the birds frequently
all sing in concert. They invariably--though without rising--sing at
intervals during the night, "counting the hours," as the gauchos say;
the first song being at about nine o'clock, the second at midnight, and
the third just before dawn, but the hours vary in different districts.

I was once travelling with a party of gauchos when, about midnight, it
being intensely dark, a couple of chakars broke out singing right ahead
of us, thus letting us know that we were approaching a watercourse,
where we intended refreshing our horses. We found it nearly dry, and
when we rode down to the rill of water meandering over the broad dry bed
of the river, a flock of about a thousand chakars set up a perfect roar
of alarm notes, all screaming together, with intervals of silence after;
then they rose up with a mighty rush of wings. They settled down again a
few hundred yards off, and all together burst forth in one of their
grand midnight songs, making the plains echo for miles around.

There is something strangely impressive in these spontaneous outbursts
of a melody so powerful from one of these large flocks, and though
accustomed to hear these birds from childhood, I have often been
astonished at some new effect produced by a large multitude singing
under certain conditions. Travelling alone one summer day, I carne at
noon to a lake on the pampas called Kakel--a sheet of water narrow
enough for one to see across. Chakars in countless numbers were gathered
along its shores, but they were all ranged in well-defined flocks,
averaging about five hundred birds in each flock. These flocks seemed to
extend all round the lake, and had probably been driven by the drought
from all the plains around to this spot. Presently one flock near me
began singing, and continued their powerful chant for three or four
minutes; when they ceased the next flock took up the strains, and after
it the next, and so on until the notes of the flocks on the opposite
shore came floating strong and clear across the water--then passed away,
growing fainter and fainter, until once more the sound approached me
travelling round to my side again. The effect was very curious, and I
was astonished at the orderly way with which each flock waited its turn
to sing, instead of a general outburst taking place after the first
flock had given the signal. On another occasion I was still more
impressed, for here the largest number of birds I have ever found
congregated at one place all sung together. This was on the southern
pampas, at a place called Gualicho, where I had ridden for an hour
before sunset over a marshy plain where there was still much standing
water in the rushy pools, though it was at the height of the dry season.
This whole plain was covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in
close order, but scattered about in pairs and small groups. In this
desolate spot I found a small rancho inhabited by a gaucho and his
family, and I spent the night with them. The birds were all about the
house, apparently as tame as the domestic fowls, and when I went out to
look for a spot for my horse to feed on, they would not fly away from
me, but merely moved, a few steps out of my path About nine o'clock we
were eating supper in the rancho when suddenly the entire multitude of
birds covering the marsh for miles around burst forth into a tremendous
evening song. It is impossible to describe the effect of this mighty
rush of sound; but let the reader try to imagine half-a-million voices,
each far more powerful than that one which makes itself heard all over
Regent's Park, bursting forth on the silent atmosphere of that dark
lonely plain. One peculiarity was that in this mighty noise, which
sounded louder than the sea thundering on a rocky coast, I seemed to be
able to distinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individual voices.
Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless and overcome with astonishment,
while the air, and even the frail rancho, seemed to be trembling in that
tempest of sound. When it ceased my host remarked with a smile, "We are
accustomed to this, señor--every evening we have this concert." It was a
concert well worth riding a hundred miles to hear. But the chakar
country is just now in a transitional state, and the precise conditions
which made it possible for birds so large in size to form such immense
congregations are rapidly passing away. In desert places, the bird
subsists chiefly on leaves and seeds of aquatic plants; but when the
vast level area of the pampas was settled by man, the ancient stiff
grass-vegetation gave place to the soft clovers and grasses of Europe,
and to this new food the birds took very kindly. Other circumstances
also favoured their increase. They were never persecuted, for the
natives do not eat them, though they are really very good--the flesh
being something like wild goose in flavour. A _higher_ civilization is
changing all this: the country is becoming rapidly overrun with
emigrants, especially by Italians, the pitiless enemies of all
bird-life.

The chakars, like the skylark, love to soar upwards when singing, and at
such times when they have risen till their dark bulky bodies appear like
floating specks on the blue sky, or until they disappear from sight
altogether, the notes become wonderfully etherealized by distance to a
soft silvery sound, and it is then very delightful to listen to them.

It seems strange that so ponderous a fowl with only six feet and a half
spread of wings should possess a power of soaring equal to that of
vultures and eagles. Even the vulture with its marvellous wing power
soars chiefly from necessity, and when its crop is full finds no
pleasure in "scaling the heavens by invisible stairs." The chakar leaves
its grass-plot after feeding and soars purely for recreation, taking so
much pleasure in its aerial exercises that in bright warm weather, in
winter and spring, it spends a great part of the day in the upper
regions of the air. On the earth its air is grave and its motions
measured and majestic, and it rises with immense labour, the wings
producing a sound like a high wind. But as the bird mounts higher,
sweeping round as it ascends, just as vultures and eagles do, it
gradually appears to become more buoyant, describing each succeeding
circle with increasing grace. I can only account for this magnificent
flight, beginning so laboriously, by supposing that the bubble space
under the skin becomes inflated with an air lighter than atmospheric
air, enabling a body so heavy with wings disproportionately short to
float with such ease and evident enjoyment at the vast heights to which
the bird ascends. The heavenward flight of a large bird is always a
magnificent spectacle; that of the chakar is peculiarly fascinating on
account of the resounding notes it sings while soaring, and in which the
bird seems to exult in its sublime power and freedom.

I was once very much surprised at the behaviour of a couple of chakars
during a thunderstorm. On a still sultry day in summer I was standing
watching masses of black cloud coming rapidly over the sky, while a
hundred yards from me stood the two birds also apparently watching the
approaching storm with interest. Presently the edge of the cloud touched
the sun, and a twilight gloom fell on the earth. The very moment the sun
disappeared the birds rose up and soon began singing their long'
resounding notes, though it was loudly thundering at the time, while
vivid flashes of lightning lit the black cloud overhead at short
intervals. I watched their flight and listened to their notes, till
suddenly as they made a wide sweep upwards they disappeared in the
cloud, and at the same moment their voices became muffled, and seemed to
come from an immense distance. The cloud continued emitting sharp
flashes of lightning, but the birds never reappeared, and after six or
seven minutes once more their notes sounded loud and clear above the
muttering thunder. I suppose they had passed through the cloud into the
clear atmosphere above it, but I was extremely surprised at their
fearlessness; for as a rule when soaring birds see a storm coming they
get out of its way, flying before it or stooping to the earth to seek
shelter of some kind, for most living things appear to have a wholesome
dread of thunder and lightning.

When taken young the chakar becomes very tame and attached to man,
showing no inclination to go back to a wild life. There was one kept at
an estancia called Mangrullos, on the western frontier of Buenos Ayres,
and the people of the house gave me a very curious account of it. The
bird was a male, and had been reared by a soldier's wife at a frontier
outpost called La Esperanza, about twenty-five miles from Mangrullos.
Four years before I saw the bird the Indians had invaded the frontier,
destroying the Esperanza settlement and all the estancias for some
leagues around. For some weeks after the invasion the chakar wandered
about the country, visiting all the ruined estancias, apparently in
quest of human beings, and on arriving at Mangrullos, which had not been
burnt and was still inhabited, it settled down at ones and never
afterwards showed any disposition to go away. It was extremely tame,
associating by day with the poultry, and going to roost with them at
night OH a high perch, probably for the sake of companionship, for in a
wild state the bird roosts on the ground. It was friendly towards all
the members of the household except one, a peon, and against this person
from the first the bird always displayed the greatest antipathy,
threatening him with its wings, puffing itself out, and hissing like an
angry goose. The man had a swarthy, beardless face, and it was
conjectured that the chakar associated him in its mind with the savages
who had destroyed its early home.

Close to the house there was a lagoon, never dry, which was frequently
visited by flocks of wild chakars. Whenever a flock appeared the tame
bird would go out to join them; and though the chakars are mild-tempered
birds and very rarely quarrel, albeit so well provided with formidable
weapons, they invariably attacked the visitor with great fury, chasing
him back to the house, and not ceasing their persecutions till the
poultry-yard was reached. They appeared to regard this tame bird that
dwelt with man as a kind of renegade, and hated him accordingly.

Before he had been long at the estancia it began to be noticed that he
followed the broods of young chickens about very assiduously, apparently
taking great interest in their welfare, and even trying to entice them
to follow him. A few newly-hatched chickens were at length offered to
him as an experiment, and he immediately took charge of them with every
token of satisfaction, conducting them about in search of food and
imitating all the actions of a hen. Finding him so good a nurse, large
broods were given to him, and the more the foster-chickens were the
better he seemed pleased. It was very curious to see this big bird with
thirty or forty little animated balls of yellow cotton following him
about, while he moved majestically along, setting down his feet with the
greatest care not to tread on them, and swelling himself up with jealous
anger at the approach of a cat or dog.

The intelligence, docility, and attachment to man displayed by the
chakar in a domestic state, with perhaps other latent aptitudes only
waiting to be developed by artificial selection, seem to make this
species one peculiarly suited for man's protection, without which it
must inevitably perish. It is sad to reflect that all our domestic
animals have descended to us from those ancient times which we are
accustomed to regard as dark or barbarous, while the effect of our
modern so-called humane civilization has been purely destructive to
animal life. Not one type do we rescue from the carnage going on at an
ever-increasing rate over all the globe. To Australia and America, North
and South, we look in vain for new domestic species, while even from
Africa, with its numerous fine mammalian forms, and where England has
been the conquering colonizing power for nearly a century, we take
nothing. Even the sterling qualities of the elephant, the unique beauty
of the zebra, appeal to us in vain. We are only teaching the tribes of
that vast continent to exterminate a hundred noble species they would
not tame. With grief and shame, even with dismay, we call to mind that
our country is now a stupendous manufactory of destructive engines,
which we are rapidly placing in the hands of all the savage and
semi-savage peoples of the earth, thus ensuring the speedy destruction
of all the finest types in the animal kingdom.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WOODHEWER FAMILY.

_(Dendrocolaptidae.)_


The South American Tree-creepers, or Woodhewers, as they are sometimes
called, although confined exclusively to one continent, their range
extending from Southern Mexico to the Magellanic islands, form one of
the largest families of the order Passeres; no fewer than about two
hundred and ninety species (referable to about forty-six genera) having
been already described. As they are mostly small, inconspicuous,
thicket-frequenting birds, shy and fond of concealment to excess, it is
only reasonable to suppose that our list of this family is more
incomplete than of any other family of birds known. Thus, in the
southern Plata and north Pata-gonian districts, supposed to be
exhausted, where my observations have been made, and where, owing to the
open nature of the country, birds are more easily remarked than in the
forests and marshes of the tropical region, I have made notes on the
habits of five species, of which I did not preserve specimens, and
which, as far as I know, have never been described and named. Probably
long before the whole of South America has been "exhausted," there will
be not less than four to five hundred Dendrocolaptine species known. And
yet with the exception of that dry husk of knowledge, concerning size,
form and colouration, which classifiers and cataloguers obtain from
specimens, very little indeed--scarcely anything, in fact--is known
about the Tree-creepers; and it would not be too much to say that there
are many comparatively obscure and uninteresting species in Europe, any
one of which has a larger literature than the entire Tree-creeper
family. No separate work about these birds has seen the light, even in
these days of monographs; but the reason of this comparative neglect is
not far to seek. In the absence of any knowledge, except of the most
fragmentary kind, of the life-habits of exotic species, the
monograph-makers of the Old World naturally take up only the most
important groups--i.e. the groups which most readily attract the
traveller's eye with their gay conspicuous colouring, and which have
acquired a wide celebrity. We thus have a succession of splendid and
expensive works dealing separately with such groups as woodpeckers,
trogons, humming-birds, tanagers, king-fishers, and birds of paradise;
for with these, even if there be nothing to record beyond the usual
dreary details and technicalities concerning geographical distribution,
variations in size and markings of different species, &c., the little
interest of the letter-press is compensated for in the accompanying
plates, which are now produced on a scale of magnitude, and with so
great a degree of perfection, as regards brilliant colouring, spirited
attitudes and general fidelity to nature, that leaves little further
improvement in this direction to be looked for. The Tree-creepers, being
without the inferior charm of bright colour, offer no attraction to the
bird-painter, whose share in the work of the pictorial monograph is, of
course, all-important. Yet even the very slight knowledge we possess of
this family is enough to show that in many respects it is one richly
endowed, possessing characters of greater interest to the student of the
instincts and mental faculties of birds, than any of |the gaily-tinted
families I have mentioned.

There is, in the Dendrocolaptidae, a splendid harvest for future
observers of the habits of South American birds: some faint idea of its
richness may perhaps be gathered from the small collection of the most
salient facts known to us about them I have brought together and put in
order in this place. And I am here departing a little from the plan
usually observed in this book, which is chiefly occupied with matters of
personal knowledge, seasoned with a little speculation; but in this case
I have thought it best to supplement my own observations with those of
others [Footnote: Azara; D'Orbigny; Darwin; Bridges; Frazer; Leotaud;
Gaumer; Wallace; Bates; Cunningham; Stolzmann; Jelski; Durnford; Gibson;
Burrows; Doering; White, &c.] who have collected and observed birds in
South America, so as to give as comprehensive a survey of the family as
I could.

It is strange to find a Passerine family, numerous as the Tree-creepers,
uniformly of one colour, or nearly so; for, with few exceptions, these
birds have a brown plumage, without a particle of bright colour. But
although they possess no brilliant or metallic tints, in some species,
as we shall see, there are tints approaching to brightness.
Notwithstanding this family likeness in colour, any person, not an
ornithologist, looking at a collection of specimens comprising many
genera, would hear with surprise and almost incredulity that they all
belonged to one family, so great is the diversity exhibited in their
structure. In size they vary from species smaller than the
golden-crested wren to others larger than the woodcock; but the
differences in size are as nothing compared with those shown in the form
of the beak. Between the minute, straight, conical, tit-like beaks of
the Laptasthenura--a tit in appearance and habits--and the extravagantly
long, sword-shaped bill of Nasica, or the excessively attenuated,
sickle-shaped organ in Xiphorynchus, the divergence is amazing, compared
with what is found in other families; while between these two extremes
there is a heterogeneous assemblage of birds with beaks like creepers,
nuthatches, finches, tyrant-birds, woodpeckers, crows, and even curlews
and ibises. In legs, feet and tails, there are corresponding
differences. There are tails of all lengths and all forms; soft and
stiff, square, acuminated, broad and fan-like, narrow and spine-like,
and many as in the woodpeckers, and used as in that bird to support the
body in climbing. An extremely curious modification is found in
Sittosoma: the tail-feathers in this genus are long and graduated, and
the shafts, projecting beyond the webs at the ends, curve downwards and
form stiff hooks. Concerning the habits of these birds, it has only been
reported that they climb on the trunks of trees: probably they are able
to run vertically up or down with equal facility, and even to suspend
themselves by their feather-hooks when engaged in dislodging insects.
Another curious variation is found in Sylviothorhynchus, a small
wren-like bird and the only member known of the genus, with a tail
resembling that of the lyre-bird, the extravagantly long feathers being
so narrow as to appear almost like shafts destitute of webs. This tail
appears to be purely ornamental.

This extreme variety in structure indicates a corresponding diversity in
habits; and, assuming it to be a true doctrine that habits vary first
and structure afterwards, anyone might infer from a study of their forms
alone that these birds possess a singular plasticity, or tendency to
vary, in their habits--or, in other words, that they are exceptionally
intelligent; and that such a conclusion would be right I believe a study
of their habits will serve to show.

The same species is often found to differ in its manner of life in
different localities. Some species of Xenops and Magarornis, like
woodpeckers, climb vertically on tree-trunks in search of insect prey,
but also, like tits, explore the smaller twigs and foliage at the
extremity of the branches; so that the whole tree, from its root to its
topmost foliage, is hunted over by them. The Sclerurus, although an
inhabitant of the darkest forest, and provided with sharply-curved
claws, never seeks its food on trees, but exclusively on the ground,
among the decaying fallen leaves; but, strangely enough, when alarmed it
flies to the trunk of the nearest tree, to which it clings in a vertical
position, and, remaining silent and motionless, escapes observation by
means of its dark protective colour. The Drymornis, a large bird, with
feet and tail like a woodpecker, climbs on tree-trunks to seek its food;
but also possesses the widely-different habit of resorting to the open
plain, especially after a shower, to feed on larvae and earthworms,
extracting them from a depth of three or four inches beneath the surface
with its immense curved probing beak.

Again, when we consider a large number of species of different groups,
we find that there is not with the Tree-creepers, as with most families,
any special habit or manner of life linking them together; but that, on
the contrary, different genera, and, very frequently, different species
belonging to one genus, possess habits peculiarly their own. In other
families, even where the divergence is greatest, what may be taken as
the original or ancestral habit is seldom or never quite obsolete in any
of the members. This we see, for instance, in the woodpeckers, some of
which have acquired the habit of seeking their food exclusively on the
ground in open places, and even of nesting in the banks of streams. Yet
all these wanderers, even those which have been structurally modified in
accordance with their altered way of life, retain the primitive habit of
clinging vertically to the trunks of trees, although the habit has lost
its use. With the tyrant birds--a family showing an extraordinary amount
of variation--it is the same; for the most divergent kinds are
frequently seen reverting to the family habit of perching on an
elevation, from which to make forays after passing insects, returning
after each capture to the same stand. The thrushes, ranging all over the
globe, afford another striking example. Without speaking of their
nesting habits, their relationship appears in their love of fruit, in
their gait, flight, statuesque attitudes, and abrupt motions.

With the numerous Dendrocolaptine groups, so widely separated and
apparently unrelated, it would be difficult indeed to say which, of
their most striking habits is the ancestral one. Many of the smaller
species live in trees or bushes, and in their habits resemble tits,
warblers, wrens, and other kinds that subsist on small caterpillars,
spiders, &c., gleaned from the leaves and smaller twigs. The Anumbius
nests on trees, but feeds exclusively on the ground in open places;
while other ground-feeders seek their food among dead leaves in dense
gloomy forests. Coryphistera resembles the lark and pipit in its habits;
Cinclodes, the wagtail; Geobates a Saxicola; Limnornis lives in reed
beds growing in the water; Henicornis in reed beds growing out of the
water; and many other ground species exist concealed in the grass on dry
plains; Homorus seeks its food by digging in the loose soil and dead
leaves about the roots of trees; while Geo-sitta, Furnarius, and
Upercerthia obtain a livelihood chiefly by probing in the soil. It would
not be possible within the present limits to mention in detail all the
different modes of life of those species or groups which do not possess
the tree-creeping habit; after them comes a long array of genera in
which this habit is ingrained, and in which the greatly modified feet
and claws are suited to a climbing existence. As these genera comprise
the largest half of the family, also the largest birds in it, we might
expect to find in the tree-creeping the parental habit of the
Dendrocolaptidae, and that from these tropical forest groups have sprung
the widely-diverging thicket, ground, marsh, sea-beach, and
rock-frequenting groups. It happens, however, that these birds resemble
each other only in their climbing feet; in the form of their beaks they
are as wide apart as are nuthatches, woodpeckers, crows, and curlews.
They also differ markedly in the manner of seeking their food. Some dig
like woodpeckers in decayed wood; others probe only in soft rotten wood;
while the humming-bird-billed Xiphorhynchus, with a beak too long and
slender for probing, explores the interior of deep holes in the trunks
to draw out nocturnal insects, spiders, and centipedes from their
concealment. Xiphoco-laptes uses its sword-like beak as a lever,
thrusting it under and forcing up the loose bark; while Dendrornis, with
its stout corvine beak, tears the bark off.

In the nesting habits the diversity is greatest. Some ground species
excavate in the earth like kingfishers, only with greater skill, making
cylindrical burrows often four to five feet deep, and terminating in a
round chamber. Others build a massive oven-shaped structure of clay on a
branch or other elevated site. Many of those that creep on trees nest in
holes in the wood. The marsh-frequenting kinds attach spherical or oval
domed nests to the reeds; and in some cases woven grass and clay are so
ingeniously combined that the structure, while light as a basket, is
perfectly impervious to the wet and practically indestructible. The most
curious nests, however, are the large stick structures on trees and
bushes, in the building and repairing of which the birds are in many
cases employed more or less constantly all the year round. These stick
nests vary greatly in form, size, and in other respects. Some have a
spiral passage-way leading from the entrance to the nest cavity, and the
cavity is in many cases only large enough to accommodate the bird; but
in the gigantic structure of Homorus gutturalis it is so large that, if
the upper half of the nest or dome were removed, a condor could
comfortably hatch her eggs and rear her young in it. This nest is
spherical. The allied Homorus lophotis builds a nest equally large, but
with a small cavity for the eggs inside, and outwardly resembling a
gigantic powder-flask, lying horizontally among the lower branches of a
spreading tree. Pracellodomtis sibila-trix, a bird in size like the
English house sparrow, also makes a huge nest, and places it on the
twigs at the terminal end of a horizontal branch from twelve to fifteen
feet above the ground; but when finished, the weight of the structure
bears down the branch-end to within one or two feet of the surface. Mr.
Barrows, who describes this nest, says: "When other branches of the same
tree are similarly loaded, and other trees close at hand bear the same
kind of fruit, the result is very picturesque." Synallaxis phryganophila
makes a stick nest about a foot in depth, and from the top a tubular
passage, formed of slender twigs interlaced, runs down the entire length
of the nest, like a rain-pipe on the wall of a house, and then becoming
external slopes upward, ending at a distance of two to three feet from
the nest. Throughout South America there are several varieties of these
fruit-and-stem or watering-pot shaped nests; they are not, however, all
built by birds of one genus, while in the genus Synallaxis many species
have no tubular passageways attached to their nests. One species--erythro
thorax--in Yucatan, makes so large a nest of sticks, that the
natives do not believe that so small a bird can be the builder. They say
that when the _tzapatan_ begins to sing, all the birds in the forest
repair to it, each one carrying a stick to add to the structure; only
one, a tyrant-bird, brings two sticks, one for itself and one for the
_urubú_ or vulture, that bird being considered too large, heavy, and
ignorant of architecture to assist personally in the work.

In the southern part of South America, where scattered thorn trees grow
on a dry soil, these big nests are most abundant. "There are plains,"
Mr. Barrows writes, "within two miles of the centre of this town
(Concepcion, Argentine Republic), where I have stood and counted, from
one point within a radius of twenty rods, over two hundred of these
curious nests, varying in size from that of a small pumpkin to more than
the volume of a barrel. Often a single tree will contain half a dozen
nests or more; and, not unfrequently, the nests of several different
species are seen crowding each other out of shape on the same bush or
tree."

It would be a mistake to think that the widely different nesting habits
I have mentioned are found in different genera. I have just spoken of
the big stick nests, with or without passage-ways, of the Synallaxes,
yet the nest of one member of this group is simply a small straight tube
of woven grass, the aperture only large enough to admit the finger, and
open at both ends, so that the bird can pass in and out without turning
round. Another species scoops a circular hollow in the soil, and builds
over it a dome of fine woven grass. It should be mentioned that the
nesting habits of only about fifteen out of the sixty-five species
comprised in this genus are known to us. In the genus Furnarius the
oven-shaped clay structure is known to be made by three species; a
fourth builds a nest of sticks in a tree; a fifth burrows in the side of
a bank, like a kingfisher.

The explanation of the most striking features of the Dendrocolaptidae,
their monotonous brown plumage, diversity of structure, versatile
habits, and the marvellous development of the nest-making instinct which
they exhibit is to be found, it appears to me, in the fact that they are
the most defenceless of birds. They are timid, unresisting creatures,
without strength or weapons; their movements arc less quick and vigorous
than those of other kinds, and their flight is exceedingly feeble. The
arboreal species flit at intervals from one tree to another; those that
frequent thickets refuse to leave their chosen shelter; while those
inhabiting grassy plains or marshes study concealment, and, when forced
to rise, flutter away just above the surface, like flying-fish
frightened from the water, and, when they have gone thirty or forty
yards, dip into the grass or reeds again. Their life is thus one of
perpetual danger in a far greater degree than with other passerine
families, such as warblers, tyrants, finches, thrushes, &c.; while an
exclusively insect diet, laboriously extracted from secret places, and
inability to change their climate, contribute to make their existence a
hard one. It has been with these birds as with human beings, bred in
"misfortune's school," and subjected to keen competition. One of their
most striking characteristics is a methodical, plodding, almost painful
diligence of manner while seeking their food, so that when viewed side
by side with other species, rejoicing in a gayer plumage and stronger
flight, they seem like sober labourers that never rest among holiday
people bent only on enjoyment. That they are able not only to maintain
their existence, but to rise to the position of a dominant family, is
due to an intelligence and adaptiveness exceeding that of other kinds,
and which has been strengthened, and perhaps directly results from the
hard conditions of their life.

How great their adaptiveness and variability must be when we find that
every portion of the South American continent is occupied by them; for
there is really no climate, and no kind of soil or vegetation, which
does not possess its appropriate species, modified in colour, form, and
habits to suit the surrounding conditions. In the tropical region, so
rich in bird life of all kinds, in forest, marsh, and savanna, they are
everywhere abundant--food is plentiful there; but when we go to higher
elevations avd cold sterile deserts, where their companion families of
the tropics dwindle away and disappear, the creepers are still present,
for they are evidently able to exist where other kinds would starve. On
the stony plateaus of the Andes, and on the most barren spots in
Patagonia, where no other bird is seen, there are small species of
Synallaxis, which, in their obscure colour and motions on the ground,
resemble mice rather than birds; indeed, the Quichua name for one of
these Synallaxes is _ukatchtuka,_ or mouse-bird. How different is the
life habit here from what we see in the tropical groups--the large birds
with immense beaks, that run vertically on the trunks of the great
forest trees!

At the extreme southern extremity of the South American continent we
find several species of Cin-clodes, seeking a subsistence like
sandpipers on the beach; they also fly out to sea, and run about on the
floating kelp, exploring the fronds for the small marine animals on
which they live. In the dreary forests of Tierra del Fuego another
creeper, Uxyurus, is by far the commonest bird. "Whether high up or low
down, in the most gloomy, wet, and scarcely penetrable ravines," says
Darwin, "this little bird is to be met with;" and Dr. Cunningham also
relates that in these wintry, savage woods he was always attended in his
walks by parties of these little creepers, which assembled to follow him
out of curiosity.

To birds placed at so great a disadvantage, by a feeble flight and other
adverse circumstances, in the race of life bright colours would
certainly prove fatal. It is true that brown is not in itself a
protective colour, and the clear, almost silky browns and bright
chestnut tints in several species are certainly not protective; but
these species are sufficiently protected in other ways, and can afford
to be without a strictly adaptive colour, so long as they are not
conspicuous. In a majority of cases, however, the colour is undoubtedly
protective, the brown hue being of a shade that assimilates very closely
to the surroundings. There are pale yellowish browns, lined and mottled,
in species living amidst a sere, scanty vegetation; earthy browns, in
those frequenting open sterile or stony places; while the species that
creep on trees in forests are dark brown in colour, and in many cases
the feathers are mottled in such a manner as to make them curiously
resemble the bark of a tree. The genera Lochmias and Sclerurus are the
darkest, the plumage in these birds being nearly or quite black, washed
or tinged with rhubarb yellow. Their black plumage would render them
conspicuous in the sunshine, but they pass their lives in dense tropical
forests, where the sun at noon sheds only a gloomy twilight.

If "colour is ever tending to increase and to appear where it is
absent," as Dr. Wallace believes, then we ought to find it varying in
the direction of greater brightness in some species in a family so
numerous and variable as the Dendrocolaptidae, however feeble and in
need of a protective colouring these birds may be in a majority of
pases. And this in effect we do find. In many of the dark-plumaged
species that live in perpetual shade some parts are a very bright
chestnut; while in a few that live in such close concealment as to be
almost independent of protective colouring, the lower plumage has become
pure white. A large number of species have a bright or nearly bright
guiar spot. This is most remarkable in Synallaxis phryganophila, the
chin being sulphur-yellow, beneath which is a spot of velvet-black, and
on either side a white patch, the throat thus having three strongly
contrasted colours, arranged in four divisions. The presence of this
bright throat spot in so many species cannot very well be attributed to
voluntary sexual selection, although believers in that theory are of
course at liberty to imagine that when engaged in courtship, the male
bird, or rather male and female both, as both sexes possess the spot,
hold up their heads vertically to exhibit it. Perhaps it would be safer
to look on it as a mere casual variation, which, like the exquisitely
pencilled feathers and delicate tints on the concealed sides and under
surfaces of the wings of many species possessing outwardly an obscure
protective colouring, is neither injurious nor beneficial in any way,
either to the birds or to the theory. It is more than probable, however,
that in such small feeble-winged, persecuted birds, this spot of colour
would prove highly dangerous on any conspicuous part of the body. In
some of the more vigorous, active species, we can see a tendency towards
a brighter colouring on large, exposed surfaces. In Auto-malus the tail
is bright satiny rufous; in Pseudo-colaptes the entire under surface is
rufous of a peculiar vivid tint, verging on orange or red; in Magarornis
the bosom is black, and beautifully ornamented with small leaf-shaped
spots of a delicate straw-colour. There are several other very pretty
birds in this homely family; but the finest of all is Thripodectes
flammulatus, the whole body being tortoise-shell colour, the wings and
tail bright chesnut. The powerful tanager-like beak of this species
seems also to show that it has diverged from its timid shade-loving
congeners in another direction by becoming a seed and fruit eater.

Probably the sober and generally protective colouring of the
tree-creepers, even with the variability and adaptiveness displayed in
their habits superadded, would be insufficient to preserve such feeble
birds in the struggle of life without the further advantage derived from
their wonderful nests. It has been said of domed nests that they are a
danger rather than a protection, owing to their large size, which makes
it easy for carnivorous species that prey on eggs and young birds to
find them; while small open nests are usually well concealed. This may
be the case with covered nests made of soft materials, loosely put
together; but it cannot be said of the solid structure the tree-creeper
bnilds, and which, as often as not, the bird erects in the most
conspicuous place it can find, as if, writes Azara, it desired all the
world to admire its work. The annual destruction of adult birds is very
great--more than double that, I believe, which takes place in other
passerine families. Their eggs and young are, however, practically safe
in their great elaborate nests or deep burrows, and, as a rule, they lay
more eggs than other kinds, the full complement being seldom less than
five in the species I am acquainted with, while some lay as many as
nine. Their nests are also made so as to keep out a greater pest than
their carnivorous or egg-devouring enemies--namely, the parasitical
starlings (Molo-thrus), which are found throughout South America, and
are excessively abundant and destructive to birds' nests in some
districts. In most cases, in the big, strong-domed nest or deep burrow,
all the eggs are hatched and all the young reared, the thinning, out
process commencing only after the brood has been led forth into a world
beset with perils. With other families, on the contrary, the greatest
amount of destruction falls on the eggs or fledglings. I have frequently
kept a dozen or twenty pairs of different species--warblers, finches,
tyrants, starlings, &c.--under observation during the breeding season,
and have found that in some cases no young-were reared at all; in other
cases one or two young; while, as often as not, the young actually
reared were only parasitical starlings after all.

I have still to speak of the voice of the tree-creepers, an important
point in the study of these birds; for, though not accounted singers,
some species emit remarkable sounds; moreover, language in birds is
closely related to the social instinct. They seem to be rather solitary
than gregarious; and this seems only natural in birds so timid,
weak-winged, and hard pressed. It would also be natural to conclude from
what has been said concerning their habits that they are comparatively
silent; for, as a rule, vigorous social birds are loquacious and
loud-voiced, while shy solitary kinds preservo silence, except in the
love season. Nevertheless the creepers are loquacious and have loud
resonant voices; this fact, however, does not really contradict a
well-known principle, for the birds possess the social disposition in an
eminent degree, only the social habit is kept down in them by the
conditions of a life which makes solitude necessary. Thus, a large
proportion of species are found to pair for life; and the only
reasonable explanation of this habit in birds--one which is not very
common in the mammalia--is that such species possess the social temper
or feeling, and live in pairs only because they cannot afford to live in
flocks. Strictly gregarious species pair only for the breeding season.
In the creepers the attachment between the birds thus mated for life is
very great, and, as Azara truly says of Anumbius, so fond of each
other's society are these birds, that when one incubates the other sits
at the entrance to the nest, and when one carries food to its young the
other accompanies it, even if it has found nothing to cany. In these
species that live in pairs, when the two birds are separated they are
perpetually calling to each other, showing how impatient of solitude
they are; while even from the more solitary kind, a high-pitched
call-note is constantly heard in the woods, for these birds, debarred
from associating together, satisfy their instinct by conversing with one
another over long distances.

The foregoing remarks apply to the Dendrocolap-tidae throughout the
temperate countries of South America--the birds inhabiting extensive
grassy plains and marshes, and districts with a scanty or scattered tree
and bush vegetation. In the forest areas of the hotter regions it is
different; there the birds form large gatherings or "wandering bands,"
composed of all the different species found in each district, associated
with birds of other families--wood-peckers, tyrant-birds, bush shrikes,
and many others. These miscellaneous gatherings are not of rare
occurrence, but out of the breeding season are formed daily, the birds
beginning to assemble at about nine or ten o'clock in the morning,
their number increasing through the day until it reaches its maximum
between two and four o'clock in the afternoon, after which it begins to
diminish, each bird going off to its customary shelter or
dwelling-place. Mr. Bates, who first described these wandering bands,
says that he could always find the particular band belonging to a
district any day he wished, for when he failed to meet with it in one
part of the forest he would try other paths, until he eventually found
it. The great Amazonian forests, he tells us, appear strangely silent
and devoid of bird life, and it is possible to ramble about for whole
days without seeing or hearing birds. But now and then the surrounding
trees and bushes appear suddenly swarming with them. "The bustling
crowd loses no time, and, always moving in concert, each bird is
occupied on its own account in searching bark, or leaf, or twig. In a
few moments the host is gone, and the forest path remains deserted and
silent as before." Stolzmann, who observed them in Peru, says that the
sound caused by the busy crowd searching through the foliage, and the
falling of dead leaves and twigs, resembles that produced by a shower of
rain. The Indians of the Amazons, Mr. Bates writes, have a curious
belief to explain these bird armies; they say that the Papa-uira,
supposed to be a small grey bird, fascinates all the others, and leads
them on a weary perpetual dance through the forest. It seems very
wonderful that birds, at other times solitary, should thus combine daily
in large numbers, including in their bands scores of widely different
species, and in size ranging from those no larger than a wren to others
as big as a magpie. It is certainly very advantageous to them. As Belt
remarks, they play into each other's hands; for while the larger
creepers explore the trunks of big trees, others run over the branches
and cling to the lesser twigs, so that every tree in their route, from
its roots to the topmost foliage, is thoroughly examined, and every
spider and caterpillar taken, while the winged insects, driven from
their lurking-places, are seized where they settle, or caught flying by
the tyrant birds.

I have observed the wandering bands only in Patagonia, where they are on
a very small scale compared with those of the tropical forests. In the
Patagonia thickets the small tit-like creeper, Laptas-thenura, is the
prime mover; and after a considerable number of these have gathered,
creepers of other species and genera unite with them, and finally the
band, as it moves through the thickets, draws to itself other
kinds--flycatchers, finches, &c.--many of the birds running or hopping
on the ground to search for insects in the loose soil or under dead
leaves, while others explore the thorny bushes. My observations of these
small bands lead me to believe that everywhere in South America the
Dendrocolaptidae are the first in combining to act in concert, and that
the birds of other families follow their march and associate with them,
knowing from experience that a rich harvest may be thus reaped. In the
same way birds of various kinds follow the movements of a column of
hunting ants, to catch the insects flying up from the earth to escape
from their enemies; swallows also learn to keep company with the
traveller on horseback, and, crossing and recrossing just before the
hoofs, they catch the small twilight moths driven up from the grass.

To return to the subject of voice. The tree-creepers do not possess
melodious, or at any rate mellow notes, although in so numerous a family
there is great variety of tone, ranging from a small reedy voice like
the faint stridulation of a grasshopper, to the resounding,
laughter-like, screaming concerts of Homorus, which may be heard
distinctly two miles away. As a rule, the notes are loud ringing calls;
and in many species the cry, rapidly reiterated, resembles a peal of
laughter. With scarcely an exception, they possess no set song; but in
most species that live always in pairs there are loud, vehement,
gratulatory notes uttered by the two birds in concert when they meet
after a brief separation. This habit they possess in common with birds
of other families, as, for instance, the tyrants; but, in some creepers,
out of this confused outburst of joyous sound has been developed a.
musical performance very curious, and perhaps unique among birds. On
meeting, the male and female, standing close together and facing each
other, utter their clear ringing concert, one emitting loud single
measured notes, while the notes of its fellow are rapid, rhythmical
triplets; their voices have a joyous character, and seem to accord, thus
producing a kind of harmony. This manner of singing is perhaps most
perfect in the oven-bird, Furnarias, and it is very curious that the
young birds, when only partially fledged, are constantly heard in the
nest or oven apparently practising these duets in the intervals when the
parents are absent; single measured notes, triplets, and long concluding
trills are all repeated with wonderful fidelity, although these notes
are in character utterly unlike the hunger cry, which is like that of
other fledglings. I cannot help thinking that this fact of the young
birds beginning to sing like the adults, while still confined in their
dark cradle, is one of very considerable significance, especially when
we consider the singular character of the performance; and that it might
even be found to throw some light on the obscure question of the
comparative antiquity of the different and widely separated
Dendrocolaptine groups. It is a doctrine in evolutionary science that
the early maturing of instincts in the young indicates a high antiquity
for the species or group; and there is no reason why this principle
should not be extended, in the case of birds at any rate, to language.
It is true that Daines Barrington's notion that young song-birds learn
to sing only by imitating the adults still holds its ground; and Darwin
gives it his approval in his _Descent of Man._ It is perhaps one of
those doctrines which are partially true, or which do not contain the
whole truth; and it is possible to believe that, while many singing
birds do so learn their songs, or acquire a greater proficiency in them
from hearing the adults, in other species the song comes instinctively,
and is, like other instincts and habits, purely an "inherited memory."

The case of a species in another order of birds--Crypturi--strikes me as
being similar to this of the oven-bird, and seems to lend some force to
the suggestion I have made concerning the early development of voice in
the young.

Birds peculiar to South America are said by anatomists to be less
specialized, lower, more ancient, than the birds of the northern
continents, and among those which are considered lowest and most ancient
are the Tinamous (rail and partridge like in their habits), birds that
lead a solitary, retiring life, and in most cases have sweet melancholy
voices. Rhynchotus rufescens, a bird the size of a fowl, inhabiting the
pampas, is perhaps the sweetest-voiced, and sings with great frequency.
Its song or call is heard oftenest towards the evening, and is composed
of five modulated notes, flute-like in character, very expressive, and
uttered by many individuals answering each other as they sit far apart
concealed in the grass. As we might have expected, the faculties and
instincts of the young of this species mature at a very early period;
when extremely small, they abandon their parents to shift for themselves
in solitude; and when not more than one-fourth the size they eventually
attain, they acquire the adult plumage and are able to fly as well as an
old bird. I observed a young bird of this species, less than a quail in
size, at a house on the pampas, and was told that it had been taken from
the nest when just breaking the shell; it had, therefore, never seen or
heard the parent birds. Yet this small chick, every day at the approach
of evening, would retire to the darkest corner of the dining room, and,
concealed under a piece of furniture, would continue uttering its
evening song for an hour or longer at short intervals, and rendering it
so perfectly that I was greatly surprised to hear it; for a thrush or
other songster at the same period of life, when attempting to sing, only
produces a chirping sound.

The early singing of the oven-bird fledgling is important, owing to the
fact that the group it belongs to comprises the least specialized forms
in the family. They are strong-legged, square-tailed, terrestrial birds,
generally able to perch, have probing beaks, and build the most perfect
mud or stick nests, or burrow in the ground. In the numerous
tree-creeping groups, which, seem as unrelated to the oven-bird as the
woodpecker is to the hoopoe, we find a score of wonderfully different
forms of beak; but many of them retain the probing character, and are
actually used to probe in rotten wood on trees, and to explore the holes
and deep crevices in the trunk. We have also seen that some of these
tree-creepers revert to the ancestral habit (if I may so call it) of
seeking their food by probing in the soil. In others, like Dendrornis,
in which the beak has lost this character, and is used to dig in the
wood or to strip off the bark, it has not been highly specialized, and,
compared with the woodpecker's beak, is a very imperfect organ,
considering the purpose for which it is used. Yet, on the principle that
"similar functional requirements frequently lead to the development of
similar structures in animals which are otherwise very distinct"--as we
see in the tubular tongue in honey-eaters and humming birds--we might
have expected to find in the Dendrocolaptidae a better imitation of the
woodpecker in so variable an organ as the beak, if not in the tongue.

Probably the oven-birds, and their nearest relations--generalized,
hardy, builders of strong nests, and prolific--represent the parental
form; and when birds of this type had spread over the entire continent
they became in different districts frequenters of marshes, forests,
thickets and savannas. With altered life-habits the numerous divergent
forms originated; some, like Xiphorynchus, retaining a probing beak in a
wonderfully modified form, attenuated in an extreme degree, and bent
like a sickle; others diverging more in the direction of nuthatches and
woodpeckers.

This sketch of the Dendrocolaptidae, necessarily slight and imperfect,
is based on a knowledge of the habits of about sixty species, belonging
to twenty-eight genera: from personal observation I am acquainted with
less than thirty species. It is astonishing to find how little has been
written about these most interesting birds in South America. One
tree-creeper only, Furnarius rufus, the oven-bird _par excellence,_ has
been mentioned, on account of its wonderful architecture, in almost
every general work of natural history published during the present
century; yet the oven-bird does not surpass, or even equal in interest,
many others in this family of nearly three hundred members.




CHAPTER XIX.

MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE.


In reading books of Natural History we meet with numerous instances of
birds possessing the habit of assembling together, in many cases always
at the same spot, to indulge in antics and dancing performances, with or
without the accompaniment of music, vocal or instrumental; and by
instrumental music is here meant all sounds other than vocal made
habitually and during the more or less orderly performances; as, for
instance, drumming and tapping noises; smiting of wings; and humming,
whip-cracking, fan-shutting, grinding, scraping, and horn-blowing
sounds, produced as a rule by the quills.

There are human dances, in which only one person performs at a time, the
rest of the company looking on; and some birds, in widely separated
genera, have dances of this kind. A striking example is the Rupicola, or
cock of-the-rock, of tropical South America. A mossy level spot of earth
surrounded by bushes is selected for a dancing-place, and kept well
cleared of sticks and stones; round this area the birds assemble, when a
cock-bird, with vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage, steps into it,
and, with spreading wings and tail, begins a series of movements as if
dancing a minuet; finally, carried away with excitement, he leaps and
gyrates in the most astonishing manner, until, becoming exhausted, he
retires, and another bird takes his place.

In other species all the birds in a company unite in the set
performances, and seem to obey an impulse which affects them
simultaneously and in the same degree; but sometimes one bird prompts
the others and takes a principal part. One of the most curious instances
I have come across in reading is contained in Mr. Bigg-Wither's
_Pioneering in South Brazil._ He relates that one morning in the dense
forest his attention was roused by the unwonted sound of a bird
singing--songsters being rare in that district. His men, immediately
they caught the sound, invited him to follow them, hinting that he would
probably witness a very curious sight. Cautiously making their way
through the dense undergrowth, they finally came in sight of a small
stony spot of ground, at the end of a tiny glade; and on this spot, some
on the stone and some on the shrubs, were assembled a number of little
birds, about the size of tom-tits, with lovely blue plumage and red
top-knots. One was perched quite still on a twig, singing merrily, while
the others were keeping time with wings and feet in a kind of dance, and
all twittering an accompaniment. He watched them for some time, and was
satisfied that they were having a ball and concert, and thoroughly
enjoying themselves; they then became alarmed, and the performance
abruptly terminated, the birds all going off in different directions.
The natives told him that these little creatures were known as the
"dancing birds."

This species was probably solitary, except when assembling for the
purpose of display; but in a majority of cases, especially in the
Passerine order, the solitary species performs its antics alone, or with
no witness but its mate. Azara, describing a small finch, which he aptly
named _Oscilador,_ says that early and late in the day it mounts up
vertically to a moderate height; then, flies off to a distance of
twenty yards, describing a perfect curve in its passage; turning, it
flies back over the imaginary line it has traced, and so on repeatedly,
appearing like a pendulum swung in space by an invisible thread.

Those who seek to know the cause and origin of this kind of display and
of song in animals are referred to Darwin's _Descent of Man_ for an
explanation. The greater part of that work is occupied with a laborious
argument intended to prove that the love-feeling inspires the animals
engaged in these exhibitions, and that sexual selection, or the
voluntary selection of mates by the females, is the final cause of all
set musical and dancing performances, as well as of bright and
harmonious colouring, and of ornaments.

The theory, with regard to birds is, that in the love-season, when the
males are excited and engage in courtship, the females do not fall to
the strongest and most active, nor to those that are first in the field;
but that in a large number of species they are endowed with a faculty
corresponding to the aesthetic feeling or taste in man, and deliberately
select males for their superiority in some aesthetic quality, such as
graceful or fantastic motions, melody of voice, brilliancy of colour, or
perfection of ornaments. Doubtless all birds were originally
plain-coloured, without ornaments and without melody, and it is assumed
that so it would always have been in many cases but for the action of
this principle, which, like natural selection, has gone on accumulating
countless small variations, tending to give a greater lustre to the
species in each case, and resulting in all that we most admire in the
animal world--the Rupicola's flame-coloured mantle, the peacock's crest
and starry train, the joyous melody of the lark, and the pretty or
fantastic dancing performances of birds.

My experience is that mammals and birds, with few exceptions--probably
there are really no exceptions--possess the habit of indulging
frequently in more or less regular or set performances, with or without
sound, or composed of sound exclusively; and that these performances,
which in many animals are only discordant cries and choruses,
and uncouth, irregular motions, in the more aerial, graceful, and
melodious kinds take immeasurably higher, more complex, and more
beautiful forms. Among the mammalians the instinct appears
almost universal; but their displays are, as a rule, less admirable than
those seen in birds. There are some kinds, it is true, like the
squirrels and monkeys, of arboreal habits, almost birdlike in their
restless energy, and in the swiftness and certitude of their motions, in
which the slightest impulse can be instantly expressed in graceful or
fantastic action; others, like the Chinchillidae family, have greatly
developed vocal organs, and resemble birds in loquacity; but mammals
generally, compared with birds, are slow and heavy, and not so readily
moved to exhibitions of the kind I am discussing.

The terrestrial dances, often very elaborate, of heavy birds, like those
of the gallinaceous kind, are represented in the more volatile species
by performances in the air, and these are very much more beautiful;
while a very large number of birds--hawks, vultures, swifts, swallows,
nightjars, storks, ibises, spoonbills, and gulls--circle about in the
air, singly or in flocks. Sometimes, in serene weather, they rise to a
vast altitude, and float about in one spot for an hour or longer at a
stretch, showing a faint bird-cloud in the blue, that does not change
its form, nor grow lighter and denser like a flock of starlings; but in
the seeming confusion there is perfect order, and amidst many hundreds
each swift- or slow-gliding figure keeps its proper distance with such
exactitude that no two ever touch, even with the extremity of the
long-wings, flapping or motionless:--such a multitude, and such
miraculous precision in the endless curving motions of all the members
of it, that the spectator can lie for an hour on his back without
weariness watching this mystic cloud-dance in the empyrean.

The black-faced ibis of Patagonia, a bird nearly as large as a turkey,
indulges in a curious mad performance, usually in the evening when
feeding-time is over. The birds of a flock, while winging their way to
the roosting-place, all at once seem possessed with frenzy,
simultaneously dashing downwards with amazing violence, doubling about
in the most eccentric manner; and when close to the surface rising again
to repeat the action, all the while making the air palpitate for miles
around with their hard, metallic cries. Other ibises, also birds of
other genera, have similar aerial performances.

The displays of most ducks known to me take the form of mock fights on
the water; one exception is the handsome and loquacious whistling
widgeon of La Plata, which has a pretty aerial performance. A dozen or
twenty birds rise up until they appear like small specks in the sky, and
sometimes disappear from sight altogether; and at that great altitude
they continue hovering in one spot, often for an hour or longer,
alternately closing and separating; the fine, bright, whistling notes
and flourishes of the male curiously harmonizing with the grave,
measured notes of the female; and every time they close they slap each
other on the wings so smartly that the sound can be distinctly heard,
like applauding hand-claps, even after the birds have ceased to be
visible.

The rails, active, sprightly birds with powerful and varied voices, are
great performers; but owing to the nature of the ground they inhabit and
to their shy, suspicious character, it is not easy to observe their
antics. The finest of the Platan rails is the ypecaha, a beautiful,
active bird about the size of the fowl. A number of ypecahas have their
assembling place on a small area of smooth, level ground, just above the
water, and hemmed in by dense rush beds. First, one bird among the
rushes emits a powerful cry, thrice repeated; and this is a note of
invitation, quickly responded to by other birds from all sides as they
hurriedly repair to the usual place. In a few moments they appear, to
the number of a dozen or twenty, bursting from the rushes and running
into the open space, and instantly beginning the performance. This is a
tremendous screaming concert. The screams they utter have a certain
resemblance to the human voice, exerted to its utmost pitch and
expressive of extreme terror, frenzy, and despair. A long, piercing
shriek, astonishing for its vehemence and power, is succeeded by a lower
note, as if in the first the creature had well nigh exhausted itself:
this double scream is repeated several times, and followed by other
sounds, resembling, as they rise and fall, half smothered cries of pains
and moans of anguish. Suddenly the unearthly shrieks are renewed in all
their power. While screaming the birds rush from side to side, as if
possessed with madness, the wings spread and vibrating, the long-beak
wide open and raised vertically. This exhibition lasts three or four
minntes, after which the assembly peacefully breaks up.

The singular wattled, wing-spurred, and long-, toed jacana has a
remarkable performance, which seems specially designed to bring out the
concealed beauty of the silky, greenish-golden wing-quills-The birds go
singly or in pairs, and a dozen or fifteen individuals may be found in a
marshy place feeding within sight of each other. Occasionally, in
response to a note of invitation, they all in a moment leave off feeding
and fly to one spot, and, forming a close cluster, and emitting short,
excited, rapidly repeated notes, display their wings, like beautiful
flags grouped loosely together: some hold the wings up vertically and
motionless; others, half open and vibrating rapidly, while still others
wave them up and down with a slow, measured motion.

In the ypecaha and jacana displays both sexes take part. A stranger
performance is that of the spur-winged lapwing of the same region--a
species resembling the lapwing of Europe, but a third larger, brighter
coloured, and armed with spurs. The lapwing display, called by the
natives its "dance," or "serious dance"--by which they mean square
dance--requires three birds for its performance, and is, so far as I
know, unique in this respect. The birds are so fond of it that they
indulge in it all the year round, and at frequent intervals during the
day, also on moonlight nights. If a person watches any two birds for
some time--for they live in pairs--he will see another lapwing, one of a
neighbouring couple, rise up and fly to them, leaving his own mate to
guard their chosen ground; and instead of resenting this visit as an
unwarranted intrusion on their domain, as they would certainly resent
the approach of almost any other bird, they welcome it with notes and
signs of pleasure. Advancing to the visitor, they place themselves
behind it; then all three, keeping step, begin a rapid march, uttering
resonant drumming notes in time with their movements; the notes of the
pair behind being emitted in a stream, like a drum-roll, while the
leader utters loud single notes at regular intervals. The march ceases;
the leader elevates his wings and stands erect and motionless, still
uttering loud notes; while the other two, with puffed-out plumage and
standing exactly abreast stoop forward and downward until the tips of
their beaks touch the ground, and, sinking their rhythmical voices to a
murmur, remain for some time in this posture. The performance is then
over and the visitor goes back to his own ground and mate, to receive a
visitor himself later on.

In the Passerine order, not the least remarkable displays are witnessed
in birds that are not accounted songsters, as they do not possess the
highly developed vocal organ confined to the suborder Oscines. The
tyrant-birds, which represent in South America the fly-catchers of the
Old World, all have displays of some kind; in a vast majority of cases
these are simply joyous, excited duets between male and female, composed
of impetuous and more or less confused notes and screams, accompanied
with beating of wings and other gestures. In some species choruses take
the place of duets, while in others entirely different forms of display
have been developed. In one group--Cnipolegus--the male indulges in
solitary antics, while the silent, modest-coloured female keeps in
hiding. Thus, the male of Cnipolegus Hudsoni, an intensely
black-plumaged species with a concealed white wing-band, takes his stand
on a dead twig on the summit of a bush. At intervals he leaves his
perch, displaying the intense white on the quills, and producing, as the
wings are thrown open and shut alternately, the effect of successive
flashes of light. Then suddenly the bird begins revolving in the air
about its perch, like a moth wheeling round and close to the flame of a
candle, emitting a series of sharp clicks and making a loud humming with
the wings. While performing this aerial waltz the black and white on the
quills mix, the wings appearing like a grey mist encircling the body.
The fantastic dance over, the bird drops suddenly on to its perch again;
and, until moved to another display, remains as stiff and motionless as
a bird carved out of jet.

The performance of the scissors-tail, another tyrant-bird, is also
remarkable. This species is grey and white, with black head and tail and
a crocus-yellow crest. On the wing it looks like a large swallow, but
with the two outer tail-feathers a foot long. The scissors-tails always
live in pairs, but at sunset several pairs assemble, the birds calling
excitedly to each other; they then mount upwards, like rockets, to a
great height in the anand, after wheeling about for a few moments,
pro-cipitate themselves downwards with amazing violence in a wild
zigzag, opening and shutting the long tail-feathers like a pair of
shears, and producing loud whirring sounds, as of clocks being wound
rapidly up, with a slight pause after each turn of the key. This aerial
dance over, they alight in separate couples on the tree tops, each
couple joining in a kind of duet of rapidly repeated, castanet-like
sounds.

The displays of the wood-hewers, or Dendrocolap-tidae, another extensive
family, resemble those of the tyrant-birds in being chiefly duets, male
and female singing excitedly in piercing or resonant voices, and with
much action. The habit varies somewhat in the cachalote, a Patagonian
species of the genus Homorus, about the size of the missel-thrush. Old
and young birds live in a family together, and at intervals, on any fine
day, they engage in a grand screaming contest, which may be heard
distinctly at a distance of a mile and a half. One bird mounts on to a
bush and calls, and instantly all the others hurry to the spot, and
burst out into a chorus of piercing cries that sound like peals and
shrieks of insane laughter. After the chorus, they all pursue each other
wildly about among the bushes for some minutes.

In some groups the usual duet-like performances have developed into a
kind of harmonious singing, which is very curious and pleasant to hear.
This is pre-eminently the case with the oven-birds, as D'Orbigney first
remarked. Thus, in the red oven-bird, the first bird, on the appearance
of its mate flying to join it, begins to emit loud, measured notes, and
sometimes a continuous trill, somewhat metallic in sound; but
immediately on the other bird striking in this introductory passage is
changed to triplets, strongly accented on the first note, in a _tempo
vivace;_ while the second bird utters loud single notes in the same
time. While thus singing they stand facing each other, necks
outstretched and tails expanded, the wings of the first bird vibrating
rapidly to the rapid utterance, while those of the second bird beat
measured time. The finale consists of three or four notes, uttered by
the second bird alone, strong and clear, in an ascending scale, the last
very piercing.

In the melodists proper the displays, in a majority of cases, are
exclusively vocal, the singer sitting still on his perch. In the
Troupials, a family of starling-like birds numbering about one hundred
and forty species, there are many that accompany singing with pretty or
grotesque antics. The male screaming cow-bird of La Plata, when perched,
emits a hollow-sounding internal note that swells at the end into a
sharp metallic ring, almost bell-like: this is uttered with wings and
tail spread and depressed, the whole plumage being puffed out as in a
strutting turkey-cock, while the bird hops briskly up and down on its
perch as if dancing. The bell-like note of the male is followed by an
impetuous scream from the female, and the dance ends. Another species,
the common Argentine cow-bird of La Plata, when courting puffs out his
glossy rich violet plumage, and, with wings vibrating, emits a
succession of deep internal notes, followed by a set song in clear,
ringing tones; and then, suddenly taking wing, he flies straight away,
close to the surface, fluttering like a moth, and at a distance of
twenty to thirty yards turns and flies in a wide circle round the
female, singing loudly all the time, hedging her in with melody as it
were.

Many songsters in widely different families possess the habit of soaring
and falling alternately while singing, and in some cases all the aerial
postures and movements, the swift or slow descent, vertical, often, with
oscillations, or in a spiral, and sometimes with a succession of smooth
oblique lapses, seem to have an admirable correspondence with the
changing and falling voice--melody and motion being united in a more
intimate and beautiful way than in the most perfect and poetic forms of
human dancing.

One of the soaring singers is a small yellow field-finch of La
Plata--Sycalis luteola; and this species, like some others, changes the
form of its display with the seasons. It lives in immense flocks, and
during the cold season it has, like most finches, only aerial pastimes,
the birds wheeling about in a cloud, pursuing each other with lively
chirpings. In August, when the trees begin to blossom, the flock betakes
itself to a plantation, and, sitting on the branches, the birds sing in
a concert of innumerable voices, producing a great volume of sound, as
of a high wind when heard at a distance. Heard near, it is a great mass
of melody; not a confused tangle of musical sounds as when a host of
Troupials sing in concert, but the notes, although numberless, seem to
flow smoothly and separately, producing an effect on the ear similar to
that which rain does on the sight, when the sun shines on and lightens
up the myriads of falling drops all falling one way. In this manner the
birds sing for hours, without intermission, every day. Then the passion
of love infects them; the pleasant choir breaks up, and its ten thousand
members scatter wide over the surrounding fields and pasture lands.
During courtship the male has a feeble, sketchy music, but his singing
is then accompanied with very charming love antics. His circlings about
the hen-bird; his numberless advances and retreats, and little soarings
above her when his voice swells with importunate passion; his fluttering
lapses back to earth, where he lies prone with outspread, tremulous
wings, a suppliant at her feet, his languishing voice meanwhile dying
down to lispings--all these apt and graceful motions seem to express the
very sickness of the heart. But the melody during this emotional period
is nothing. After the business of pairing and nest-building is over, his
musical displays take a new and finer form. He sits perched on a stalk
above the grass, and at intervals soars up forty or fifty yards high;
rising, he utters a series of long melodious notes; then he descends in
a graceful spiral, the set of the motionless wings giving him the
appearance of a slowly-falling parachute; the voice then also falls, the
notes coming lower, sweeter, and more expressive until he reaches the
surface. After alighting the song continues, the strains becoming
longer, thinner, and clearer, until they dwindle to the finest threads
of sound and faintest tinklings, as from a cithern touched by fairy
fingers. The great charm of the song is in this slow gradation from the
somewhat throaty notes emitted by the bird when ascendino-to the
excessively attenuated sounds at the close.

In conclusion of this part I shall speak of one species more--the
white-banded mocking-bird of Patagonia, which greatly excels all other
songsters known to me in the copiousness, variety and brilliant
character of its music. Concealed in the foliage this bird will sing by
the half-hour, reproducing with miraculous fidelity the more or less
melodious set songs of a score of species--a strange and beautiful
performance; but wonderful as it seems while it lasts, one almost ceases
to admire this mimicking bird-art when the mocker, as if to show by
contrast his unapproachable superiority, bursts into his own divine
song, uttered with a power, abandon and joyousness resembling, but
greatly exceeding, that of the skylark "singing at heaven's gate;" the
notes issuing in a continuous torrent; the voice so brilliant and
infinitely varied, that if "rivalry and emulation" have as large a place
in feathered breasts as some imagine all that hear this surpassing
melody might well languish ever after in silent despair.

In a vast majority of the finest musical performances the same notes are
uttered in the same order, and after an interval the song is repeated
without any variation: and it seems impossible that we could in any
other way have such beautiful contrasts and harmonious lights and
shades--the whole song, so to speak, like a "melody sweetly played in
tune." This seeming impossibility is accomplished in the mocking-bird's
song: the notes never come in the same order again and again, but, as if
inspired, in a changed order, with variations and new sounds: and here
again it has some resemblance to the skylark's song, and might be
described as the lark's song with endless variations and brightened and
spiritualized in a degree that cannot be imagined.

This mocking-bird is one of those species that accompany music with
appropriate motions. And just as its song is, so to speak, inspired and
an im-provization, unlike any song the bird has ever uttered, so its
motions all have the same character of spontaneity, and follow no order,
and yet have a grace and passion and a perfect harmony with the music
unparalleled among birds possessing a similar habit. While singing he
passes from bush to bush, sometimes delaying a few moments on and at
others just touching the summits, and at times sinking out of sight in
the foliage: then, in an access of rapture, soaring vertically to a
height of a hundred feet, with measured wing-beats, like those of a
heron: or, mounting suddenly in a wild, hurried zigzag, then slowly
circling downwards, to sit at last with tail outspread fanwise, and
vans, glistening white in the sunshine, expanded and vibrating, or waved
languidly up and down, with, a motion like that of some broad-winged
butterfly at rest on a flower.

I wish now to put this question: What relation that we can see or
imagine to the passion of love and the business of courtship, have these
dancing and vocal performances in nine cases out of ten? In such cases,
for instance, as that of the scissors-tail tyrant-bird, and its
pyrotechnic evening displays, when a number of couples leave their nests
containing eggs and young to join in a wild aerial dance: the mad
exhibitions of ypecahas and ibises, and the jacanas' beautiful
exhibition of grouped wings: the triplet dances of the spur-winged
lapwing, to perform which two birds already mated are compelled to call
in a third bird to complete the set: the harmonious duets of the
oven-birds, and the duets and choruses of nearly all the wood-hewers,
and the wing-slapping aerial displays of the whistling widgeons--will it
be seriously contended that the female of this species makes choice of
the male able to administer the most vigorous and artistic slaps?

The believer in the theory would put all these cases lightly aside, to
cite that of the male cow-bird practising antics before the female and
drawing a wide circle of melody round her; or that of the jet-black,
automaton-like, dancing tyrant-bird; and concerning this species he
would probably say that the plain-plumaged female went about unseen,
critically watching the dancing of different males, to discover the most
excellent performer according to the traditional standard. And this was,
in substance, what Darwin did. There are many species in which the male,
singly or with others, practises antics or sings during the love-season
before the female; and when all such cases, or rather those that are
most striking and bizarre, are brought together, and when it is
gratuitously asserted that the females _do_ choose the males that show
off in the best manner or that sing best, a case for sexual selection
seems to be made out. How unfair the argument is, based on these
carefully selected cases gathered from all regions of the globe, and
often not properly reported, is seen when we turn from the book to
nature and closely consider the habits and actions of all the species
inhabiting any _one_ district. We see then that such cases as those
described and made so much of in the _Descent of Man,_ and cases like
those mentioned in this chapter, are not essentially different in
character, but are manifestations of one instinct, which appears to be
almost universal among the animals. The explanation I have to offer lies
very much on the surface and is very simple indeed, and, like that of
Dr. Wallace with regard [Footnote: It is curious to find that Dr.
Wallace's idea about colour has been independently hit upon by Ruskin.
Of stones he writes in _Frondes Agrestis_:--"I have often had occasion
to allude to the apparent connection of brilliancy of colour with vigour
of life and purity of substance. This is pre-eminently the case in the
mineral kingdom. The perfection with which the particles of any
substance unite in crystallization, corresponds in that kingdom to the
vital power in organic nature."] to colour and ornaments covers the
whole of the facts. We see that the inferior animals, when the
conditions of life are favourable, are subject to periodical fits of
gladness affecting them powerfully and standing out in vivid contrast to
their ordinary temper. And we know what this feeling is--this periodic
intense elation which even civilized man occasionally experiences when
in perfect health, more especially when young. There are moments when
he is mad with joy, when he cannot keep still, when his impulse is to
sing and shout aloud and laugh at nothing, to run and leap and exert
himself in some extravagant way. Among the heavier mammalians the
feeling is manifested in loud noises, bellowings and screamings, and in
lumbering, uncouth motions--throwing up of heels, pretended panics, and
ponderous mock battles.

In smaller and livelier animals, with greater celerity and certitude in
their motions, the feeling shows itself in more regular and often in
more complex ways. Thus, Felidae when young, and, in very agile,
sprightly species like the Puma, throughout life, simulate all the
actions of an animal hunting its prey--sudden, intense excitement of
discovery, concealment, gradual advance, masked by intervening objects,
with intervals of watching, when they crouch motionless, the eyes
flashing and tail waved from side to side; finally, the rush and spring,
when the playfellow is captured, rolled over on his back and worried to
imaginary death. Other species of the most diverse kinds, in which voice
is greatly developed, join in noisy concerts and choruses; many of the
cats may be mentioned, also dogs and foxes, capybaras and other
loquacious rodents; and in the howling monkeys this kind of performance
rises to the sublime uproar of the tropical forest at eventide.

Birds are more subject to this universal joyous instinct than mammals,
and there are times when some species are constantly overflowing with
it; and as they are so much freer than mammals, more buoyant and
graceful in action, more loquacious, and have voices so much finer,
their gladness shows itself in a greater variety of ways, with more
regular and beautiful motions, and with melody. But every species, or
group of species, has its own inherited form or style of performance;
and, however rude and irregular this may be, as in the case of the
pretended stampedes and fights of wild cattle, that is the form in which
the feeling will always be expressed. If all men, at some exceedingly
remote period in their history, had agreed to express the common glad
impulse, which they now express in such an infinite variety of ways or
do not express at all, by dancing a minuet, and minuet-dancing had at
last come to be instinctive, and taken to spontaneously by children at
an early period, just as they take to walking "on their hind legs,"
man's case would be like that of the inferior animals.

I was one day watching a flock of plovers, quietly feeding on the
ground, when, in a moment, all the birds were seized by a joyous
madness, and each one, after making a vigorous peck at his nearest
neighbour, began running wildly about, each trying in passing to peck
other birds, while seeking by means of quick doublings to escape being
pecked in turn. This species always expresses its glad impulse in the
same way; but how different in form is this simple game of
touch-who-touch-can from the triplet dances of the spur-winged lapwings,
with their drumming music, pompous gestures, and military precision of
movement! How different also from the aerial performance of another bird
of the same family--the Brazilian stilt--in which one is pursued by the
others, mounting upwards in a wild, eccentric flight until they are all
but lost to view; and back to earth again, and then, skywards once more;
the pursued bird when overtaken giving place to another individual, and
the pursuing pack making the air ring with their melodious barking
cries! How different again are all these from the aerial pastimes of the
snipe, in which the bird, in its violent descent, is able to produce
such wonderful, far-reaching sounds with its tail-feathers! The snipe,
as a rule, is a solitary bird, and, like the oscillating finch mentioned
early in this paper, is content to practise its pastimes without a
witness. In the gregarious kinds all perform together: for this feeling,
like fear, is eminently contagious, and the sight of one bird mad with
joy will quickly make the whole flock mad. There are also species that
always live in pairs, like the scissors-tails already mentioned, that
periodically assemble in numbers for the purpose of display. The crested
screamer, a very large bird, may also be mentioned: male and female sing
somewhat harmoniously together, with voices of almost unparalleled
power: but these birds also congregate in large numbers, and a thousand
couples, or even several thousands, may be assembled together: and, at
intervals, both by day and night, all sing in concert, their combined
voices producing a thunderous melody which seems to shake the earth. As
a rule, however, birds that live always in pairs do not assemble for the
purpose of display, but the joyous instinct is expressed by duet-like
performances between male and female. Thus, in the three South American
Passerine families, the tyrant-birds, wood-hewers, and ant-thrushes,
numbering together between eight and nine hundred species, a very large
majority appear to have displays of this description.

In my own experience, in cases where the male and female together, or
assembled with others, take equal parts in the set displays, the sexes
arc similar, or differ little; but where the female takes no part in the
displays the superiority of the male in brightness of colour is very
marked. One or two instances bearing on this point may be given.

A scarlet-breasted troupial of La Plata perches conspicuously on a tall
plant in afield, and at intervals soars up vertically, singing, and, at
the highest ascending point, flight and song end in a kind of aerial
somersault and vocal flourish at the same moment. Meanwhile, the
dull-plumaged female is not seen and not heard: for not even a skulking
crake lives in closer seclusion under the herbage--so widely have the
sexes diverged in this species. Is the female, then, without an instinct
so common r--has she no sudden fits of irrepressible gladness?
Doubtless she has them, and manifests them down in her place of
concealment in lively chirpings and quick motions--the simple, primitive
form in which gladness is expressed in the class of birds. In the
various species of the genus Cnipolegus, already mentioned, the
difference in the sexes is just as great as in the case of the troupial:
the solitary, intensely black, statuesque male has, we have seen, a set
and highly fantastic performance; but on more than one occasion I have
seen four or five females of one species meet together and have a little
simple performance all to themselves--in form a kind of lively mock
fight.

It might be objected that when a bird takes its stand and repeats a set
finished song at intervals for an hour at a stretch, remaining quietly
perched, such a performance appears to be different in character from
the irregular and simple displays which are unmistakably caused by a
sudden glad impulse. But we are familiar with the truth that in organic
nature great things result from small beginnings--a common flower, and
our own bony skulls, to say nothing of the matter contained within them,
are proofs of it. Only a limited number of species sing in a highly
finished manner. Looking at many species, we find every gradation, every
shade, from the simple joyous chirp and cry to the most perfect melody.
Even in a single branch of the true vocalists we may see it--from the
chirping bunting, and noisy but tuneless sparrow, to linnet and
goldfinch and canary. Not only do a large majority of species show the
singing instinct, or form of display, in a primitive, undeveloped state,
but in that state it continues to show itself in the young of many birds
in which melody is most highly developed in the adult. And where the
development has been solely in the male the female never rises above
that early stage; in her lively chirpings and little mock fights and
chases, and other simple forms which gladness takes in birds, as well as
in her plainer plumage, and absence of ornament, she represents the
species at some remote period. And as with song so with antics and all
set performances aerial or terrestrial, from those of the whale and the
elephant to those of the smallest insect.

Another point remains to be noticed, and that is the greater frequency
and fulness in displays of all kinds, including song, during the love
season. And here Dr. Wallace's colour and ornament theory helps us to an
explanation. At the season of courtship, when the conditions of life are
most favourable vitality is at its maximum, and naturally it is then
that the proficiency in all kinds of dancing-antics, aerial and
terrestrial, appears greatest, and that melody attains its highest
perfection. This applies chiefly to birds, but even among birds there
are exceptions, as we have seen in the case of the field-finch, Sycalis
luteola. The love-excitement is doubtless pleasurable to them, and it
takes the form in which keenly pleasurable emotions are habitually
expressed, although not infrequently with variations due to the greater
intensity of the feeling. In some migrants the males arrive before the
females, and no sooner have they recovered from the effects of their
journey than they burst out into rapturous singing; these are not
love-strains, since the females have not yet arrived, and pairing-time
is perhaps a mouth distant; their singing merely expresses their
overflowing gladness. The forest at that season is vocal, not only with
the fine melody of the true songsters, but with hoarse cawings, piercing
cries, shrill duets, noisy choruses, drummings, boomings, trills,
wood-tappings--every sound with which different species express the glad
impulse; and birds like the parrot that only exert their powerful voices
in screamings--because "they can do no other"--then scream their
loudest. When courtship begins it has in many cases the effect of
increasing the beauty of the performance, giving added sweetness, verve,
and brilliance to the song, and freedom and grace to the gestures and
motions. But, as I have said, there are exceptions. Thus, some birds
that are good melodists at other times sing in a feeble, disjointed
manner during courtship. In Patagonia I found that several of the birds
with good voices--one a mocking bird--were, like the robin at home,
autumn and winter songsters.

The argument has been stated very binefly: but little would be gained by
the mere multiplication of instances, since, however many, they would bo
selected instances--from a single district, it is true, while those in
the _Descent of Man_ were brought together from an immeasurably wider
field; but the principle is the same in both cases, and to what I have
written it may be objected that, if, instead of twenty-five, I had given
a hundred cases, taking them as they came, they might have shown a
larger proportion of instances like that of the cow-bird, in which the
male has a set performance practised only during the love-season and in
the presence of the female.

It is, no doubt, true that all collections of facts relating to animal
life present nature to us somewhat as a "fantastic realm"--unavoidably
so, in a measure, since the writing would be too bulky, or too dry, or
too something inconvenient, if we did not take only the most prominent
facts that come before us, remove them from their places, where alone
they can be seen in their proper relations to numerous other less
prominent facts, and rearrange them patch work-wise to make up our
literature. But I am convinced that any student of the subject who will
cast aside his books--supposing that they have not already bred a habit
in his mind of seeing only "in accordance with verbal statement"--and go
directly to nature to note the actions of animals for himself--actions
which, in many cases, appear to lose all significance when set down in
writing--the result of such independent investigation will be a
conviction that conscious sexual selection on the part of the female is
not the cause of music and dancing performances in birds, nor of the
brighter colours and ornaments that distinguish the male. It is true
that the females of some species, both in the vertebrate and insect
kingdoms, do exercise a preference; but in a vast majority of species
the male takes the female he finds, or that he is able to win from other
competitors; and if we go to the reptile class we find that in the
ophidian order, which excels in variety and richness of colour, there is
no such thing as preferential mating; and if we go to the insect class,
we find that in butterflies, which surpass all creatures in their
glorious beauty, the female gives herself up to the embrace of the first
male that appears, or else is captured by the strongest male, just as
she might be by a mantis or some other rapacious insect.




CHAPTER XX.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE VIZCACHA.

_(Lagostomus Trichodactylus.)_


The vizcacha is perhaps the most characteristic of the South American
Rodentia, [Footnote: "According to Mr. Waterhouse, of all rodents the
vizcacha is most nearly related to marsupials; but in the points in
which it approaches this order its relations are general, that is, not
to any one marsupial species more than to another. As these points of
affinity are believed to be real and not merely adaptive, they must be
due in accordance with our view to inheritance from a common progenitor.
Therefore wo must suppose either that all rodents, including the
vizcacha, branched off from some ancient marsupial, which will naturally
have been more or less intermediate in character with respect to all
existing marsupials; or, that both lodents and marsupials branched off
from a common progenitor. ... On either view we must suppose that the
vizcacha has retained, by inheritance, more of the characters of its
ancient progenitor than have other rodents."--DARWIN; _Origin of
Species._] while its habits, in some respects, are more interesting than
those of any other rodent known: it is, moreover, the most common mammal
we have on the pampas; and all these considerations have induced me to
write a very full account of its customs. It is necessary to add that
since the following pages were written at my home on the pampas a great
war of extermination has been waged against this animal by the
landowners, which has been more fortunate in its results--or unfortunate
if one's sympathies are with the vizcacha--than the war of the
Australians against their imported rodent--the smaller and more prolific
rabbit.

The vizcachas on the pampas of Buenos Ayres live in societies, usually
numbering twenty or thirty members. The village, which is called
Vizcachera, is composed of a dozen or fifteen burrows or mouths; for one
entrance often serves for two or more distinct holes. Often, where the
ground is soft, there are twenty or thirty or more burrows in an old
vizcachera; but on stony, or "tosca" soil even an old one may have no
more than four or five burrows. They are deep wide-mouthed holes, placed
very close together, the entire village covering an area of from one
hundred to two hundred square feet of ground.

The burrows vary greatly in extent; and usually in a vizcachera there
are several that, at a distance of from four to six feet from the
entrance, open into large circular chambers. From these chambers other
burrows diverge in all directions, some running horizontally, others
obliquely downwards to a maximum depth of six feet from the surface:
some of these burrows or galleries communicate with those of other
burrows. A vast amount of loose earth is thus brought up, and forms a
very irregular mound, fifteen to thirty inches above the surrounding
level.

It will afford some conception of the numbers of these vizcacheras on
the settled pampas when I say that, in some directions, a person might
ride five hundred miles and never advance half a mile without seeing one
or more of them. In districts where, as far as the eye can see, the
plains are as level and smooth as a bowling-green, especially in winter
when the grass is close-cropped, and where the rough giant-thistle has
not sprung up, these mounds appear like brown or dark spots on a green
surface. They are the only irregularities that occur to catch the eye,
and consequently form an important feature in the scenery. In some
places they are so near together that a person on horseback may count a
hundred of them from one point of view.

The sites of which the vizcacha invariably makes choice to work on, as
well as his manner of burrow-ing, adapt him peculiarly to live and
thrive on the open pampas. Other burrowing species seem always to fix
upon some spot where there is a bank or a sudden depression in the soil,
or where there is rank herbage, or a bush or tree, about the roots of
which to begin their kennel. They are averse to commence digging on a
clear level surface, either because it is not easy for them where they
have nothing to rest their foreheads against while scratching, or
because they possess a wary instinct that impels them to place the body
in concealment whilst working on the surface, thus securing the
concealment of the burrow after it is made. Certain it is that where
large hedges have been planted on the pampas, multitudes of opossums,
weasels, skunks, armadillos, &c., come and make their burrows beneath
them; and where there are no hedges or trees, all these species make
their kennels under bushes of the perennial thistle, or where there is a
shelter of some kind. The vizcacha, on the contrary, chooses an open
level spot, the cleanest he can find to burrow on. The first thing that
strikes the observer when viewing the vizcachera closely is the enormous
size of the entrance of the burrows, or, at least, of several of the
central ones in the mound; for there are usually several smaller outside
burrows. The pit-like opening to some of these principal burrows is
often four to six feet across the mouth, and sometimes deep enough for a
tall man to stand up waist-deep in. How these large entrances can be
made on a level surface may be seen when the first burrow or burrows of
an incipient vizcachera are formed. It is not possible to tell what
induces a vizcacha to be the founder of a new community; for they
increase very slowly, and furthermore are extremely fond of each other's
society; and it is invariably one individual that leaves his native
village to found a new and independent one. If it were to have better
pasture at hand, then he would certainly remove to a considerable
distance; but he merely goes from forty to fifty or sixty yards off to
begin his work. Thus it is that in desert places, where these animals
are rare, a solitary vizcachera is never seen; but there are always
several close together, though there may be no others on the surrounding
plain for leagues. When the vizcacha has made his habitation, it is but
a single burrow, with only himself for an inhabitant, perhaps for many
months. Sooner or later, however, others join him: and these will be the
parents of innumerable generations; for they construct no temporary
lodging-place, as do the armadillos and other species, but their
posterity continues in the quiet possession of the habitations
bequeathed to it; how long, it is impossible to say. Old men who have
lived all their lives in one district remember that many of the
vizcacheras around them existed when they were children. It is
invariably a male that begins a new village, and makes his burrow in the
following manner, though he does not always observe the same method. He
works very straight into the earth, digging a hole twelve or fourteen
inches wide, but not so deep, at an angle of about 25 degrees with the
surface. But after he has progressed inwards a few feet, the vizcacha is
no longer satisfied with merely scattering away the loose earth he
fetches up, but cleans it away so far in a straight line from the
entrance, and scratches so much on this line (apparently to make the
slope gentler), that he soon forms a trench a foot or more in depth, and
often three or four feet in length. Its use is, as I have inferred, to
facilitate the conveying of the loose earth as far as possible from the
entrance of the burrow. But after a while the animal is unwilling that
it should accumulate even at the end of this long passage; he therefore
proceeds to make two additional trenches, that form an acute, sometimes
a right angle, converging into the first, so that when the whole is
completed it takes the form of a capital Y.

These trenches are continually deepened and lengthened as the burrow
progresses, the angular segment of earth between them, scratched away,
until by degrees it has been entirely conveyed off, and in its place is
the one deep great unsymmetrical mouth I have already described. There
are soils that will not admit of the animals working in this manner.
Where there are large cakes of "tosca" near the surface, as in many
localities on the southern pampas, the vizcacha makes its burrow as best
he can, and without the regular trenches. In earths that crumble much,
sand or gravel, he also works under great disadvantages.

The burrows are made best in the black and red moulds of the pampas; but
even in such soils the entrances of many burrows are made differently.
In some the central trench is wanting, or is so short that there appear
but two passages converging directly into the burrow; or these two
trenches may be so curved inwards as to form the segment of a circle.
Many other forms may also be noticed, but usually they appear to be only
modifications of the most common Y-shaped system.

As I have remarked that its manner of burrowing has peculiarly adapted
the vizcacha to the pampas, it may be asked what particular advantage a
species that makes a wide-mouthed burrow possesses over those that
excavate in the usual way. On a declivity, or at the base of rocks or
trees, there would be none; but on the perfectly level and shelterless
pampas, the durability of the burrow, a circumstance favourable to the
animal's preservation, is owing altogether to its being made in this
way, and to several barrows being made together. The two outer trenches
diverge so widely from the mouth that half the earth brought out is cast
behind instead of before it, thus creating a mound of equal height about
the entrance, by which it is secured from water during great rainfalls,
while the cattle avoid treading over the great pit-like entrances. But
the burrows of the dolichotis, armadillo, and other species, when made
on perfectly level ground, are soon trod on and broken in by cattle; in
summer they are choked up with dust and rubbish; and, the loose earth
having all been thrown up together in a heap on one side, there is no
barrier to the water which in every great rainfall flows in and
obliterates the kennel, drowning or driving out the tenant.

I have been minute in describing the habitations of the vizcacha, as I
esteem the subject of prime importance in considering the zoology of
this portion of America. The vizcacha does not benefit himself alone by
his perhaps unique style of burrowing; but this habit has proved
advantageous to several other species, and has been so favourable to two
of our birds that they are among the most common species found here,
whereas without these burrows they would have been exceedingly rare,
since the natural banks in which they breed are scarcely found anywhere
on the pampas. I refer to the Minera (Geositta cunicularia), which makes
its breeding-holes in the bank-like sides of the vizcacha's burrow, and
to the little swallow (Atticora cyanoleuca) which breeds in these
excavations when forsaken by the Minera. Few old vizcacheras are seen
without some of these little parasitical burrows in them.

Birds are not the only beings in this way related to the vizcachas: the
fox and the weasel of the pampas live almost altogether in them. Several
insects also frequent these burrows that are seldom found anywhere else.
Of these the most interesting are:--a large predacious nocturnal bug,
shining black, with red wings; a nocturnal Cicindela, a beautiful
insect, with dark green striated wing-cases and pale red legs; also
several diminutive wingless wasps. Of the last I have counted six
species, most of them marked with strongly contrasted colours, black,
red, and white. There are also other wasps that prey on the spiders
found on the vizcachera. All these and others are so numerous on the
mounds that dozens of them might there be collected any summer day; but
if sought for in other situations they are exceedingly rare. If the dry
mound of soft earth which the vizcacha elevates amidst a waste of humid,
close-growing grass is not absolutely necessary to the existence of all
these species, it supplies them with at least one favourable condition,
and without doubt thereby greatly increases their numbers: they, too,
whether predacious or preyed on, have so many relations with other
outside species, and these again with still others, that it would be no
mere fancy to say that probably hundreds of species are either directly
or indirectly affected in their struggle for existence by the
vizcacheras so abundantly sprinkled over the pampas.

In winter the vizcachas seldom leave their burrows till dark, but in
summer come out before sunset; and the vizcachera is then a truly
interesting spectacle. Usually one of the old males first appears, and
sits on some prominent place on the mound, apparently in no haste to
begin his evening meal. When approached from the front he stirs not, but
eyes the intruder with a bold indifferent stare. If the person passes to
one side, he deigns not to turn his head.

Other vizcachas soon begin to appear, each one quietly taking up his
station at his burrow's mouth, the females, known by their greatly
inferior size and lighter grey colour, sitting upright on their
haunches, as if to command a better view, and indicating by divers
sounds and gestures that fear and curiosity struggles in them for
mastery; for they are always wilder and sprightlier in their motions
than the males. With eyes fixed on the intruder, at intervals they dodge
the head, emitting at the same time an internal note with great
vehemence; and suddenly, as the danger comes nearer, they plunge
simultaneously, with a startled cry, into their burrows. But in some
curiosity is the strongest emotion; for, in spite of their fellow's
contagious example, and already half down the entrance, again they start
up to scrutinize the stranger, and will then often permit him to walk
within five or six paces of them.

Standing on the mound there is frequently a pair of burrowing owls
(Pholeoptynx cunicularia). These birds generally make their own burrows
to breed in, or sometimes take possession of one of the lesser outside
burrows of the village; but their favourite residence, when not engaged
in tending their eggs or young, is on the vizcachera. Here a pair will
sit all day; and I have often remarked a couple close together on the
edge of the burrow; and when the vizcacha came out in the evening,
though but a hand's breadth from them, they did not stir, nor did he
notice them, so accustomed are these creatures to each other. Usually a
couple of the little burrowing Geositta are also present. They are
lively creatures, running with great rapidity about the mound and bare
space that surrounds it, suddenly stopping and jerking their tails in a
slow deliberate manner, and occasionally uttering their cry, a trill, or
series of quick short clear notes, resembling somewhat the shrill
excessive laughter of a child. Among the grave, stationary vizcachas, of
which they take no heed, perhaps half a dozen or more little swallows
(Atticora cyanoleuca) are seen, now clinging altogether to the bank-like
entrance of a burrow, now hovering over it in a moth-like manner, as if
uncertain where to alight, and anon sweeping about in circles, but never
ceasing their low and sorrowful notes.

The vizcachera with all its incongruous inhabitants thus collected upon
it is to a stranger one of the most novel sights the pampas afford.

The vizcacha appears to be a rather common species over all the
extensive Argentine territory; but they are so exceedingly abundant on
the pampas inhabited by man, and comparatively so rare in the desert
places I have been in, that I was at first much surprised at finding
them so unequally distributed. I have also mentioned that the vizcacha
is a tame familiar creature. This is in the pastoral districts, where
they are never disturbed; but in wild regions, where he is scarce, he is
exceedingly wary, coming forth long after dark, and plunging into his
burrow on the slightest alarm, so that it is a rare thing to get a sight
of him. The reason is evident enough; in desert regions the vizcacha has
several deadly enemies in the larger rapacious mammals. Of these the
puma or lion (Felis concolor) is the most numerous, as it is also the
swiftest, most subtle, and most voracious; for, as regards these traits,
the jaguar (F. onca) is an inferior animal. To the insatiable bloody
appetite of this creature nothing comes amiss; he takes the male ostrich
by surprise, and slays that wariest of wild things on his nest; He
captures little birds with the dexterity of a cat, and hunts for diurnal
armadillos; he comes unawares upon the deer and huanaco, and, springing
like lightning on them, dislocates their necks before their bodies touch
the earth. Often after he has thus slain them, he leaves their bodies
untouched for the Polyborus and vulture to feast on, so great a delight
does he take in destroying life. The vizcacha falls an easy victim to
this subtle creature; and it is not to be wondered at that it becomes
wild to excess, and rare in regions hunted over by such an enemy, even
when all other conditions are favourable to its increase. But as soon
as these wild regions are settled by man the pumas are exterminated, and
the sole remaining foe of the vizcacha is the fox, comparatively an
insignificant one.

The fox takes up his residence in a vizcachera, and succeeds, after
some quarrelling (manifested in snarls, growls, and other subterranean
warlike sounds), in ejecting the rightful owners of one of the burrows,
which forthwith becomes his. Certainly the vizcachas are not much
injured by being compelled to relinquish the use of one of their kennels
for a season or permanently; for, if the locality suits him, the fox
remains with them always. Soon they grow accustomed to the unwelcome
stranger; he is quiet and unassuming in demeanour, and often in the
evening sits on the mound in their company, until they regard him with
the same indifference they do the burrowing owl. But in spring, when the
young vizcachas are large enough to leave their cells, then the fox
makes them his prey; and if it is a bitch fox, with a family of eight or
nine young to provide for, she will grow so bold as to hunt her helpless
quarry from hole to hole, and do battle with the old ones, and carry off
the young in spite of them, so that all the young animals in the village
are eventually destroyed. Often when the young foxes are large enough to
follow their mother, the whole family takes leave of the vizcachera
where such cruel havoc has been made to settle in another, there to
continue their depredations. But the fox has ever a relentless foe in
man, and meets with no end of bitter persecutions; it is consequently
much more abundant in desert or thinly settled districts than in such as
are populous, so that in these the check the vizcachas receive from the
foxes is not appreciable.

The abundance of cattle on the pampas has made it unnecessary to use the
vizcacha as an article of food. His skin is of no value; therefore man,
the destroyer of his enemies, has hitherto been the greatest benefactor
of his species. Thus they have been permitted to multiply and spread
themselves to an amazing extent, so that the half-domestic cattle on the
pampas are not nearly so familiar with man, or so fearless of his
presence as are the vizcachas. It is not that they do him no injury, but
because they do it indirectly, that they have so long enjoyed immunity
from persecution. It is amusing to see the sheep-farmer, the greatest
sufferer from the vizcachas, regarding them with such indifference as to
permit them to swarm on his "run," and burrow within a stone's throw of
his dwelling with impunity, and yet going a distance from home to
persecute with unreasonable animosity a fox, skunk, or opossum on
account of the small annual loss it inflicts on the poultry-yard. That
the vizcacha has comparatively no adverse conditions to war with
wherever man is settled is evident when we consider its very slow rate
of increase, and yet see them in such incalculable numbers. The female
has but one litter in the year of two young, sometimes of three. She
becomes pregnant late in April, and brings forth in September; the
period of gestation is, I think, rather less than five months.

The vizcacha is about two years growing. A full-sized male measures to
the root of the tail twenty-two inches, and weighs from fourteen to
fifteen pounds; the female is nineteen inches in length, and her
greatest weight nine pounds. Probably it is a long-lived, and certainly
it is a very hardy animal. Where it has any green substance to eat it
never drinks water; but after a long summer drought, when for months it
has subsisted on bits of dried thistle-stalks and old withered grass, if
a shower falls it will come out of its burrows even at noonday and drink
eagerly from the pools. It has been erroneously stated that vizcachas
subsist on roots. Their food is grass and seeds; but they may also
sometimes eat roots, as the ground is occasionally seen scratched up
about the burrows. In March, when the stalks of the perennial cardoon or
Castile thistle (Cynara cardunculus) are dry, the vizcachas fell them by
gnawing about their roots, and afterwards tear to pieces the great dry
flower-heads to get the seeds imbedded deeply in them, of which they
seem very fond. Large patches of thistle are often found served thus,
the ground about them literally white with the silvery bristles they
have scattered. This cutting down tall plants to get the seeds at the
top seems very like an act of pure intelligence; but the fact is, the
vizcachas cut down every tall plant they can. I have seen whole acres of
maize destroyed by them, yet the plants cut down were left untouched. If
posts be put into the ground within range of their nightly rambles they
will gnaw till they have felled them, unless of a wood hard enough to
resist their chisel-like incisors.

The strongest instinct of this animal is to clear the ground thoroughly
about its burrows; and it is this destructive habit that makes it
necessary for cultivators of the soil to destroy all the vizcachas in or
near their fields. On the uninhabited pampas, where the long grasses
grow, I have often admired the vizcachera; for it is there the centre of
a clean space, often of half an acre in extent, on which there is an
even close-shaven turf: this clearing is surrounded by the usual rough
growth of herbs and giant grasses. In such situations this habit of
clearing the ground is eminently advantageous to them, as it affords
them a comparatively safe spot to feed and disport themselves on, and
over which they can fly to their burrows without meeting any
obstruction, on the slightest alarm.

Of course the instinct continues to operate where it is no longer of any
advantage. In summer, when the thistles are green, even when growing
near the burrows, and the giant thistle (Carduus mariana) springs up
most luxuriantly right on the mound, the vizcachas will not touch them,
either disliking the strong astringent sap, or repelled by the thorns
with which they are armed. As soon as they dry, and the thorns become
brittle, they are levelled; afterwards, when the animal begins to drag
them about and cut them up, as his custom is, he accidentally discovers
and feasts on the seed: for vizcachas are fond of exercising their teeth
on hard substances, such as sticks and bones, just as cats are of
"sharpening their claws" on trees.

Another remarkable habit of the vizcacha, that of dragging to and
heaping about the mouth of his burrow every stalk he cuts down, and
every portable object that by dint of great strength he can carry, has
been mentioned by Azara, Darwin, and others. On the level plains it is a
useful habit; for as the vizcachas are continually deepening and
widening their burrows, the earth thrown out soon covers up these
materials, and so assists in raising the mound. On the Buenos-Ayrean
pampas numbers of vizcacheras would annually be destroyed by water in
the great sudden rainfalls were the mounds loss high. But this is only
an advantage when the animals inhabit a perfectly level country subject
to flooding rains; for where the surface is unequal they invariably
prefer high to low ground to burrow on, and are thus secured from
destruction by water; yet the instinct is as strong in such situations
as on the level plains. The most that can be said of a habit apparently
so obscure in its origin and uses is, that it appears to be part of the
instinct of clearing the ground about the village. Every tall stalk the
vizcacha cuts down, every portable object he finds, must be removed to
make the surface clean and smooth; but while encumbered with it he does
not proceed further from his burrows, but invariably re-tires towards
them, and so deposits it upon the mound. So well known is this habit,
that whatever article is lost by night--whip, pistol, or knife--the
loser next morning visits the vizcacheras in the vicinity, quite sure of
finding it there. People also visit the vizcacheras to pick up sticks
for firewood.

The vizcachas are cleanly in their habits; and the fur, though it has a
strong earthy smell, is kept exceedingly neat. The hind leg and foot
afford a very beautiful instance of adaptation. Propped by the hard
curved tail, they sit up erect, and as firmly on the long horny disks on
the undersides of the hind legs as a man stands on his feet. Most to be
admired, on the middle toe the skin thickens into a round cushion, in
which the curved teeth-like bristles are set; nicely graduated in
length, so that "each particular hair" may come into contact with the
skin when the animal scratches or combs itself. As to the uses of this
appendage there can be no difference of opinion, as there is about the
serrated claw in birds. It is quite obvious that the animal cannot
scratch himself with his hind paw (as all mammals do) without making use
of this natural comb. Then the entire foot is modified, so that this
comb shall be well protected, and yet not be hindered from performing
its office: thus the inner toe is pressed close to the middle one, and
so depressed that it comes under the cushion of skin, and cannot
possibly get before the bristles, or interfere their coming against the
skin in scratching, as certainly be the case if this toe were free as
outer one.

Again, the vizcachas appear to form the deep trenches before the burrows
by scratching the earth violently backwards with the hind claws. Now
these straight, sharp, dagger-shaped claws, and especially the middle
one, are so long that the vizcacha is able to perform all this rough
work without the bristles coming into contact with the ground, and so
getting worn by the friction. The Tehuelcho Indians in Patagonia comb
their hair with a brush-comb very much like that on the vizcacha's toe,
but in their case it does not properly fulfil its office, or else the
savages make little use of it. Vizcachas have a remarkable way of
dusting themselves: the animal suddenly throws himself on his back, and,
bringing over his hind legs towards his head, depresses them till his
feet touch the ground. In this strange posture he scratches up the earth
with great rapidity, raising a little cloud of dust, then rights himself
with a jerk, and, after an interval, repeats the dusting. Usually they
scratch a hole in the ground to deposit their excrements in. Whilst
opening one of the outside burrows that had no communication with the
others, I once discovered a vast deposit of their dung (so great that it
must have been accumulating for years) at the extremity. To ascertain
whether this be a constant, or only a casual habit, it would be
necessary to open up entirely a vast number of vizcacheras. When a
vizcacha dies in his burrow the carcass is, after some days, dragged out
and left upon the mound.

The language of the vizcacha is wonderful for its variety. When the male
is feeding he frequently pauses to utter a succession of loud,
percussive, and somewhat jarring cries; these he utters in a leisurely
manner, and immediately after goes on feeding. Often he utters this cry
in a low grunting tone. One of his commonest expressions sounds like the
violent hawking of a man clearing his throat. At other times he bursts
into piercing tones that may be heard a mile off, beginning like the
excited and quick-repeated squeals of a young pig, and growing longer,
more attenuated, and quavering towards the end. After retiring alarmed
into the burrows, he repeats at intervals a deep internal moan. All
these, and many other indescribable guttural, sighing, shrill, and deep
tones, are varied a thousand ways in strength and intonation, according
to the age, sex, or emotions of the individual; and I doubt if there is
in the world any other four-footed thing so loquacious, or with a
dialect so extensive. I take great pleasure in going to some spot where
they are abundant, and sitting quietly to listen to them; for they are
holding a perpetual discussion, all night long, which the presence of a
human being will not interrupt.

At night, when the vizcachas are all out feeding, in places where they
are very abundant (and in some districts they literally swarm) any very
loud and sudden sound, as the report of a gun, or a clap of unexpected
thunder, will produce a most extraordinary effect. No sooner has the
report broken on the stillness of night than a perfect storm of cries
bursts forth over the surrounding country. After eight or nine seconds
there is in the storm a momentary hill or pause; and then it breaks
forth again, apparently louder than before. There is so much difference
in the tones of different animals that the cries of individuals close at
hand may be distinguished amidst the roar of blended voices coming from
a distance. It sounds as if thousands and tens of thousands of them
were striving to express every emotion at the highest pitch of their
voices; so that the effect is indescribable, and fills a stranger with
astonishment. Should a gun be fired off several times, their cries
become less each time; and after the third or fourth time it produces no
effect. They have a peculiar, sharp, sudden, "far-darting" alarm-note
when a dog is spied, that is repeated by all that hear it, and produces
an instantaneous panic, sending every vizcacha flying to his burrow.

But though they manifest such a terror of dogs when out feeding at night
(for the slowest dog can overtake them), in the evening, when sitting
upon their mounds, they treat them with tantalizing contempt. If the dog
is a novice, the instant he spies the animal he rushes violently at it;
the vizcacha waits the charge with imperturbable calmness till his enemy
is within one or two yards, and then disappears into the burrow. After
having been foiled in this way many times, the dog resorts to stratagem:
he crouches down as if transformed for the nonce into a Felis, and
steals on with wonderfully slow and cautious steps, his hair bristling,
tail hanging, and eyes intent on his motionless intended victim; when
within seven or eight yards he makes a sudden rush, but invariably with
the same dis-appointing result. The persistence with which the dogs go
on hoping against hope in this unprofitable game, in which they always
act the stupid part, is highly amusing, and is very interesting to the
naturalist; for it shows that the native dogs on the pampas have
developed a very remarkable instinct, and one that might be perfected by
artificial selection; but dogs with the hunting habits of the cat would,
I think, be of little use to man. When it is required to train dogs to
hunt the nocturnal armadillo (Dasypus villosus), then this deep-rooted
(and, it might be added, hereditary) passion for vizcachas is
excessively annoying, and it is often necessary to administer hundreds
of blows and rebukes before a dog is induced to track an armadillo
without leaving the scent every few moments to make futile grabs at his
old enemies.

The following instance will show how little suspicion of man the
vizcachas have. A few years ago I went out shooting them on three
consecutive evenings. I worked in a circle, constantly revisiting the
same burrows, never going a greater distance from home than could be
walked in four or five minutes. During the three evenings I shot sixty
vizcachas dead; and probably as many more escaped badly wounded into
their burrows; for they are hard to kill, and however badly wounded, if
sitting near the burrow when struck, are almost certain to escape into
it. But on the third evening I found them no wilder, and killed about as
many as on the first. After this I gave up shooting them in disgust; it
was dull sport, and to exterminate or frighten them away with a gun
seemed an impossibility.

It is a very unusual thing to eat the vizcacha, most people, and
especially the gauchos, having a silly unaccountable prejudice against
their flesh. I have found it very good, and while engaged writing this
chapter have dined on it served up in various ways. The young animals
are rather insipid, the old males tough, but the mature females are
excellent--the flesh being tender, exceedingly white, fragrant to the
nostrils, and with a very delicate game-flavour.

Within the last ten years so much new land has been brought under
cultivation that farmers have been compelled to destroy incredible
numbers of vizcachas: many large "estancieros" (cattle-breeders) have
followed the example set by the grain-growers, and have had them
exterminated on their estates. Now all that Azara, on hearsay, tells
about the vizcachas perishing in their burrows, when these are covered
up, but that they can support life thus buried for a period of ten or
twelve days, and that during that time animals will come from other
villages and disinter them, unless frightened off with dogs, is strictly
true. Country workmen are so well acquainted with these facts that they
frequently undertake to destroy all the vizcacheras on an estate for so
paltry a sum as ten-pence in English money for each one, and yet will
make double the money at this work than they can at any other. By day
they partly open up, then cover up the burrows with a great quantity of
earth, and by night go round with dogs to drive away the vizcachas from
the still open burrows that come to dig out their buried friends. After
all the vizcacheras on an estate have been thus served, the workmen are
usually bound by previous agreement to keep guard over them for a space
of eight or ten days before they receive their hire: for the animals
covered up are then supposed to be all dead. Some of these men I have
talked with have assured me that living vizcachas have been found after
fourteen days--a proof of their great endurance. There is nothing
strange, I think, in the mere fact of the vizcacha being unable to work
his way out when thus buried alive; for, for all I know to the contrary,
other species may, when their burrows are well covered up, perish in the
same manner; but it certainly is remarkable that other vizcachas should
come from a distance to dig out those that are buried alive. In this
good office they are exceedingly zealous; and I have frequently
surprised them after sunrise, at a considerable distance from their own
burrows, diligently scratching at those that had been covered up. The
vizcachas are fond of each other's society, and live peaceably together;
but their goodwill is not restricted to the members of their own little
community; it extends to the whole species, so that as soon as night
comes many animals leave their own and go to visit the adjacent
villages. If one approaches a vizcachera at night, usually some of the
vizcachas on it scamper off to distant burrows: these are neighbours
merely come to pay a friendly visit. This intercourse is so frequent
that little straight paths are formed from one vizcachera to another.
The extreme attachment between members of different communities makes it
appear less strange that they should assist each other: either the
desire to see, as usual, their buried neighbours becomes intense enough
to impel them to work their way to them; or cries of distress from the
prisoners reach and incite them to attempt their deliverance. Many
social species are thus powerfully affected by cries of distress from
one of their fellows; and some will attempt a rescue in the face of
great danger--the weasel and the peccary for example.

Mild and sociable as the vizcachas are towards each other, each one is
exceedingly jealous of any intrusion into his particular burrow, and
indeed always resents such a breach of discipline with the utmost fury.
Several individuals may reside in the compartments of the same burrow;
but beyond themselves not even their next-door neighbour is permitted to
enter; their hospitality ends where it begins, at the entrance. It is
difficult to compel a vizcacha to enter a burrow not his own; even when
hotly pursued by dogs they often refuse to do so. When driven into one,
the instant their enemies retire a little space they rush out of it, as
if they thought the hiding-place but little less dangerous than the open
plain. I have frequently seen vizcachas, chased into the wrong burrows,
summarily ejected by those inside: and sometimes they make their escape
only after being well bitten for their offence.

I have now stated the most interesting facts I have collected concerning
the vizcacha: when others rewrite its history they doubtless will,
according to the opportunities of observation they enjoy, be able to
make some additions to it, but probably none of great consequence. I
have observed this species in Patagonia and Buenos Ayres only; and as I
have found that its habits are considerably modified by circumstances in
the different localities where I have met with it, I am sure that other
variations will occur in the more distant regions, where the conditions
vary.

The most remarkable thing to be said about the vizcacha is, that
although regarded by Mr. Waterhouse, and others who have studied its
affinities, as one of the lowest of the rodents, exhibiting strong
Marsupial characters, the living animal appears to be more intelligent
than other rodents, not of South America only, but also of those of a
higher type in other continents. A parallel case is, perhaps, to be
found in the hairy armadillo, an extremely versatile and intelligent
animal, although only an edentate. And among birds the ypecaha--a large
La Plata rail--might also be mentioned as an example of what ought not
to be; for it is a bold and intelligent bird, more than a match for the
fowl, both in courage and in cunning; and yet it is one of the family
which Professor Parker--from the point of view of the
anatomist--characterizes as a "feeble-minded, cowardly group."




CHAPTER XXI.

THE DYING HUANACO.


Lest any one should misread the title to this chapter, I hasten to say
that the huanaco, or guanaco as it is often spelt, is not a perishing
species; nor, as things are, is it likely to perish soon, despite the
fact that civilized men, Britons especially, are now enthusiastically
engaged in the extermination of all the nobler mammalians:--a very
glorious crusade, the triumphant conclusion of which will doubtless be
witnessed by the succeeding generation, more favoured in this respect
than ours. The huanaco, happily for it, exists in a barren, desolate
region, in its greatest part waterless and uninhabitable to human
beings; and the chapter-heading refers to a singular instinct of the
dying animals, in very many cases allowed, by the exceptional conditions
in which they are placed, to die naturally.

And first, a few words about its place in nature and general habits. The
huanaco is a small camel--small, that is, compared with its existing
relation--without a hump, and, unlike the camel of the Old World,
non-specializad; doubtless it is a very ancient animal on the earth, and
for all we know to the contrary, may have existed contemporaneously with
some of the earliest known representatives of the camel type, whose
remains occur in the lower and upper miocene deposits--Poebrotherium,
Protolabis, Procamelus, Pliauchenia, and Macrauchenia. It ranges from
Tierra del Fuego and the adjacent islands, northwards over the whole of
Patagonia, and along the Andes into Peru and Bolivia. On the great
mountain chain it is both a wild and a domestic animal, since the llama,
the beast of burden of the ancient Peruvians, is no doubt only a
variety: but as man's slave it has changed so greatly from the original
form that some naturalists have regarded the llama as a distinct
species, which, like the camel of the East, exists only in a domestic
state. It has had time enough to vary, as it is more than probable that
the tamed and useful animal was inherited by the children of the sun
from races and nations that came before them: and how far back Andean
civilization extends may be inferred from the belief expressed by the
famous American archaeologist, Squiers, that the ruined city of
Tiahuanaco, in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, is as old as Thebes and
the Pyramids.

It is, however, with the wild animal, the huanaco, that I am concerned.
A full-grown male measures seven to eight feet in length, and four feet
high to the shoulder; it is well clothed in a coat of thick woolly hair,
of a pale reddish colour, Longest and palest on the under parts. In
appearance it is very unlike the camel, in spite of the long legs and
neck; in its finely-shaped head and long ears, and its proud and
graceful carriage, it resembles an antelope rather than its huge and,
from an aesthetic point of view, deformed Asiatic relation. In habits it
is gregarious, and is usually seen in small herds, but herds numbering
several hundreds or even a thousand are occasionally met with on the
stony, desolate plateaus of Southern Patagonia; but the huanaco is able
to thrive and grow fat where almost any other herbivore would starve.
While the herd feeds one animal acts as sentinel, stationed on the
hillside, and on the appearance of danger utters a shrill neigh of
alarm, and instantly all take to flight. But although excessively shy
and wary they are also very inquisitive, and have enough intelligence to
know that a single horseman can do them no harm, for they will not only
approach to look closely at him, but will sometimes follow him for
miles. They are also excitable, and at times indulge in strange freaks.
Darwin writes:--"On the mountains of Tierra del Fuego I have more than
once seen a huanaco, on being approached, not only neigh and squeal, but
prance and leap about in a most ridiculous manner, apparently in
defiance as a challenge." And Captain King relates that while sailing
into Port Desire he witnessed a chase of a huanaco after a fox, both
animals evidently going at their greatest speed, so that they soon
passed out of sight. I have known some tame huanacos, and in that state
they make amusing intelligent pets, fond of being caressed, but often so
frolicsome and mischievous as to be a nuisance to their master. It is
well known that at the southern extremity of Patagonia the huanacos have
a dying place, a spot to which all individuals inhabiting the
surrounding plains repair at the approach of death to deposit their
bones. Darwin and Fitzroy first recorded this strange instinct in their
personal narratives, and their observations have since been fully
confirmed by others. The best known of these dying or burial-places are
on the banks of the Santa Cruz and Gallegos rivers, where the river
valleys are covered with dense primeval thickets of bushes and trees of
stunted growth; there the ground is covered with the bones of countless
dead generations. "The animals," says Darwin, "in most cases must have
crawled, before dying, beneath and among the bushes." A strange instinct
in a creature so preeminently social in its habits; a dweller all its
life long on the open, barren plateaus and mountain sides! What a
subject for a painter! The grey wilderness of dwarf thorn trees, aged
and grotesque and scanty-leaved, nourished for a thousand years on the
bones that whiten the stony ground at their roots; the interior lit
faintly with the rays of the departing sun, chill and grey, and silent
and motionless--the huanacos' Golgotha. In the long centuries,
stretching back into a dim immeasurable past, so many of this race have
journeyed hither from the mountain and the plain to suffer the sharp
pang of death, that, to the imagination, something of it all seems to
have passed into that hushed and mournful nature. And now one more, the
latest pilgrim, has come, all his little strength spent in his struggle
to penetrate the close thicket; looking old and gaunt and ghostly in the
twilight; with long ragged hair; staring into the gloom out of
death-dimmed sunken eyes. England has one artist who might show it to us
on canvas, who would be able to catch the feeling of such a scene--of
that mysterious, passionless tragedy of nature--I refer to J. M. Swan,
the painter of the "Prodigal Son" and the "Lioness Defending her Cubs."

To his account of the animal's dying place and instinct, Darwin adds: "I
do not at all understand the reason of this, but I may observe that the
wounded huanacos at the Santa Cruz invariably walked towards the river."

It would, no doubt, be rash to affirm of any instinct that it is
absolutely unique; but, putting aside some doubtful reports about a
custom of the Asiatic elephant, which may have originated in the account
of Sindbad the Sailor's discovery of an elephant's burial place, we have
no knowledge of an instinct similar to that of the huanaco in any other
animal. So far as we know, it stands alone and apart, with nothing in
the actions of other species leading up, or suggesting any family
likeness to it. But what chiefly attracts the mind to it is its
strangeness. It looks, in fact, less like an instinct of one of the
inferior creatures than the superstitious observance of human beings,
who have knowledge of death, and believe in a continued existence after
dissolution; of a triba that in past times had conceived the idea that
the liberated spirit is only able to find its way to its future abode by
starting at death from the ancient dying-place of the tribe or family,
and thence moving westward, or skyward, or underground, over the
well-worn immemorial track, invisible to material eyes.

But, although alone among animal instincts-in its strange and useless
purpose--for it is as absolutely useless to the species or race as to
the dying individual--it is not the only useless instinct we know of:
there are many others, both simple and complex; and of such instincts we
believe, with good reason, that they once played an important part in
the life of the species, and were only rendered useless by changes in
the condition of life, or in the organism, or in both. In other words,
when the special conditions that gave them value no longer existed, the
correlated and perfect instinct was not, in these cases, eradicated, but
remained, in abeyance and still capable of being called into activity by
a new and false stimulus simulating the old and true. Viewed in this
way, the huanaco's instinct might be regarded as something remaining to
the animal from a remote past, not altogether unaffected by time
perhaps; and like some ceremonial usage among men that has long ceased
to have any significance, or like a fragment of ancient history, or a
tradition, which in the course of time has received some new and false
interpretation. The false interpretation, to continue the metaphor, is,
in this case, that the _purpose_ of the animal in going to a certain
spot, to which it has probably never previously resorted, is to die
there. A false interpretation, because, in the first place, it is
incredible that an instinct of no advantage to the species, in its
struggle for existence and predominance should arise and become
permanent; and, in the second place, it is equally incredible that it
could ever have been to the advantage of the species or race to, have a
dying place. We must, then, suppose that there is in the sensations
preceding death, when death comes slowly, some resemblance to the
sensations experienced by the animal at a period when its curious
instinct first took form and crystallized; these would be painful
sensations that threatened life; and freedom from them, and safety to
the animal, would only exist in a certain well-remembered spot. Further,
we might assume that it was at first only the memory of a few
individuals that caused the animals to seek the place of safety; that a
habit was thus formed; that in time this traditional habit became
instinctive, so that the animals, old and young, made their way
unerringly to the place of refuge whenever the old danger returned. And
such an instinct, slowly matured and made perfect to enable this animal
to escape extinction during periods of great danger to mammalian life,
lasting hundreds or even thousands of years, and destructive of
numberless other species less hardy and adaptive than the generalized
huanaco, might well continue to exist, to be occasionally called into
life by a false stimulus, for many centuries after it had ceased to be
of any advantage.

Once we accept this explanation as probable--namely, that the huanaco,
in withdrawing from the herd to drop down and die in the ancient dying
ground, is in reality only seeking an historically remembered place of
refuge, and not of death--the action of the animal loses much of its
mysterious character; we come on to firm ground, and find that we are no
longer considering an instinct absolutely unique, with no action or
instinct in any other animal leading up or suggesting any family
likeness to it, as I said before. We find, in fact, that there is at
least one very important and very well-known instinct in another class
of creatures, which has a strong resemblance to that of the huanaco, as
I have interpreted it, and which may even serve to throw a side light on
the origin of the huanaco's instinct. I refer to a habit of some
ophidians, in temperate and cold countries, of returning annually to
hybernate in the saine den.

A typical instance is that of the rattlesnake in the colder parts of
North America. On the approach of winter these reptiles go into hiding,
and it has been observed that in some districts a very large number of
individuals, hundreds, and even thousands, will repair from the
surrounding country to the ancestral den. Here the serpents gather in a
mass to remain in a wholly or semi-torpid condition until the return of
spring brings them out again, to scatter abroad to their usual summer
haunts. Clearly in this case the knowledge of the hyberna-ting den is
not merely traditional--that is, handed down from generation to
generation, through the young each year following the adults, and so
forming the habit of repairing at certain seasons to a certain place;
for the young serpent soon abandons its parent to lead an independent
life; and on the approach of cold weather the hybernating den may be a
long distance away, ten or twenty, or even thirty miles from the spot in
which it was born. The annual return to the hybernating den is then a
fixed unalterable instinct, like the autumnal migration of some birds to
a warmer latitude. It is doubtless favourable to the serpents to
hybernate in large numbers massed together; and the habit of resorting
annually to the same spot once formed, we can imagine that the
individuals--perhaps a single couple in the first place--frequenting
some very deep, dry, and well-sheltered cavern, safe from enemies, would
have a great advantage over others of their race; that they would be
stronger and increase more, and spread during the summer months further
and further from the cavern on all sides; and that the further afield
they went the more would the instinct be perfected; since all the young
serpents that did not have the instinct of returning unerringly to the
ancestral refuge, and that, like the outsiders of their race, to put it
in that way, merely crept into the first hole they found on the approach
of the cold season, would be more liable to destruction. Probably most
snakes get killed long before a natural decline sets in; to say that not
one in a thousand dies of old age would probably be no exaggeration; but
if they were as safe from enemies and accidents as some less prolific
and more highly-organized animals, so that many would reach the natural
term of life, and death came slowly, we can imagine that in such a
heat-loving creature the failure of the vital powers would simulate the
sensations caused by a falling temperature, and cause the old or sick
serpent, even in midsummer, to creep instinctively away to the ancient
refuge, where many a long life-killing frost had been safely tided over
in the past.

The huanaco has never been a hybernating animal; but we must assume
that, like the crotalus of the north, he had formed a habit of
congregating with his fellows at certain seasons at the same spot;
further, that these were seasons of suffering to the animal--the
suffering, or discomfort and danger, having in the first place given
rise to the habit. Assuming again that the habit had existed so long as
to become, like that of the reptile, a fixed, immutable instinct, a
hereditary knowledge, so that the young huanacos, untaught by the
adults, would go alone and unerringly to the meeting-place from any
distance, it is but an easy step to the belief, that after the
conditions had changed, and the refuges were no longer needed, this
instinctive knowledge would still exist in them, and that they would
take the old road when stimulated by the pain of a wound; or the
miserable sensations experienced in disease or during the decay of the
life-energy, when the senses grow dim, and the breath fails, and the
blood is thin and cold.

I presume that most persons who have observed animals a great deal have
met with cases in which the animal has acted automatically, or
instinctively, when the stimulus has been a false one. I will relate one
such case, observed by myself, and which strikes me as being apposite to
the question I am considering. It must be premised that this is an
instance of an acquired habit; but this does not affect my argument,
since I have all along assumed that the huanaco--a highly sagacious
species in the highest class of vertebrates--first acquired a habit from
experience of seeking a remembered refuge, and that such habit was the
parent, as it were, or the first clay model, of the perfect and
indestructible instinct that was to be.

It is not an uncommon thing in the Argentino pampas--I have on two
occasions witnessed it myself--for a riding-horse to come home, or to
the gate of his owner's house, to die. I am speaking of riding-horses
that are never doctored, nor treated mercifully; that look on their
master as an enemy rather than a friend; horses that live out in the
open, and have to be hunted to the corral or enclosure, or roughly
captured with a lasso as they run, when their services are required. I
retain a very vivid recollection of the first occasion of witnessing an
action of this kind in a horse, although I was only a boy at the time.
On going out one summer evening I saw one of the horses of the
establishment standing unsaddled and unbridled leaning his head over the
gate. Going to the spot, I stroked his nose, and then, turning to an old
native who happened to be near, asked him what could be the meaning of
such a thing. "I think he is going to die," he answered; "horses often
come to the house to die." And next morning the poor beast was found
lying dead not twenty yards from the gate; although he had not appeared
ill when I stroked his nose on the previous evening; but when I saw him
lying there dead, and remembered the old native's words, it seemed to me
as marvellous and inexplicable that a horse should act in that way, as
if some wild creature--a rhea, a fawn, or dolichotes--had come to exhale
his last breath at the gates of his enemy and constant persecutor, man.

I now believe that the sensations of sickness and approaching death in
the riding-horse of the pampas resemble or similate the pains, so often
experienced, of hunger, thirst and fatigue combined, together with the
oppressive sensations caused by the ponderous native saddle, or recado,
with its huge surcingle of raw hide drawn up so tightly as to hinder
free respiration. The suffering animal remembers how at the last relief
invariably came, when the twelve or fifteen hours' torture were over,
the toil and the want, and when the great iron bridle and ponderous gear
were removed, and he had freedom and food and drink and rest. At the
gate or at the door of his master's house, the sudden relief had always
come to him; and there does he sometimes go in his sickness, his fear
overmastered by his suffering, to find it again.

Discussing this question with a friend, who has a subtle mind and great
experience of the horse in semi-barbarous countries, and of many other
animals, wild and tame, in many regions of the globe, he put forward a
different explanation of the action of the horse in coming home to die,
which he thinks simpler and more probable than mine. It is, that a dying
or ailing animal instinctively withdraws itself from its fellows--an
action of self-preservation in the individual in opposition to the
well-known instincts of the healthy animals, which impels the whole herd
to turn upon and persecute the sickly member, thus destroying its
chances of recovery. The desire of the suffering animal is not only to
leave its fellows, but to get to some solitary place where they cannot
follow, or would never find him, to escape at once from a great and
pressing danger. But on the pastoral pampas, where horses are so
numerous that on that level, treeless area they are always and
everywhere visible, no hiding-place is discoverable. In such a case, the
animal, goaded by its instinctive fear, turns to the one spot that
horses avoid; and although that spot has hitherto been fearful to him,
the old fear is forgotten in the present and far more vivid one; the
vicinity of his master's house represents a solitary place to him, and
he seeks it, just as the stricken deer seeks the interior of some close
forest, oblivious for the time, in its anxiety to escape from the herd,
of the dangers lurking in it, and which he formerly avoided.

I have not set this explanation down merely because it does credit to my
friend's ingenuity, but because it strikes me that it is the only
alternative explanation that can be given of the animal's action in
coming home to die. Another fact concerning the ill-tamed and
barbarously treated horses of the pampas, which, to my mind, strengthens
the view I have taken, remains to be mentioned. It is not an uncommon
thing for one of these horses, after escaping, saddled and bridled, and
wandering about for anight or night and day on the plains, to return of
its own accord to the house. It is clear that in a case of this kind the
animal comes home to seek relief. I have known one horse that always had
to be hunted like a wild animal to be caught, and that invariably after
being saddled tried to break loose, to return in this way to the gate
after wandering about, saddled and bridled, for over twenty hours in
uncomfortable freedom.

The action of the riding-horse returning to a master he is accustomed to
fly from, as from an enemy, to be released of saddle and bridle, is, no
doubt more intelligent than that of the dying horse coming home to be
relieved from his sufferings, but the motive is the same in both cases;
at the gate the only pain the animal has ever experienced has invariably
begun, and there it has ended, and when the spur of some new pain
afflicts him--new and yet like the old--it is to the well-remembered
hated gate that it urges him.

To return to the huanaco. After tracing the dying instinct back to its
hypothetical origin--namely, a habit acquired by the animal in some past
period of seeking refuge from some kind of pain and danger at a certain
spot, it is only natural to speculate a little further as to the nature
of that danger and of the conditions the animal existed in.

If the huanaco is as old on the earth as its antique generalized form
have led naturalists to suppose, we can well believe that it has
survived not only a great many lost mammalian types, but many changes in
the conditions of its life. Let us then imagine that at some remote
period a change took place in the climate of Patagonia, and that it
became colder and colder, owing to some cause affecting only that
portion of the antarctic region; such a cause, for instance, as a great
accumulation of icebergs on the northern shores of the antarctic
continent, extending century by century until a large portion of the now
open sea became blocked up with solid ice. If the change was gradual and
the snow became deeper each winter and lasted longer, an intelligent,
gregarious, and exceedingly hardy and active animal like the huanaco,
able to exist on the driest woody fibres, would stand the beat chance of
maintaining its existence in such altered conditions, and would form new
habits to meet the new danger. One would be that at the approach of a
period of deep snow and deadly cold, all the herds frequenting one
place would gather together at the most favourable spots in the river
valleys, where the vegetation is dense and some food could be had while
the surrounding country continued covered with deep snow. They would, in
fact, make choice of exactly such localities as are now used for dying
places. There they would be sheltered from the cutting-winds, the twigs
and bark would supply them with food, the warmth from a great many
individuals massed together would serve to keep the snow partially
melted under foot, and would prevent their being smothered, while the
stiff and closely interlaced branches would keep a roof of snow above
them, and thus protected they would keep alive until the return of mild
weather released them. In the course of many generations all weakly
animals, and all in which the habit of seeking the refuge at the proper
time was weak or uncertain in its action would perish, but their loss
would be an advantage to the survivors.

It is worthy of remark that it is only at the southern extremity of
Patagonia that the huanacos have dying places. In Northern Patagonia,
and on the Chilian and Peruvian Andes no such instinct has been
observed.




CHAPTER XXII.

THE STRANGE INSTINCTS OF CATTLE.


My purpose in this paper is to discuss a group of curious and useless
emotional instincts of social animals, which have not yet been properly
explained. Excepting two of the number, placed first and last in the
list, they are not related in their origin; consequently they are here
grouped together arbitrarily, only for the reason that we are very
familiar with them on account of their survival in our domestic animals,
and because they are, as I have said, useless; also because they
resemble each other, among the passions and actions of the lower
animals, in their effect on our minds. This is in all cases unpleasant,
and sometimes exceedingly painful, as when species that rank next to
ourselves in their developed intelligence and organized societies, such
as elephants, monkeys, dogs, and cattle, are seen under the domination
of impulses, in some cases resembling insanity, and in others simulating
the darkest passions of man.

These instincts are:--

(1) The excitement caused by the smell of blood, noticeable in horses
and cattle among our domestic animals, and varying greatly in degree,
from an emotion so slight as to be scarcely perceptible to the greatest
extremes of rage or terror.

(2) The angry excitement roused in some animals when a scarlet or
bright-red cloth is shown to them. So well known is this apparently
insane instinct in our cattle that it has given rise to a proverb and
metaphor familiar in a variety of forms to everyone.

(3) The persecution of a sick or weakly animal by its companions.

(4) The sudden deadly fury that seizes on the herd or family at the
sight of a companion in extreme distress. Herbivorous mammals at such
times will trample and gore the distressed one to death. In the case of
wolves, and other savage-tempered carnivorous species, the distressed
fellow is frequently torn to pieces and devoured on the spot.

To take the first two together. When we consider that blood is red; that
the smell of it is, or may be, or has been, associated with that vivid
hue in the animal's mind; that blood, seen and smelt is, or has been,
associated with the sight of wounds and with cries of pain and rage or
terror from the wounded or captive animal, there appears at first sight
to be some reason for connecting these two instinctive passions as
having the same origin--namely, terror and rage caused by the sight of a
member of the herd struck down and bleeding, or struggling for life in
the grasp of an enemy. I do not mean to say that such an image is
actually present in the animal's mind, but that the inherited or
instinctive passion is one in kind and in its working with the passion
of the animal when experience and reason were its guides.

But the more I consider the point the more am I inclined to regard these
two instincts as separate in their origin, although I retain the belief
that cattle and horses and several wild animals are violently excited by
the smell of blood for the reason just given--namely, their inherited
memory associates the smell of blood with the presence among them of
some powerful enemy that threatens their life. To this point I shall
return when dealing with the last and most painful of the instincts I am
considering.

The following incident will show how violently this blood passion
sometimes affects cattle, when they are permitted to exist in a
half-wild condition, as on the pampas. I was out with my gun one day, a
few miles from home, when I came across a patch on the ground where the
grass was pressed or trodden down and stained with blood. I concluded
that some thievish gauchos had slaughtered a fat cow there on the
previous night, and, to avoid detection, had somehow managed to carry
the whole of it away on their horses. As I walked on, a herd of cattle,
numbering about three hundred, appeared moving slowly on towards a small
stream a mile away; they were travelling in a thin long line, and would
pass the blood-stained spot at a distance of seven to eight hundred
yards, but the wind from it would blow across their track. When the
tainted wind struck the leaders of the herd they instantly stood still,
raising their heads, then broke out into loud excited bellowings; and
finally turning they started off at a fast trot, following up the scent
in a straight line, until they arrived at the place where one of their
kind had met its death. The contagion spread, and before long all the
cattle were congregated on the fatal spot, and began moving round in a
dense mass, bellowing continually.

It may be remarked here that the animal has a peculiar language on
occasions like this; it emits a succession of short bellowing cries,
like excited exclamations, followed by a very loud cry, alternately
sinking into a hoarse murmur, and rising to a kind of scream that grates
harshly on the sense. Of the ordinary "cow-music" I am a great admirer,
and take as much pleasure in it as in the cries and melody of birds and
the sound of the wind in trees; but this performance of cattle excited
by the smell of blood is most distressing to hear.

The animals that had forced their way into the centre of the mass to the
spot where the blood was, pawed the earth, and dug it up with their
horns, and trampled each other down in their frantic excitement. It was
terrible to see and hear them. The action of those on the border of the
living mass in perpetually moving round in a circle with dolorous
bellowings, was like that of the women in an Indian village when a
warrior dies, and all night they shriek and howl with simulated grief,
going round and round the dead man's hut in an endless procession.

The "bull and red rag" instinct, as it may be called, comes next in
order. It is a familiar fact that brightness in itself powerfully
attracts most if not all animals. The higher mammalians are affected in
the same way as birds and insects, although not in the same degree. This
fact partly explains the rage of the bull. A scarlet flag fluttering in
the wind or lying on the grass attracts his attention powerfully, as it
does that of other animals; but though curious about the nature of the
bright object, it does not anger him. His anger is excited--and this is
the whole secret of the matter--when the colour is flaunted by a man;
when it forces him to fix his attention on a man, i.e. an animal of
another species that rules or drives him, and that he fears, but with
only a slight fear, which may at any moment be overcome by his naturally
bold aggressive disposition, Not only does the vivid colour compel him
to fix his attention on the being that habitually interferes with his
liberty, and is consequently regarded with unfriendly eyes, but it also
produces the illusion on his mind that the man is near him, that he is
approaching him in an aggressive manner: it is an insult, a challenge,
which, being of so explosive a temper, he is not slow to accept.

On the pampas I was once standing with some gauchos at the gate of a
corral into which a herd of half-wild cattle had just been driven. One
of the men, to show his courage and agility, got off his horse and
boldly placed himself in the centre of the open gate. His action
attracted the attention of one of the nearest cows, and lowering her
horns she began watching him in a threatening manner. He then suddenly
displayed the scarlet lining of his poncho, and instantly she charged
him furiously: with a quick movement to one side he escaped her horns,
and after we had driven her back, resumed his former position and
challenged her again in the same way. The experiment was repeated not
less than half a dozen times, and always with the same result. The
cattle were all in a savage temper, and would have instantly charged him
on his placing himself before them on foot without the display of
scarlet cloth, but their fear of the mounted men, standing with lassos
in their hand on either side of him, kept them in check. But whenever
the attention of any one individual among them was forcibly drawn to him
by the display of vivid colour, and fixed on him alone, the presence of
the horsemen was forgotten and fear was swallowed by rage. It is a fact,
I think, that most animals that exhibit angry excitement when a scarlet
rag is flourished aggressively at them, are easily excited to anger at
all times. Domestic geese and turkeys may be mentioned among birds: they
do not fly at a grown person, but they will often fly at a child that
challenges them in this way; and it is a fact that they do not at any
time fear a child very much and will sometimes attack him without being
challenged. I think that the probability of the view I have taken is
increased by another fact--namely, that the sudden display of scarlet
colour sometimes affects timid animals with an extreme fear, just as, on
the other hand, it excites those that are bold and aggressive to anger.
Domestic sheep, forinstance, that vary greatly in disposition in
different races or breeds, and even in different individuals, may be
affected in the two opposite ways, some exhibiting extreme terror and
others only anger at a sudden display of scarlet colour by the shepherd
or herder.

The persecution of a sick animal by its companions comes next under
consideration.

It will have been remarked, with surprise by some readers, no doubt,
that I have set down as two different instincts this persecution of a
sick or weakly individual by its fellows, and the sudden deadly rage
that sometimes impels the herd to turn upon and destroy a wounded or
distressed companion. It is usual for writers on the instincts of
animals to speak of them as one: and I presume that they regard this
sudden deadly rage of several individuals against a companion as merely
an extreme form of the common persecuting instinct or impulse. They are
not really one, but are as distinct in origin and character as it is
possible for any two instincts to be. The violent and fatal impulse
starts simultaneously into life and action, and is contagious, affecting
all the members of the herd like a sudden madness. The other is neither
violent nor contagious: the persecution is intermittent: it is often
confined to one or to a very few members of the herd, and seldom joined
in by the chief member, the leader or head to whom all the others give
way.

Concerning this head of the herd, or flock, or pack, it is necessary to
say something more. Some gregarious animals, particularly birds, live
together in the most perfect peace and amity; and here no leader is
required, because in their long association together as a species in
flocks, they have attained to a oneness of mind, so to speak, which
causes them to move or rest, and to act at all times harmoniously
together, as if controlled and guided by an extrane-ous force. I may
mention that the kindly instinct in animals, which is almost universal
between male and female in the vertebrates, is most apparent in these
harmoniously acting birds. Thus, in La Plata, I have remarked, in more
than one species, that a lame or sick individual, unable to keop pace
with the flock and find its food, has not only been waited for, but in
some cases some of the flock have constantly attended it, keeping close
to it both when flying and on the ground; and, I have no doubt, feeding
it just as they would have fed their young.

Naturally among such kinds no one member is of more consideration than
another. But among mammals such equality and harmony is rare. The
instinct of one and all is to lord it over the others, with the result
that one more powerful or domineering gets the mastery, to keep it
thereafter as long as he can. The lower animals are, in this respect,
very much like us; and in all kinds that are at all fierce-tempered the
mastery of one over all, and of a few under him over the others, is most
salutary; indeed, it is inconceivable that they should be able to exist
together under any other system.

On cattle-breeding establishments on the pampas, where it is usual to
keep a large number of fierce-tempered dogs, I have observed these
animals a great deal, and presume that they are very much like feral
dogs and wolves in their habits. Their quarrels are incessant; but when
a fight begins the head of the pack as a rule rushes to the spot,
whereupon the fighters separate and march off in different directions,
or else cast themselves down and deprecate their tyrant's wrath with
abject gestures and whines. If the combatants are both strong and have
worked themselves into a mad rage before their head puts in an
appearance, it may go hard with him: they know him no longer, and all he
can do is to join in the fray; then, if the fighters turn on him, he may
be so injured that his power is gone, and the next best dog in the pack
takes his place. The hottest contests are always between dogs that are
well matched; neither will give place to the other, and so they fight it
out; but from the foremost in strength and power down to the weakest
there is a gradation of authority; each one knows just how far he can
go, which companion he can bully when he is in a bad temper or wishes to
assert himself, and to which he must humbly yield in his turn. In such a
state the weakest one must always yield to all the others, and cast
himself down, seeming to call himself a slave and worshipper of any
other member of the pack that chooses to snarl at him, or command him to
give up his bone with a good grace.

This masterful or domineering temper, so common among social mammals, is
the cause of the persecution of the sick and weakly. When an animal
begins to ail he can no longer hold his own; he ceases to resent the
occasional ill-natured attacks made on him; his non-combative condition
is quickly discovered, and he at once drops down to a place below the
lowest; it is common knowledge in the herd that he may be buffeted with
impunity by all, even by those that have hitherto suffered buffets but
have given none. But judging from my own observation, this persecution,
is not, as a rule, severe, and is seldom fatal.

It is often the case that a sick or injured animal withdraws and hides
himself from the herd; the instinct of the "stricken deer" this might be
called. But I do not think that we need assume that the ailing
individual goes away to escape the danger of being ill-used by his
companions. He is sick and drooping and consequently unfit to be with
the healthy and vigorous; that is the simplest and probably the true
explanation of his action; although in some cases he might be driven
from them by persistent rough usage. However peaceably gregarious
mammals may live together, and however fond of each other's company they
may be, they do not, as a rule, treat each other gently. Furthermore,
their games are exceedingly rough and require that they shall be in a
vigorous state of health to escape injury. Horned animals have no
buttons to the sharp weapons they prod and strike each other with in a
sportive spirit. I have often witnessed the games of wild and half-wild
horses with astonishment; for it seemed that broken bones must result
from the sounding kicks they freely bestowed on one another. This
roughness itself would be a sufficient cause for the action of the
individual, sick and out of tune and untouched by the glad contagion of
the others, in escaping from them; and to leave them would be to its
advantage (and to that of the race) since, if not fatally injured or
sick unto death, its chances of recovery to perfect health would be
thereby greatly increased.

It remains now to speak of that seemingly most cruel of instincts which
stands last on my list. It is very common among gregarious animals that
are at all combative in disposition, and still survives in our domestic
cattle, although very rarely witnessed in England. My first experience
of it was just before I had reached the age of five years. I was not at
that early period trying to find out any of nature's secrets, but the
scene I witnessed printed itself very vividly on my mind, so that I can
recall it as well as if my years had been five-and-twenty; perhaps
better. It was on a summer's evening, and I was out by myself at some
distance from the house, playing about the high exposed roots of some
old trees; on the other side of the trees the cattle, just returned from
pasture, were gathered on the bare level ground. Hearing a great
commotion among them, I climbed on to one of the high exposed roots,
and, looking over, saw a cow on the ground, apparently unable to rise,
moaning and bellowing in a distressed way, while a number of her
companions were crowding round and goring her.

What is the meaning of such an instinct? Darwin has but few words on the
subject. "Can we believe," he says, in his posthumous _Essay on
Instinct, "_when a wounded herbivorous animal returns to its own herd
and is then attacked and gored, that this cruel and very common instinct
is of any service to the species?" At the same time, he hints that such
an instinct might in some circumstances be useful, and his hint has been
developed into the current belief among naturalists on the subject. Here
it is, in Dr. Romanes' words: "We may readily imagine that the instinct
displayed by many herbivorous animals of goring sick and wounded
companions, is really of use in countries where the presence of weak
members in a herd is a source of danger to the herd from the prevalence
of wild beasts." Here it is assumed that the sick are set upon and
killed, but this is not the fact; sickness and decay from age or some
other cause are slow things, and increase imperceptibly, so that the
sight of a drooping member grows familiar to the herd, as does that of a
member with some malformation, or unusual shade of colour, or altogether
white, as in the case of an albino.

Sick and weak members, as we have seen, while subject to some
ill-treatment from their companions (only because they can be
ill-treated with impunity), do not rouse the herd to a deadly animosity;
the violent and fatal attack is often as not made on a member in perfect
health and vigour and unwounded, although, owing to some accident, in
great distress, and perhaps danger, at the moment.

The instinct is, then, not only useless but actually detrimental; and,
this being so, the action of the herd in destroying one of its members
is not even to be regarded as an instinct proper, but rather as an
aberration of an instinct, a blunder, into which animals sometimes fall
when excited to action in unusual circumstances.

The first thing that strikes us is that in these wild abnormal moments
of social animals, they are acting in violent contradiction to the whole
tenor of their lives; that in turning against a distressed fellow they
oppose themselves to the law of their being, to the whole body of
instincts, primary and secondary, and habits, which have made it
possible for them to exist together in communities. It is, I think, by
reflecting on the abnormal character of such an action that we are led
to a true interpretation of this "dark saying of Nature."

Every one is familiar with Bacon's famous passage about the dog, and the
noble courage which that animal puts on when "maintained by a man; who
is to him in place of a God, or _melior natura;_ which courage is
manifestly such as that creature, without the confidence of a better
nature than its own, could never attain." Not so. The dog is a social
animal, and acts instinctively in concert with his fellows; and the
courage he manifests is of the family, not the individual. In the
domestic state the man he is accustomed to associate with and obey
stands to him in the place of the controlling pack, and to his mind,
which is canine and not human, _is_ the pack. A similar "noble courage,"
greatly surpassing that exhibited on all other occasions, is displayed
by an infinite number of mammals and birds of gregarious habits, when
repelling the attacks of some powerful and dangerous enemy, or when they
rush to the rescue of one of their captive fellows. Concerning this rage
and desperate courage of social animals in the face of an enemy, we see
(1) that it is excited by the distressed cries, or by the sight of a
member of the herd or family dying from or struggling in the clutches of
an enemy; (2) that it affects animals when a number af individuals are
together, and is eminently contagious, like fear, that communicates
itself, quick as lightning, from one to another until all are in a
panic, and like the joyous emotion that impels the members of a herd or
flock to rush simultaneously into play.

Now, it is a pretty familiar fact that animals acting instinctively, as
well as men acting intelligently, have at times their delusions and
their illusions, and see things falsely, and are moved to action by a
false stimulus to their own disadvantage. When the individuals of a herd
or family are excited to a sudden deadly rage by the distressed cries of
one of their fellows, or by the sight of its bleeding wounds and the
smell of its blood, or when they see it frantically struggling on the
ground, or in the cleft of a tree or rock, as if in the clutches of a
powerful enemy, they do not turn on it to kill but to rescue it.

In whatever way the rescuing instinct may have risen, whether simply
through natural selection or, as is more probable, through an
intelligent habit becoming fixed and hereditary, its effectiveness
depends altogether on the emotion of overmastering rage excited in the
animal--rage against a tangible visible enemy, or invisible, and excited
by the cries or struggles of a suffering companion; clearly, then, it
could not provide against the occasional rare accidents that animals
meet with, which causes them to act precisely in the way they do when
seized or struck down by an enemy. An illusion is the result of the
emotion similar to the illusion produced by vivid expectation in
ourselves, which has caused many a man to see in a friend and companion
the adversary he looked to see, and to slay him in his false-seeing
anger.

An illusion just as great, leading to action equally violent, but
ludicrous rather than painful to witness, may be seen in dogs, when
encouraged by a man to the attack, and made by his cries and gestures to
expect that some animal they are accustomed to hunt is about to be
unearthed or overtaken; and if, when they are in this disposition, he
cunningly exhibits and sets them on a dummy, made perhaps of old rags
and leather and stuffed with straw, they will seize, worry, and tear it
to pieces with the greatest fury, and without the faintest suspicion of
its true character.

That wild elephants will attack a distressed fellow seemed astonishing
to Darwin, when he remembered the case of an elephant after escaping
from a pit helping its fellow to escape also. But it is precisely the
animals, high or low in the organic scale, that are social, and possess
the instinct of helping each other, that will on occasions attack a
fellow in misfortune--such an attack being no more than a blunder of the
helping instinct.

Felix de Azara records a rather cruel experiment on the temper of some
tame rats confined in a cage. The person who kept them caught the tail
of one of the animals and began sharply pinching it, keeping his hand
concealed under the cage. Its cries of pain and struggles to free itself
greatly excited the other rats; and after rushing wildly round for some
moments they flew at their distressed companion, and fixing their teeth
in its throat quickly dispatched it. In this case if the hand that held
the tail had been visible and in the cage, the bites would undoubtedly
have been inflicted on it; but no enemy was visible; yet the fury and
impulse to attack an enemy was present in the animals. In such
circumstances, the excitement must be discharged--the instinct obeyed,
and in the absence of any other object of attack the illusion is
produced and it discharges itself on the struggling companion. It is
sometimes seen in dogs, when three or four or five are near together,
that if one suddenly utters a howl or cry of pain, when no man is near
it and no cause apparent, the others run to it, and seeing nothing, turn
round and attack each other. Here the exciting cause--the cry for
help--is not strong enough to produce the illusion which is sometimes
fatal to the suffering member; but each dog mistakingly thinks that the
others, or one of the others, inflicted the injury, and his impulse is
to take the part of the injured animal. If the cry for help--caused
perhaps by a sudden cramp or the prick of a thorn--is not very sharp or
intense, the other dogs will not attack, but merely look and growl at
each other in a suspicious way.

To go back to Azara's anecdote. Why, it may be asked--and this question
has been put to me in conversation--if killing a distressed companion is
of no advantage to the race, and if something must be attacked--why did
not these rats in this instance attack the cage they were shut in, and
bite at the woodwork and wires? Or, in the case related by Mr. Andrew
Lang in _Longman's Magazine_ some time ago, in which the members of a
herd of cattle in Scotland turned with sudden amazing fury on one of the
cows that had got wedged between two rocks and was struggling with
distressed bellowings to free itself--why did they not attack the
prisoning rocks instead of goring their unfortunate comrade to death?
For it is well known that animals will, on occasions, turn angrily upon
and attack inanimate objects that cause them injury or hinder their
freedom of action. And we know that this mythic faculty--the mind's
projection of itself into visible nature--survives in ourselves, that
there are exceptional moments in our lives when it comes back to us; no
one, for instance, would be astonished to hear that any man, even a
philosopher, had angrily kicked away or imprecated a stool or other
inanimate object against which he had accidentally barked his shins. The
answer is, that there is no connection between these two things--the
universal mythic faculty of the mind, and that bold and violent instinct
of social animals of rushing to the rescue of a stricken or distressed
companion, which has a definite, a narrow, purpose--namely, to fall upon
an enemy endowed not merely with the life and intelligence common to all
things, including rocks, trees, and waters, but with animal form and
motion.

I had intended in this place to give other instances, observed in
several widely-separated species, including monkeys; but it is not
necessary, as I consider that all the facts, however varied, are covered
by the theory I have suggested--even a fact I like the one mentioned in
this chapter of cattle bellowing and madly digging up the ground where
the blood of one of their kind had been spilt: also such a fact as that
of wild cattle and other animals caught in a trap or enclosure attacking
and destroying each other in their frenzy; and the fact that some
fierce-tempered carnivorous mammals will devour the companion they have
killed. It is an instinct of animals like wolves and peccaries to devour
the enemy they have overcome and slain: thus, when the jaguar captures a
peccary out of a drove, and does not quickly escape with his prize into
a tree, he is instantly attacked and slain and then consumed, even to
the skin and bones. This is the wolf's and the peccary's instinct; and
the devouring of one of their own companions is an inevitable
consequence of the mistake made in the first place of attacking and
killing it. In no other circumstances, not even when starving, do they
prey on their own species.

If the explanation I have offered should seem a true or highly probable
one, it will, I feel sure, prove acceptable to many lovers of animals,
who, regarding tins seemingly ruthless instinct, not as an aberration
but as in some vague way advantageous to animals in their struggle for
existence, are yet unable to think of it without pain and horror;
indeed, I know those who refuse to think of it at all, who would gladly
disbelieve it if they could.

It should be a relief to them to be able to look on it no longer as
something ugly and hateful, a blot on nature, but as an illusion, a
mistake, an unconscious crime, so to speak, that has for its motive the
noblest passion that animals know--that sublime courage and daring which
they exhibit in defence of a distressed companion. This fiery spirit in
animals, which makes them forget their own safety, moves our hearts by
its close resemblance to one of the most highly-prized human virtues;
just as we are moved to intellectual admiration by the wonderful
migratory instinct in birds that simulates some of the highest
achievements of the mind of man. And we know that this beautiful
instinct is also liable to mistakes--that many travellers leave us
annually never to return. Such a mistake was undoubtedly the cause of
the late visitation of Pallas' sand-grouse: owing perhaps to some
unusual atmospheric or dynamic condition, or to some change in the
nervous system of the birds, they deviated widely from their usual
route, to scatter in countless thousands over the whole of Europe and
perish slowly in climates not suited to them; while others, overpassing
the cold strange continent, sped on over colder, stranger seas, to drop
at last like aerolites, quenching their lives in the waves.

Whether because it is true, as Professor Freeman and some others will
have it, that humanity is a purely modern virtue; or because the
doctrine of Darwin, by showing that we are related to other forms of
life, that our best feelings have their roots low down in the temper and
instincts of the social species, has brought us nearer in spirit to the
inferior animals, it is certain that our regard for them has grown, and
is growing, and that new facts and fresh inferences that make us think
more highly of them are increasingly welcome.




CHAPTER XXIII.

HORSE AND MAN.


There is no mode of progression so delightful as riding on horseback.
Walking, rowing, bicycling are pleasant exercises in their way, but the
muscular exertion and constant exercise of judgment they call for occupy
the mind partly to the exclusion of other things; so that a long walk
may sometimes be only a long walk and nothing more. In riding
we are not conscious of exertion, and as for that close observation and
accurate discernment necessary in traversing the ground with speed and
safety, it is left to the faithful servant that carries us. Pitfalls,
hillocks, slippery places, the thousand little inequalities of the
surface that have to be measured with infallible eye, these disturb us
little. To fly or go slowly at will, to pass unshaken over rough and
smooth alike, fording rivers without being wet, and mounting hills
without climbing, this is indeed unmixed delight. It is the nearest
approach to bird-life we seem capable of, since all the monster bubbles
and flying fabrics that have been the sport of winds from the days of
Montgolfier downwards have brought us no nearer to it. The aeronaut
gasping for breath above the clouds offers only a sad spectacle of the
imbecility of science and man's shattered hopes. To the free inhabitants
of air we can only liken the mounted Arab, vanishing, hawklike, over the
boundless desert.

In riding there is always exhilarating motion; yet, if the scenery
encountered be charming, you are apparently sitting still, while,
river-like, it flows toward and past you, ever giving place to fresh
visions of beauty. Above all, the mind is free, as when one lies idly on
the grass gazing up into the sky. And, speaking of myself, there is even
more than this immunity from any tax on the understanding such as we
require in walking; the rhythmic motion, the sensation as of night,
acting on the brain like a stimulus. That anyone should be able to think
better lying, sitting, or standing, than when speeding along on
horseback, is to me incomprehensible. This is doubtless due to early
training and long use; for on those great pampas where I first saw the
light and was taught at a tender age to ride, we come to look on man as
a parasitical creature, fitted by nature to occupy the back of a horse,
in which position only he has full and free use of all his faculties.
Possibly the gaucho--the horseman of the pampas--is born with this idea
in his brain; if so, it would only be reasonable to suppose that its
correlative exists in a modification of structure. Certain it is that an
intoxicated gaucho lifted on to the back of his horse is perfectly safe
in his seat. The horse may do his best to rid himself of his burden; the
rider's legs--or posterior arms as they might appropriately be
called--retain their iron grip, notwithstanding the fuddled brain.

The gaucho is more or less bow-legged; and, of course, the more crooked
his legs are, the better for him in his struggle for existence. Off his
horse his motions are awkward, like those of certain tardigrade mammals
of arboreal habits when removed from their tree. He waddles in his walk;
his hands feel for the reins; his toes turn inwards like a duck's. And
here, perhaps, we can see why foreign travellers, judging him from their
own standpoint, invariably bring against him the charge of laziness. On
horseback he is of all men most active. His patient endurance under
privations that would drive other men to despair, his laborious days and
feats of horsemanship, the long journeys he performs without rest or
food, seem to simple dwellers on the surface of the earth almost like
miracles. Deprive him of his horse, and he can do nothing but sit on
the ground cross-legged, or _en cuclillas_,--on his heels. You have, to
use his own figurative language, cut off his feet.

Darwin in his earlier years appears not to have possessed the power of
reading men with that miraculous intelligence always distinguishing his
researches concerning other and lower orders of beings. In the _Voyage
of a Naturalist,_ speaking of this supposed indolence of the gauchos, he
tells that in one place where workmen were in great request, seeing a
poor gaucho sitting in a listless attitude, he asked him why he did not
work. The man's answer was that _he was too poor to work!_ The
philosopher was astonished and amused at the reply, but failed to
understand it. And yet, to one acquainted with these lovers of brief
phrases, what more intelligible answer could have been returned? The
poor fellow simply meant to say that his horses had been stolen--a thing
of frequent occurrence in that country, or, perhaps, that some minion of
the Government of the moment had seized them for the use of the State.

To return to the starting point, the pleasures of riding do not flow
exclusively from the agreeable sensations attendant on flight-like
motion; there is also the knowledge, sweet in itself, that not a mere
cunningly fashioned machine, like that fabled horse of brass "on which
the Tartar king did ride," sustains us; but a something with life and
thought, like ourselves, that feels what we feel, understands us, and
keenly participates in our pleasures. Take, for example, the horse on
which some quiet old country gentleman is accustomed to travel; how
soberly and evenly he jogs along, picking his way over the ground. But
let him fall into the hands of a lively youngster, and how soon he picks
up a frisky spirit! Were horses less plastic, more the creatures of
custom than they are, it would always be necessary, before buying one,
to inquire into the disposition of its owner.

When I was thirteen years old I was smitten with love for a horse I once
saw--an untamable-looking brute, that rolled his eyes, turbulently,
under a cloud of black mane tumbling over his forehead. I could not take
my sight off this proud, beautiful creature, and I longed to possess him
with a great longing. His owner--a worthless vagabond, as it
happened--marked my enthusiastic admiration, and a day or two
afterwards, having lost all his money at cards, he came to me, offering
to sell me the horse. Having obtained my father's consent, I rushed off
to the man with all the money I possessed--about thirty or thirty-five
shillings, I believe. After some grumbling, and finding he could get no
more, he accepted the money. My new possession filled me with unbounded
delight, and I spent the time caressing him and leading him about the
grounds in search of succulent grasses and choice leaves to feed him on.
I am sure this horse understood and loved me, for, in spite of that
savage look, which his eyes never quite lost, he always displayed a
singular gentleness towards me. He never attempted to upset me, though
he promptly threw--to my great delight, I must confess--anyone else who
ventured to mount him. Probably the secret of his conduct was that he
hated the whip. Of this individual, if not of the species, the
celebrated description held true:--"The horse is a docile animal, but if
you flog him he will not do so." After he had been mine a few days, I
rode on him one morning to witness a cattle-marking on a neighbouring
estate. I found thirty or forty gauchos on the ground engaged in
catching and branding the cattle. It was rough, dangerous work, but
apparently not rough enough to satisfy the men, so after branding an
animal and releasing him from their lassos, several of the mounted
gauchos would, purely for sport, endeavour to knock it down as it rushed
away, by charging furiously on to it. As I sat there enjoying the fun,
my horse stood very quietly under me, also eagerly watching the sport.
At length a bull was released, and, smarting from the fiery torture,
lowered his horns and rushed away towards the open plain. Three horsemen
in succession shot out from the crowd, and charged the bull at full
speed; one by one, by suddenly swerving his body round, he avoided them,
and was escaping scot-free. At this moment my horse--possibly
interpreting a casual touch of my hand on his neck, or some movement of
my body, as a wish to join in the sport--suddenly sprang forward and
charged on the flying bull like a thunderbolt, striking him full in the
middle of his body, and hurling him with a tremendous shock to earth.
The stricken beast rolled violently over, while my horse stood still as
a stone watching him. Strange to say, I was not unseated, but,
turning-round, galloped back, greeted by a shout of applause from the
spectators--the only sound of that description I have ever had the
privilege of listening to. They little knew that my horse had
accomplished the perilous feat without his rider's guidance. No doubt he
had been accustomed to do such things, and, perhaps, for the moment, had
forgotten that he had passed into the hands of a new owner--one of
tender years. He never voluntarily attempted an adventure of that kind
again; he knew, I suppose, that he no longer carried on his back a
reckless dare-devil, who valued not life. Poor Picáso! he was mine till
he died. I have had scores of horses since, but never one I loved so
well.

With the gauchos the union between man and horse is not of so intimate a
nature as with the Indians of the pampas. Horses are too cheap, where a
man without shoes to his feet may possess a herd of them, for the
closest kind of friendship to ripen. The Indian has also less
individuality of character. The immutable nature of the conditions he is
placed in, and his savage life, which is a perpetual chase, bring him
nearer to the level of the beast he rides. And probably the acquired
sagacity of the horse in the long co-partnership of centuries has become
hereditary, and of the nature of an instinct. The Indian horse is more
docile, he understands his master better; the slightest touch of the
hand on his neck, which seems to have developed a marvellous
sensitiveness, is sufficient to guide him. The gaucho labours to give
his horse "a silken mouth," as he aptly calls it; the Indian's horse has
it from birth. Occasionally the gaucho sleeps in the saddle; the Indian
can die on his horse. During frontier warfare one hears at times of a
dead warrior being found and removed with difficulty from the horse that
carried him out of the fight, and about whose neck his rigid fingers
were clasped in death. Even in the gaucho country, however, where, I
grieve to confess, the horse is not deservedly esteemed, there are very
remarkable instances of equine attachment and fidelity to man, and of a
fellowship between horse and rider of the closest kind. One only I will
relate.

When Rosas, that man of "blood and iron," was Dictator of the Argentine
country--a position which he held for a quarter of a century--desertors
from the army were inexorably shot when caught, as they generally were.
But where my boyhood was spent there was a deserter, a man named Santa
Anna, who for seven years, without ever leaving the neighbourhood of his
home, succeeded in eluding his pursuers by means of the marvellous
sagacity and watchful care exercised by his horse. When taking his rest
on the plain--for he seldom slept under a roof--his faithful horse kept
guard. At the first sight of mounted men on the horizon he would fly to
his master, and, seizing his cloak between his teeth, rouse him with a
vigorous shake. The hunted man would start up, and in a moment man and
horse would vanish into one of the dense reed-beds abounding in the
place, and where no man could follow. I have not space to tell more
about this horse; but at last, in the fulness of time, when the figs
were ripe--literally as well as figuratively, for it happened in the
autumn of the year--the long tyrannous rule ended, and Santa Anna came
out of the reed-beds, where he had lived his wild-animal life, to mix
with his fellows. I knew him some years later. He was a rather
heavy-looking man, with little to say, and his reputation for honesty
was not good in the place; but I dare say there was something good in
him.

Students of nature are familiar with the modifying effects of new
conditions on man and brute. Take, for example, the gaucho: he must
every day traverse vast distances, see quickly, judge rapidly, be ready
at all times to encounter hunger and fatigue, violent changes of
temperature, great and sudden perils. These conditions have made him
differ widely from the peasant of the Peninsula; he has the endurance
and keen sight of a wolf, is fertile in expedients, quick in action,
values human life not at all, and is in pain or defeat a Stoic.
Unquestionably the horse he rides has also suffered a great change. He
differs as much from the English hunter, for instance, as one animal can
well differ from another of the same species. He never pounds the earth
and wastes his energies in vain parade. He has not the dauntless courage
that performs such brilliant feats in the field, and that often as not
attempts the impossible. In the chase he husbands all his strength,
carrying his head low, and almost grazing the ground with his hoofs, so
that he is not a showy animal. Constant use, or the slow cumulative
process of natural selection, has served to develop a keenness of sense
almost preternatural. The vulture's eye, with all the advantage derived
from the vulture's vast elevation above the scene surveyed, is not so
far-reaching as the sense of smell in the pampa horse. A common
phenomenon on the pampas is a sudden migration of the horses of a
district to some distant place. This occurs in seasons of drought, when
grass or water fails. The horses migrate to some district where, from
showers having fallen or other circumstances, there is a better supply
of food and drink. A slight breeze blowing from the more favoured
region, which may be forty or fifty miles away, or even much further, is
enough to start them off. Yet, during the scorching days of midsummer,
very little moisture or smell of grass can possibly reach them from such
a distance.

Another phenomenon, even more striking, is familiar to every
frontiersman. For some reason, the gaucho horse manifests the greatest
terror at an Indian invasion. No doubt his fear is, in part at any rate,
an associate feeling, the coming of the Indians being always a time of
excitement and com-motion, sweeping like a great wave over the country;
houses are in flames, families flying, cattle being driven at frantic
speed to places of greater safety. Be this as it may, long before the
marauders reach the settlement (often when they are still a whole day's
journey from it) the horses take the alarm and come wildly flying in:
the contagion quickly spreads to the horned cattle, and a general
stampede ensues. The gauchos maintain that the horses _smell_ the
Indians. I believe they are right, for when passing a distant Indian
camp, from which the wind blew, the horses driven before me have
suddenly taken fright and run away, leading me a chase of many miles.
The explanation that ostriches, deer, and other fleet animals driven in
before the invaders might be the cause of the stampede cannot be
accepted, since the horses are familiar with the sight of these animals
flying from their gaucho hunters.

There is a pretty fable of a cat and dog lying in a dark room, aptly
illustrating the fine senses of these two species. "Listen! I heard a
feather drop!" said the dog. "Oh, no!" said the cat, "it was a needle;
I saw it." The horse is not commonly believed to have senses keen as
that, and a dog tracing his master's steps over the city pavement is
supposed to be a feat no other animal can equal. No doubt the artificial
life a horse lives in England, giving so little play to many of his most
important faculties, has served to blunt them. He is a splendid
creature; but the noble bearing, the dash and reckless courage that
distinguish him from the modest horse of the desert, have not been
acquired without a corresponding loss in other things. When ridden by
night the Indian horse--and sometimes the same habit is found in the
gaucho's animal--drops his head lower and lower as the darkness
increases, with the danger arising from the presence of innumerable
kennels concealed in the grass, until his nose sweeps the surface like a
foxhound's. That this action is dictated by a powerful instinct of
self-preservation is plain; for, when I have attempted to forcibly drag
the animal's head up, he has answered such an experiment by taking the
bit in his teeth, and violently pulling the reins out of my hand. His
miraculous sense of smell measures the exact position of every hidden
kennel, every treacherous spot, and enables him to pass swiftly and
securely over it.

On the desert pampa the gaucho, for a reason that he knows, calls the
puma the "friend of man." The Arab gives this designation to his horse;
but in Europe, where we do not associate closely with the horse, the dog
naturally takes the foremost place in our affections. The very highest
praise yet given to this animal is probably to be found in Bacon's essay
on Atheism. "For take an example of a dog," he says, "and mark what a
generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained
by a man, who is to him in place of a god, or _melior natura,_ which
courage is manifestly such as that creature, without the confidence of a
better nature than its own, could never attain!" Can we not say as much
of the horse? The very horses that fly terror-stricken from the smell of
an Indian will, when "maintained by a man," readily charge into a whole
host of yelling savages.

I once had a horse at home, born and bred on the place, so docile that
whenever I required him I could go to him where the horses were at
pasture, and, though they all galloped off at my approach, he would
calmly wait to be caught. Springing on to his back, I would go after the
other horses, or gallop home with only my hand on his neck to guide him.
I did not often ride him, as he was slow and lazy, but with timid women
and children he was a favourite; he was also frequently used for farm
work, in or out of harness, and I could shoot from his back. In the
peach season he would roam about the plantation, getting the fruit, of
which he was very fond, by tugging at the lower branches of the trees
and shaking it down in showers. One intensely dark night I was riding
home on this horse. I came through a road with a wire fence on each
side, two miles in length, and when I had got nearly to the end of this
road my horse suddenly stopped short, uttering a succession of loud
terrified snorts. I could see nothing but the intense blackness of the
night before me and tried to encourage him to go on. Touching him on
the neck, I found his hair wet with the sudden profuse sweat of extreme
fear. The whip made no impression on him. He continued to back away, his
eyes apparently fixed on some object of horror just before him, while he
trembled to such a degree that I was shaken in the saddle. He attempted
several times to wheel round and run away, but I was determined not to
yield to him, and continued the contest. Suddenly, when I was beginning
to despair of getting home by that road, he sprang forward, and
regularly charged the (to me) invisible object before him, and in
another moment, when he had apparently passed it, taking the bit between
his teeth he almost flew over the ground, never pausing till he brought
me to my own door. When I dismounted his terror seemed gone, but he hung
his head in a dejected manner, like a horse that has been under the
saddle all day. I have never witnessed another such instance of almost
maddening fear. His terror and apprehension were like what we can
imagine a man experiencing at sight of a ghost in some dark solitary
place.

Yet he did not forcibly carry me away from it, as he might so easily
have done; but, finding himself maintained by a "nature superior to his
own," he preferred to face it. I have never met in the dog a more
striking example of this noblest kind of brute courage. The incident did
not impress me very much at the moment, but when I came to reflect that
my sight was mere blindness compared with that of my horse, and that it
was not likely his imagination clothed any familiar natural object with
fantastic terrors, it certainly did impress me very deeply.

I am loth to finish with, my subject, in which, to express myself in the
manner of the gauchos, I have passed over many matters, like good grass
and fragrant herbs the galloping horse sniffs at but cannot stay to
taste; and especially loth to conclude with this last incident, which
has in it an element of gloom. I would rather first go back for a few
moments to my original theme--the pleasures of riding, for the sake of
mentioning a species of pleasure my English reader has probably never
tasted or even heard of. When riding by night on the pampas, I used to
enjoy lying back on my horse till my head and shoulders rested well on
his back, my feet also being raised till they pressed against his neck;
and in this position, which practice can make both safe and comfortable,
gaze up into the starry sky. To enjoy this method of riding thoroughly,
a sure-footed unshod horse with perfect confidence in his rider is
necessary; and he must be made to go at a swift and smooth pace over
level grassy ground. With these conditions the sensation is positively
delightful. Nothing of earth is visible, only the vast circle of the
heavens glittering with innumerable stars; the muffled sound of the
hoofs on the soft sward becomes in fancy only the rushing of the wings
of our Pegasus, while the enchanting illusion that we are soaring
through space possesses the mind. Unfortunately, however, this method of
riding is impracticable in England. And, even if people with enthusiasm
enough could be found to put it in practice by importing swift
light-footed Arabian or pampa horses, and careering about level parks on
dark starry nights, probably a shout of derision would be raised against
so undignified a pastime.

_Apropos_ of dignity, I will relate, in conclusion, an incident in my
London life which may possibly interest psychologists. Some time ago in
Oxford Street I got on top of an omnibus travelling west. My mind was
preoccupied, I was anxious to get home, and, in an absent kind of way, I
became irritated at the painfully slow rate of progress. It was all an
old familiar experience, the deep thought, lessening pace, and
consequent irritation. The indolent brute I imagined myself riding was,
as usual, taking advantage of his rider's abstraction; but I would soon
"feelingly persuade" him that I was not so far gone as to lose sight of
the difference between a swinging gallop and a walk. So, elevating my
umbrella, I dealt the side of the omnibus a sounding blow, very much to
the astonishment of my fellow-passengers. So overgrown are we with
usages, habits, tricks of thought and action springing from the soil we
inhabit; and when we have broken away and removed ourselves far from it,
so long do the dead tendrils still cling to us!




CHAPTER XXIV,

SEEN AND LOST,


We can imagine what the feelings of a lapidary would be--an enthusiast
whose life is given to the study of precious stones, and whose sole
delight is in the contemplation of their manifold beauty--if a stranger
should come in to him, and, opening his hand, exhibit a new unknown gem,
splendid as ruby or as sapphire, yet manifestly no mere variety of any
familiar stone, but differing as widely from all others as diamond from
opal or cat's-eye; and then, just when he is beginning to rejoice in
that strange exquisite loveliness, the hand should close and the
stranger, with a mocking smile on his lips, go forth and disappear from
sight in the crowd. A feeling such as that would be is not unfrequently
experienced by the field naturalist whose favoured lot it is to live in
a country not yet "thoroughly worked out," with its every wild
inhabitant scientifically named, accurately described, and skilfully
figured in some colossal monograph. One swift glance of the practised
eye, ever eagerly searching for some new-thing, and he knows that here
at length is a form never previously seen by him; but his joy is perhaps
only for a few moments, and the prize is snatched from sight for ever.
The lapidary might have some doubts; he might think that the stranger
had, after all, only mocked him with the sight of a wonderful artificial
gem, and that a close examination would have proved its worthlessness;
but the naturalist can have no doubts: if he is an enthusiast, well
acquainted with the fauna of his district, and has good eyesight, he
knows that there is no mistake; for there it is, the new strange form,
photographed by instantaneous process on his mind, and there it will
remain, a tantalizing image, its sharp lines and fresh colouring
unblurred by time.

Walking in some open forest glade, he may look up just in time to see a
great strange butterfly--a blue Morpho, let us say, wandering in some
far country where this angel insect is unknown--passing athwart his
vision with careless, buoyant flight, the most sylph-like thing in
nature, and all blue and pure like its aerial home, but with a more
delicate and wonderful brilliance in its cerulean colour, giving such
unimaginable glory to its broad airy wings; and then, almost before his
soul has had time to feel its joy, it may soar away unloitering over the
tall trees, to be seen no more.

But the admiration, the delight, and the desire are equally great, and
the loss just as keenly felt, whether the strange species seen happens
to be one surpassingly beautiful or not. Its newness is to the
naturalist its greatest attraction. How beautiful beyond all others
seems a certain small unnamed brown bird to my mind! So many years have
passed and its image has not yet grown dim; yet I saw it only for a few
moments, when it hopped out from, the thick foliage and perched within
two or three yards of me, not afraid, but only curious; and after
peering at me first with one eye and then the other, and wiping its
small dagger on a twig, it flew away and was seen no more. For many days
I sought for it, and for years waited its reappearance, and it was more
to me than ninety and nine birds which I had always known; yet it was
very modest, dressed in a brown suit, very pale on the breast and white
on the throat, and for distinction a straw-coloured stripe over the
eye--that ribbon which Queen Nature bestows on so many of her feathered
subjects, in recognition, I suppose, of some small and common kind of
merit. If I should meet with it in a collection I should know it again;
only, in that case it would look plain and homely to me--this little
bird that for a time made all others seem unbeautiful.

Even a richer prize may come in sight for a brief period--one of the
nobler mammalians, which are fewer in number, and bound to earth like
ourselves, and therefore so much better known than the wandering
children of air. In. some secluded spot, resting amidst luxuriant
herbage or forest undergrowth, a slight rustling makes us start, and,
lo! looking at us from the clustering leaves, a strange face; the
leaf-like ears erect, the dark eyes round with astonishment, and the
sharp black nose twitching and sniffing audibly, to take in the
unfamiliar flavour of a human presence from the air, like the pursed-up
and smacking lips of a wine-drinker tasting a new vintage. No sooner
seen than gone, like a dream, a phantom, the quaint furry face to be
thereafter only an image in memory.

Sometimes the prize may be a very rich one, and actually within reach of
the hand--challenging the hand, as it were, to grasp it, and yet
presently slip away to be seen no more, although it maybe sought for day
after day, with a hungry longing comparable to that of some poor tramp
who finds a gold doubloon in the forest, and just when he is beginning
to realize all that it means to him drops it in the grass and cannot
find it again. There is not the faintest motion in the foliage, no
rustle of any dry leaf, and yet we know that something has
moved--something has come or has gone; and, gazing fixedly at one spot,
we suddenly see that it is still there, close to us, the pointed
ophidian head and long neck, not drawn back and threatening, but sloping
forward, dark and polished as the green and purple weed-stems springing
from marshy soil, and with an irregular chain of spots extending down
the side. Motionless, too, as the stems it is; but presently the tongue,
crimson and glistening, darts out and flickers, like a small jet of
smoke and flame, and is withdrawn; then the smooth serpent head drops
down, and the thing is gone.

How I saw and lost the noble wrestling frog has been recounted in
Chapter IV.: other tantalizing experiences of the same kind remain to be
told in the present chapter, which is not intended for the severe
naturalist, but rather for such readers as may like to hear something
about the pains and pleasures of the seeker as well as the result of the
seeking.

One of my earliest experiences of seeing and losing relates to a
humming-bird--a veritable "jewel of ornithology." I was only a boy at
the time, but already pretty well acquainted with the birds of the
district I lived in, near La Plata River, and among them were three
species of the hummingbird. One spring day I saw a fourth--a wonderful
little thing, only half as big as the smallest of the other three--the
well-known Phaithornis splendens--and scarcely larger than a bumble-bee.
I was within three feet of it as it sucked at the flowers, suspended
motionless in the air, the wings appearing formless and mist-like from
their rapid vibratory motion, but the rest of the upper plumage was seen
distinctly as anything can be seen. The head and neck and upper part of
the back were emerald green, with the metallic glitter usually seen in
the burnished scale-like feathers of these small birds; the lower half
of the back was velvet-black; the tail and tail-coverts white as snow.
On two other occasions, at intervals of a few days, I saw this brilliant
little stranger, always very near, and tried without success to capture
it, after which, it disappeared from the plantation. Four years later I
saw it once again not far from the same place. It was late in summer,
and I was out walking on the level plain where the ground was carpeted
with short grass, and nothing else grew there except a solitary stunted
cardoou thistle-bush with one flower on its central stem above the
grey-green artichoke-like leaves. The disc of the great thorny blossom
was as broad as that of a sunflower, purple in colour, delicately
frosted with white; on this flat disc several insects were
feeding--flies, fireflies, and small wasps--and I paused for a few
minutes in my walk to watch them. Suddenly a small misty object flew
swiftly downwards past my face, and paused motionless in the air an inch
or two above the rim of the flower. Once more my lost humming-bird,
which I remembered so well! The exquisitely graceful form, half circled
by the misty moth-like wings, the glittering green and velvet-black
mantle, and snow-white tail spread open like a fan--there it hung like a
beautiful bird-shaped gem suspended by an invisible gossamer thread.
One--two--three moments passed, while I gazed, trembling with rapturous
excitement, and then, before I had time to collect my faculties and make
a forlorn attempt to capture it with my hat, away it flew, gliding so
swiftly on the air that form and colour were instantly lost, and in
appearance it was only an obscure grey line traced rapidly along the
low sky and fading quickly out ol sight. And that was the last I ever
saw of it.

The case of this small "winged gem," still wandering nameless in the
wilds, reminds me of yet another bird seen and lost, also remarkable for
its diminutive size. For years I looked for it, and when the wished-for
opportunity came, and it was in my power to secure it, I refrained; and
Fate punished me by never permitting me to see it again. On several
occasions while riding on the pampas I had caught glimpses of this
minute bird flitting up mothlike, with uncertain tremulous flight, and
again dipping into the weeds, tall grass, or thistles. Its plumage was
yellowish in hue, like sere dead herbage, and its extremely slender body
looked longer and slimmer than it was, owing to the great length of its
tail, or of the two middle tail-feathers. I knew that it was a
Synallaxis--a genus of small birds of the Woodhewer family. Now, as I
have said in a former chapter, these are wise little birds, more
interesting--I had almost said more beautiful--in their wisdom, or
wisdom-simulating instincts, than the quatzel in its resplendent green,
or the cock-of-the-rock in its vivid scarlet and orange mantle. Wrens
and mocking-birds have melody for their chief attraction, and the name
of each kind is, to our minds, also the name of a certain kind of sweet
music; we think of swifts and swallows in connection with the mysterious
migratory instinct; and humming-birds have a glittering mantle, and the
miraculous motions necessary to display its ever-changing iridescent
beauty. In like manner, the homely Dendrocolaptidae possess the genius
for building, and an account of one of these small birds without its
nest would be like a biography of Sir Christopher Wren that made no
mention of his works. It was not strange then that when I saw this small
bird the question rose to my mind, what kind of nest does it build?

One morning in the month of October, the great breeding-time for birds
in the Southern Hemisphere, while cautiously picking my way through a
bed of eardoon bushes, the mysterious little creature flitted up and
perched among the clustering leaves quite near to me. It uttered a
feeble grasshopper-like chirp; and then a second individual, smaller,
paler-coloured, and if possible shyer than the first, showed itself for
two or three seconds, after which both birds dived once more into
concealment. How glad I was to see them! for here they were, male and
female, in a suitable spot in my own fields, where they evidently meant
to breed. Every day after that I paid them one cautious visit, and by
waiting from five to fifteen minutes, standing motionless among the
thistles, I always succeeded in getting them to show themselves for a
few moments. I could easily have secured them then, but my wish was to
discover their nesting habits; and after watching for some days, I was
rewarded by finding their nest; then for three days more I watched it
slowly progressing towards completion, and each time I approached it one
of the small birds would flit out to vanish into the herbage. The
structure was about six inches long, and not more than two inches in
diameter, and was placed horizontally on a broad stiff eardoon leaf,
sheltered by other leaves above. It was made of the finest dry grass
loosely woven, and formed a simple perfectly straight tube, open at both
ends. The aperture was so small that I could only insert my little
finger, and the bird could not, of course, have turned round in so
narrow a passage, and so always went in at one end and left by the
other. On visiting the spot on the fourth day I found, to my intense
chagrin, that the delicate fabric had been broken and thrown down by
some animal; also, that the birds had utterly vanished--for I sought
them in vain, both there and in every weedy and thistly spot in the
neighbourhood. The bird without the nest had seemed a useless thing to
possess; now, for all my pains, I had only a wisp of fine dry grass in
my hand, and no bird. The shy, modest little creature, dwelling
violet-like amidst clustering leaves, and even when showing itself still
"half-hidden from the eye," was thereafter to be only a tantalizing
image in memory. Still, my case was not so hopeless as that of the
imagined lapidary; for however rare a species may be, and near to its
final extinction, there must always be many individuals existing, and I
was cheered by the thought that I might yet meet with one at some future
time. And, even if this particular species was not to gladden my sight
again, there were others, scores and hundreds more, and at any moment I
might expect to see one shining, a living gem, on Nature's open extended
palm.

Sometimes it has happened that an animal would have been overlooked or
passed by with scant notice, to be forgotten, perhaps, but for some
singular action or habit which has instantly given it a strange
importance, and made its possession desirable.

I was once engaged in the arduous and monotonous task of driving a large
number of sheep a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, in
excessively hot weather, when sheep prefer standing still to travelling.
Five or six gauchos were with me, and we were on the southern pampas of
Buenos Ayres, near to a long precipitous stony sierra which rose to a
height of five or six hundred feet above the plain. Who that has
travelled for eighteen days on a dead level in a broiling sun can resist
a hill? That sierra was more sublime to us than Conon-dagua, than
Illimani.

Leaving the sheep, I rode to it with three of the men; aad after
securing our horses on the lower slope, we began our laborious ascent.
Now the gaucho when taken from his horse, on which he lives like a kind
of parasite, is a very slow-moving creature, and I soon left my friends
far behind. Coming to a place where ferns and flowering herbage grew
thick, I began to hear all about me sounds of a character utterly unlike
any natural sound I was acquainted with--innumerable low clear voices
tinkling or pealing like minute sweet-toned, resonant bells--for the
sounds were purely metallic and perfectly bell-like. I was completely
ringed round with the mysterious music, and as I walked it rose and sank
rhythmically, keeping time to my steps. I stood still, and immediately
the sounds ceased. I took a step forwards, and again the fairy-bells
were set ringing, as if at each step my foot touched a central meeting
point of a thousand radiating threads, each thread attached to a peal of
little bells hanging concealed among the herbage. I waited for my
companions, and called their attention to the phenomenon, and to them
also it was a thing strange and perplexing. "It is the bell-snake!"
cried one excitedly. This is the rattle-snake; but although at that time
I had no experience of this reptile, I knew that he was wrong. Yet how
natural the mistake! The Spanish name of "bell-snake" had made him
imagine that the whirring sound of the vibrating rattles, resembling
muffled cicada music, is really bell-like in character. Eventually we
discovered that the sound was made by grasshoppers; but they were seen
only to be lost, for I could not capture one, so excessively shy and
cunning had the perpetual ringing of their own little tocsins made them.
And presently I had to return to my muttons; and afterwards there was no
opportunity of revisiting the spot to observe so singular a habit again
and collect specimens. It was a very slender grasshopper, about an inch
and a half long, of a uniform, tawny, protective colour--the colour of
an old dead leaf. It also possessed a protective habit common to most
grasshoppers, of embracing a slender vertical stem with its four fine
front legs, and moving cunningly round so as to keep the stem always in
front of it to screen itself from sight. Only other grasshoppers are
silent when alarmed, and the silence and masking action are related, and
together prevent the insect from being detected. But this particular
species, or race, or colony, living on the sides of the isolated sierra,
had acquired a contrary habit, resembling a habit of gregarious birds
and mammals. For this informing sound (unless it mimicked some
_warning-sound,_ as of a rattlesnake, which it didn't) could not
possibly be beneficial to individuals living alone, as grasshoppers
generally do, but, on the contrary, only detrimental; and such a habit
was therefore purely for the public good, and could only have arisen in
a species that always lived in communities.

On another occasion, in the middle of the hot season, I was travelling
alone across-country in a locality which was new to me, a few leagues
east of La Plata River, in its widest part. About eleven o'clock in the
morning I came to a low-lying level plain where the close-cropped grass
was vivid green, although elsewhere all over the country the vegetation
was scorched and dead, and dry as ashes. The ground being so favourable,
I crossed this low plain at a swinging gallop, and in about thirty
minutes' time. In that half-hour I saw a vast number of snakes, all of
one kind, and a species new to me; but my anxiety to reach my
destination before the oppressive heat of the afternoon made me hurry
on. So numerous were the snakes in that green place that frequently I
had as many as a dozen in sight at one time. It looked to me like a
coronelia--harmless colubrine snakes--but was more than twice as large
as either of the two species of that genus I was already familiar with.
In size they varied greatly, ranging from two to fully five feet in
length, and the colour was dull yellow or tan, slightly lined and
mottled with shades of brown. Among dead or partially withered grass and
herbage they would have been undistinguishable at even a very short
distance, but on the vivid green turf they were strangely conspicuous,
some being plainly visible forty or fifty yards away; and not one was
seen coiled up. They were all lying motionless, stretched out full
length, and looking like dark yellow or tan-coloured ribbons, thrown on
to the grass. It was most unusual to see so many snakes together,
although not surprising in the circumstances. The December heats had
dried up all the watercourses and killed the vegetation, and made the
earth hard and harsh as burnt bricks; and at such times snakes,
especially the more active non-venomous kinds, will travel long
distances, in their slow way, in search of water. Those I saw during my
ride had probably been attracted by the moisture from a large area of
country; and although there was no water, the soft fresh grass must have
been grateful to them. Snakes are seen coiled up when they are at home;
when travelling and far afield, they lie as a rule extended full length,
even when resting--and they are generally resting. Pausing at length,
before quitting this green plain, to give my horse a minute's rest, I
got off and approached a large snake; but when I was quite twelve yards
from it, it lifted its head, and, turning deliberately round, came
rather swiftly at me. I retreated, and it followed, until, springing on
to my horse, I left it, greatly surprised at its action, and beginning
to think that it must be venomous. As I rode on the feeling of surprise
increased, conquering haste; and in the end, seeing more snakes, I
dismounted and approached the largest, when exactly the same thing
occurred again, the snake rousing itself and coming angrily at me when I
was still (considering the dull lethargic character of the deadliest
kinds) at an absurd distance from it. Again and again I repeated the
experiment, with the same result. And at length I stunned one with a
blow of my whip to examine its mouth, but found no poison-fangs in it.

I then resumed my journey, expecting to meet with more snakes of the
same kind at my destination; but there were none, and very soon business
called me to a distant place, and I never met with this species
afterwards. But when I rode away from that green spot, and was once more
on the higher, desolate, wind-swept plain surrounding it--a rustling sea
of giant thistles, still erect, although dead, and red as rust, and
filling the hot blue sky with silvery down--it was with a very strange
feeling. The change from the green and living to the dead and dry and
dusty was so great! There seemed to be something mysterious,
extra-natural, in that low level plain, so green and fresh and snaky,
where my horse's hoofs had made no sound--a place where no man dwelt,
and no cattle pastured, and no wild bird folded its wing. And the
serpents there were not like others--the mechanical coiled-up thing we
know, a mere bone-and-muscle man-trap, set by the elements, to spring
and strike when trodden on: but these had a high intelligence, a lofty
spirit, and were filled with a noble rage and astonishment that any
other kind of creature, even a man, should venture there to disturb
their sacred peace. It was a fancy, born of that sense of mystery which
the unknown and the unusual in nature wakes in us--an obsolescent
feeling that still links us to the savage. But the simple fact was
wonderful enough, and that has been set down simply and apart from all
fancies. If the reader happens not to be a naturalist, it is right to
tell him that a naturalist cannot exaggerate consciously; and if he be
capable of unconscious exaggeration, then ho is no naturalist. He
should hasten "to join the innumerable caravan that moves" to the
fantastic realms of romance. Looking at the simple fact scientifically,
it was a case of mimicry--the harmless snake mimicking the fierce
threatening gestures and actions proper to some deadly kind. Only with
this difference: the venomous snake, of all deadly things in nature, is
the slowest to resentment, the most reluctant to enter into a quarrel;
whereas in this species angry demonstrations were made when the intruder
was yet far off, and before he had shown any hostile intentions.

My last case--the last, that is, of the few I have selected--relates to
a singular variation in the human species. On this occasion I was again
travelling alone in a strange district on the southern frontier of
Buenos Ayres. On a bitterly cold midwinter day, shortly before noon, I
arrived, stiff and tired, at one of those pilgrims' rests on the
pampas--a wayside _pulperia,_ or public house, where the traveller can
procure anything he may require or desire, from a tumbler of Brazilian
rum to make glad his heart, to a poncho, or cloak of blue cloth with
fluffy scarlet lining, to keep him warm o' nights; and, to speed him on
his way, a pair of cast-iron spurs weighing six pounds avoirdupois, with
rowels eight inches in diameter, manufactured in this island for the use
of barbarous men beyond the sea. The wretched mud-and-grass building was
surrounded by a foss crossed by a plank drawbridge; outside of the
enclosure twelve or fourteen saddled horses were standing, and from the
loud noise of talk and laughter in the bar I conjectured that a goodly
company of rough frontiersmen were already making merry at that early
hour. It was necessary for me to go in among them to see the proprietor
of the place and ask permission to visit his kitchen in order to make
myself a "tin of coffee," that being the refreshment I felt inclined
for. When I went in and made my salutation, one man wheeled round square
before me, stared straight into my oyes, and in an exceedingly
high-pitched reedy or screechy voice and a sing-song tone returned my
"good morning," and bade me call for the liquid I loved best at his
expense. I declined with thanks, and in accordance with gaucho etiquette
added that I was prepared to pay for his liquor. It was then for him to
say that he had already been served and so let the matter drop, but he
did not do so: he screamed out in his wild animal voice that he would
take gin. I paid for his drink, and would, I think, have felt greatly
surprised at his strange insolent behaviour, so unlike that of the
usually courteous gaucho, but this thing affected me not at all, so
profoundly had his singular appearance and voice impressed me; and for
the rest of the time I remained in the place I continued to watch him
narrowly. Professor Huxley has somewhere said, "A variation frequently
occurs, but those who notice it take no care about noting down the
particulars." That is not a failing of mine, and this is what I noted
down while the man's appearance was still fresh in memory. He was about
five feet eleven inches in height--very tall for a gaucho--straight and
athletic, with exceedingly broad shoulders, which made his round head
look small; long arms and huge hands. The round flat face, coarse black
hair, swarthy reddish colour, and smooth hairless cheeks seemed to show
that he had more Indian than Spanish blood in him, while his round black
eyes were even more like those of a rapacious animal in expression than
in the pure-blooded Indian. He also had the Indian or half-breed's
moustache, when that natural ornament is permitted to grow, and which is
composed of thick bristles standing out like a cat's whiskers. The mouth
was the marvellous feature, for it was twice the size of an average
mouth, and the two lips were alike in thickness. This mouth did not
smile, but snarled, both when he spoke and when he should have smiled;
and when he snarled the wliolo of his teeth and a part of the gums were
displayed. The teeth were not as in other human beings--incisors,
canines, and molars: they were all exactly alike, above and below, each
tooth a gleaming white triangle, broad at the gum where it touched its
companion teeth, and with a point sharp as the sharpest-pointed dagger.
They were like the teeth of a shark or crocodile. I noticed that when he
showed them, which was very often, they were not set together as in
dogs, weasels, and other savage snarling animals, but apart, showing the
whole terrible serration in the huge red mouth.

After getting his gin he joined in the boisterous conversation with the
others, and this gave me an opportunity of studying his face for several
minutes, all the time with a curious feeling that I had put myself into
a cage with a savage animal of horrible aspect, whose instincts were
utterly unknown to me, and were probably not very pleasant. It was
interesting to note that whenever one of the others addressed him
directly, or turned to him when speaking, it was with a curious
expression, not of fear, but partly amusement and partly something else
which I could not fathom. Now, one might think that this was natural
enough purely on account of the man's extraordinary appearance. I do not
think that a sufficient explanation; for however strange a man's
appearance may be, his intimate friends and associates soon lose all
sense of wonder at his strangeness, and even forget that he is unlike
others. My belief is that this curiosity, or whatever it was they showed
in their faces, was due to something in his character--a mental
strangeness, showing itself at unexpected times, and which might flash,
out at any moment to amuse or astonish them. There was certainly a
correspondence between the snarling action of the mouth and the
dangerous form of the teeth, perfect as that in any snarling animal; and
such animals, it should be remembered, snarl not only when angry and
threatening, but in their playful moods as well. Other and more
important correspondences or correlations might have existed; and the
voice was certainly unlike any human voice I have ever heard, whether in
white, red, or black man. But the time I had for observation was short,
the conversation revealed nothing further, and by-and-by I went away in
search of the odorous kitchen, where there would be hot water for
coffee, or at all events cold water and a kettle, and materials for
making a fire--to wit, bones of dead cattle, "buffalo chips," and rancid
fat.

I have never been worried with the wish, or ambition to be a head-hunter
in the Dyak sense, but on this one occasion I did wish that it had been
possible, without violating any law, or doing anything to a
fellow-creature which I should not like done to myself, to have obtained
possession of this man's head, with its set of unique and terrible
teeth. For how, in the name of Evolution, did he come by them, and by
other physical peculiarities--the snarling habit and that high-pitched
animal voice, for instance--which made him a being different from
others--one separate and far apart? Was he, so admirably formed, so
complete and well-balanced, merely a freak of nature, to use an
old-fashioned phrase--a sport, or spontaneous individual variation--an
experiment for a new human type, imagined by Nature in some past period,
inconceivably long ago, but which she had only now, too late, found time
to carry out? Or rather was he like that little hairy maiden exhibited
not long ago in London, a reproduction of the past, the mystery called
reversion--a something in the life of a species like memory in the life
of an individual, the memory which suddenly brings back to the old man's
mind the image of his childhood? For no dream-monster in human form ever
appeared to me with so strange and terrible a face; and this was no
dream but sober fact, for I saw and spoke with this man; and unless cold
steel has given him his quietus, or his own horse has crushed him, or a
mad bull sored him--all natural forms of death in that wild land--he is
probably still living and in the prime of life, and perhaps at this very
moment drinking gin at some astonished traveller's expense at that very
bar where I met him. The old Palaeolithic man, judging from the few
remains we have of him, must have had an unspeakably savage and, to our
way of thinking, repulsive and horrible aspect, with his villainous low
receding forehead, broad nose, great projecting upper jaw, and
retreating chin; to meet such a man face to face in Piccadilly would
frighten a nervous person of the present time. But his teeth were not
unlike our own, only very much larger and more powerful, and well
adapted to their work of masticating the flesh, underdone and possibly
raw, of mammoth and rhinoceros. If, then, this living man recalls a type
of the past, it is of a remoter past, a more primitive man, the volume
of whose history is missing from the geological record. To speculate on
such a subject seems idle and useless; and when I coveted possession of
that head it was not because I thought that it might lead to any fresh
discovery. A lower motive inspired the feeling. I wished for it only
that I might bring it over the sea, to drop it like a new apple of
discord, suited to the spirit of the times, among the anthropologists
and evolutionists generally of this old and learned world. Inscribed, of
course, "To the most learned," but giving no locality and no
particulars. I wished to do that for the pleasure--not a very noble kind
of pleasure, I allow--of witnessing from some safe hiding-place the
stupendous strife that would have ensued--a battle more furious, lasting
and fatal to many a brave knight of biology, than was ever yet fought
over any bone or bony fragment or fabric ever picked up, including the
celebrated cranium of the Neanderthal.




APPENDIX.

THE PUMA, OR LION OF AMERICA.


The following passage occurs in an article on "The Naturalist in La
Plata," by the late Professor Piomanes, which appeared in the
_Nineteenth Century,_ May, 1893. After quoting the account of the puma's
habits and character given in the book, the writer says:--"I have
received corroboration touching all these points from a gentleman who,
when walking alone and unarmed on the skirts of a forest, was greatly
alarmed by a large puma coming out to meet him. Deeming it best not to
stand, he advanced to meet the animal, which thereupon began to gambol
around his feet and rub against his legs, after the manner of an
affectionate cat. At first he thought these movements must have been
preliminary to some peculiar mode of attack, and therefore he did not
respond, but walked quietly on, until the puma suddenly desisted and
re-entered the forest. This gentleman says that, until the publication
of Mr. Hudson's book, he had always remained under the impression that
that particular puma must have been insane."

MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE.

I have found among my papers the following mislaid note on the subject
of sportive displays of mammalians, which should have been used on page
281, where the subject is briefly treated:--Most mammalians are
comparatively silent and live on the ground, and not having the power to
escape easily, which birds have, and being more persecuted by man, they
do not often disport themselves unrestrainedly in his presence; it is
difficult to watch any wild animal without the watcher's presence being
known or suspected. Nevertheless, their displays are not so rare as we
might imagine. I have more than once detected species, with which I was,
or imagined myself to be, well acquainted, disporting themselves in a
manner that took me completely by surprise. While out tinamou shooting
one day in autumn, near my own home in La Plata, I spied a troop of
about a dozen weasels racing madly about over a vizcacha village--the
mound and group of pit-like burrows inhabited by a community of
vizcachas. These weasels were of the large common species, Galictis
barbara, about the size of a cat; and were engaged in a pastime
resembling a complicated dance, and so absorbed were they on that
occasion that they took no notice of me when I walked up to within nine
or ten yards of them, and stood still to watch the performance. They
were all swiftly racing about and leaping over the pits, always doubling
quickly back when the limit of the mound was reached, and although
apparently carried away with excitement, and crossing each other's
tracks at all angles, and this so rapidly and with so many changes of
direction that I became confused when trying to keep any one animal in
view, they never collided nor even came near enough to touch one
another. The whole performance resembled, on a greatly magnified scale
and without its beautiful smoothness and lightning swiftness, the
fantastic dance of small black water-beetles, frequently seen on the
surface of a pool or stream, during which the insects glide about in a
limited area with such celerity as to appear like black curving lines
traced by flying invisible pens; and as the lines everywhere cross and
intersect, they form an intricate pattern on the surface, After watching
the weasel dance for some minutes, I stepped up to the mound, whereupon
the animals became alarmed and rushed pell-mell into the burrows, but
only to reappear in a few seconds, thrusting up their long ebony-black
necks and flat grey-capped heads, snarling chattering at me, glaring
with fierce, beady eyes.




THE STRANGE INSTINCTS OF CATTLE.


In November and December, 1893, a short correspondence appeared in the
_Field_ on the curious subject of "Dogs burying their dead." It arose
through a letter from a Mr. Gould, of Albany, Western Australia,
relating the following incident:--

A settler shot a bitch from a neighbouring estate that had formed the
habit of coming on to his land to visit and play with his dog. The dog,
finding his companion dead, was observed to dig a large hole in the
ground, into which he dragged the carcase; but he did not cover it with
earth. The writer wished to know if any reader of the _Field_ had met
with a similar case. Some notes, which I contributed in reply to this
letter, bear on one of the subjects treated in the chapter on "strange
instincts," namely, the instinct of social animals to protect and shield
their fellows; and for this reason I have thought it best to reproduce
them in this place.

I remember on one occasion watching at intervals, for an entire day, a
large and very savage dog keeping watch over the body of a dead bitch
that had been shot. He made no attempt to bury the dead animal, but he
never left it. He was observed more than once trying to drag the body
away, doubtless with the intention of hiding it; not succeeding in these
attempts, he settled down by its side again, although it was evident
that he was suffering greatly from thirst and heat. It was at last only
with the greatest trouble that the people of the house succeeded in
getting the body away and burying it out of his sight.

Another instance, more to the point, occurred at my own house on the
pampas, and I was one of several persons who witnessed it. A small, red,
long-haired bitch--a variety of the common native cur--gave birth to
four or five pups. A peon was told to destroy them, and, waiting until
the bitch was out of sight, he carried them off to the end of the
orchard, some 400 or 500 yards from the house, and threw them into a
pool of water which was only two to three feet deep. The bitch passed
the rest of the day in rushing frantically about, searching for her
young, and in the evening, a little after dark, actually succeeded in
finding them, although they were lying at the bottom of the pool. She
got them all out, and carried them, one by one, to another part of the
grounds, where she passed the night with them, uttering at intervals the
most piercing cries. In the morning she carried them to still another
spot, where there was a soft mould, and then dug a hole large and deep
enough to bury them all, covering them over with the loose earth. Her
task done, she returned to the house to sleep all day, but when night
came again the whole piteous performance was repeated: the pups were dug
up, and she passed the long, piercingly cold night--for it was in the
depth of winter--trying to keep them warm, and uttering, as before,
distressing cries. Yet a third time the whole thing was repeated; but
after the third night, when the dog came home to sleep, the dead pups
were taken out of the ground and buried at a distance.

Such an action as this strikes one with astonishment only because we
have the custom of burying our dead, and are too ready at all times to
regard the dog as human-like. But the explanation of the action in this
case is to be found in the familiar fact that very many animals,
including the dog, have the habit or instinct of burying or concealing
the thing they wish to leave in safety. Thus, the dog buries the bone it
does not want to eat, and when hungry digs it up again. When a dog
buries or hides the dead body of the she dog it was attached to, or the
she dog buries her dead young, it is with the same motive--namely, to
conceal the animal that cannot be roused, and that it would not be safe
to leave exposed.

It is plain to all who observe their actions that the lower animals have
no comprehension of death. In the case of two animals that are
accustomed to play or to be much together, if one dies, or is killed,
and its body left, the other will come to sniff at, touch, and at last
try to rouse it; but finding all attempts vain, it will at length go
away to seek companionship elsewhere. In cases where the attachment is
much stronger, the dead body may be watched over for an indefinite
period. A brother of mine once related to me a very pathetic incident
which occurred at an estancia on the pampas where he was staying. A
large portion of the land was a low, level, marshy plain, partly
overgrown with reeds and rushes; and one day, in this wilderness, a
little boy of eight or nine, from the estancia, lost himself. A small
dog, his invariable attendant, had gone out with him, but did not
return. Seven days later the poor boy was found, at a great distance
from the house, lying on the grass, where he had died of exhaustion. The
dog was lying coiled up at his side, and appeared to be sleeping; but,
when spoken to, he did not stir, and was presently found to be dead too.
The dog could have gone back at any moment to the estancia, but his
instinct of attachment overcame all others; he kept guard over his
little master, who slept so soundly and so long, until he, too, slept in
the same way.

A still more remarkable case of this kind was given in one of my books,
of a gaucho, accompanied by his dog, who was chased and overtaken by a
troop of soldiers during one of the civil wars in Uruguay. Suspecting
him of being a spy, or, at all events, an enemy, his captors cut his
throat, then rode away, calling to the dog to follow them; but the
animal refused to leave his dead master's side. Returning to the spot a
few days later, they saw the body of the man they had killed surrounded
by a large number of vultures, which the dog, in a frenzy of excitement,
was occupied in keeping at a respectable distance. It was observed that
the dog, after making one of his sallies, driving the birds away with
furious barkings, would set out at a run to a small stream not far from
the spot; but when half way to it he would look back, and, seeing the
vultures advancing once more to the corpse, would rush back to protect
it. The soldiers watched him for some time with great interest, and once
more they tried in vain to get him to follow them. Two days afterwards
they revisited the spot, to find the dog lying dead by the side of his
dead master. I had this story from the lips of one of the witnesses.

In all such cases, whether the dog watches over, conceals, or buries a
dead body, he is doubtless moved by the same instinct which leads him to
safeguard the animal he is attached to--another dog or his human master.
But, as the dead animal is past help, it is, of course, a blunder of the
instinct; and the blunder must be of very much less frequent occurrence
among wild than among domestic animals. In a state of nature, when a
gregarious animal dies, he dies, as a rule, alone; his body is not seen
by his former companions, and he is not missed. When he dies by
violence--which is the common fate--the body is carried off or devoured
by the killer. This being the usual order, there is no instinct, except
in a very few species, relating to the disposal of the dead among
mammals and other vertebrates, such as is found in ants and other social
insects. There are a few mammalians that live together in small
communities, in a habitation made to last for many generations, in which
such an instinct would appear necessary, and it accordingly exists, but
is very imperfect. This is the case with the vizcacha, the large rodent
of the pampas, which lives with its fellows, to the number of twenty or
thirty, in a cluster of huge burrows. When a vizcacha dies in a burrow,
the body is dragged out and thrown on to the mound among the mass of
rubbish collected on it--but not until he has been dead a long time, and
there is nothing left of him but the dry bones held together by the
skin. In that condition the other members of the community probably
cease to look on him as one of their companions who has fallen into a
long sleep; he is no more than so much rubbish, which must be cleared
out of an old disused burrow. Probably the beaver possesses some rude
instinct similar to that of the vizcacha.

_Apropos_ of animals burying their treasures (or connections) for
safety, it is worth mentioning that the skunk of the pampas occasionally
buries her young in the kennel, when hunger compels her to go out
foraging. I had often heard of this habit of the female skunk from the
gauchos, and one day had the rare good fortune to witness an animal
engaged in obliterating her own kennel. The senses of the skunk are so
defective that one is able at times to approach very near to without
alarming them. In this instance I sat on my horse at a distance of
twenty yards, and watched the animal at work, drawing in the loose earth
with her fore feet until the entrance to the kennel was filled up to
within three inches of the surface; then, dropping into the shallow
cavity, she pressed the loose mould down with her nose. Her task
finished, she trotted away, and the hollow in the soil, when I examined
it closely, looked only like the mouth of an ancient choked-up burrow.
The young inhabit a circular chamber, lined with fine dry grass, at the
end of a narrow passage from 3 ft. to 5 ft. long, and no doubt have air
enough to serve them until their parent returns; but I believe the skunk
only buries her young when they are very small.











End of Project Gutenberg's The Naturalist in La Plata, by W. H. Hudson