IM
IRLF
I ^ETC
11
LIBRARY
OF "ME.
UNWHSITY
OF
ANIMAL SKETCHES
BY
C. LLOYD MORGAN, F.G.S.
PRINCIPAL OP UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BRISTOL
AUTHOR OF "ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY W. MONKHOUSE ROWE
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.
lisher to tfje Entita ffice
All Rights Reserved
\Vi\
;
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE.
BY
PROFESSOE C. LLOYD MOEGAN, F.G.S.
WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS.
Second Edition. Demy 8vo. 16*.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD.
RICHARP CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LON-DON AND BUNGAY.
PREFACE.
MY object in writing the Animal Sketches collected in this
volume has been rather to stimulate interest, and, if it may
be, to encourage observation, than to impart information.
Seldom have I turned to books in preparing, at sundry times
and in divers places, these sketches ; but hardly ever have I
ventured to write without renewing my acquaintance with
the subject in hand, in the country, at the Zoological Gardens,
or in the Museum. Such information as I do impart can
therefore in most cases be readily verified by any one who
will take the trouble to obtain personal interviews with the
subjects of the sketches. And if I may induce my younger
friends, whom in especial I have had in view, to look with
more observant and intelligent eyes on animals great and
small, from the elephant to the honey-bee, their increased
interest in the world of living things will be my sufficient
reward.
I know not whether I ought to apologize for the familiar
and conversational style which I have adopted or rather, to
speak more accurately, fallen into, for I am not conscious of
having sought out any special style in which to elaborate my
sketches. Nay, rather I have just let eye and hand play
freely and easily over my subject, caring little for detail, and
having no thought of elaboration. My sketches make no
pretence of being either scientific memoirs or literary essays.
As sketches, however, I have tried to make them accurate
and faithful.
It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge my indebtedness to
the Editors and Publishers of Atalanta and Murray's Maga-
zine for their courteous permission to reprint articles which
have appeared in their pages.
C. LLOYD MORGAN.
BRISTOL, November, 1891,
J06735
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
I. THE KING OF BEASTS . . . . . . .9
II. BRUIN THE BEAR ...... ' / .23
HI. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY . . . .37
IV. COUSIN SARAH ....... 53
v. SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS ...... .68
VI. HORNS AND ANTLERS ....... 84
VII. THE MERMAID. . .. . . . . .98
VIII. SEALS AND SEA-LIONS . . ., . - . . .108
IX. AWUK THE WALRUS. . . . ..... 122
X. FLITTERMICE . -. . . .... . . 131
XI. MASTER IMPERTINENCE ....... 148
XII. THE OSTRICH ...... . . . . 167
XIII. SNAKES .......... 183
XIV. DWARF LIONS ......... 202
XV. FROGGIES ......... 213
XVI. THORNIES AND TINKERS ...... . 223
XVII. EELS AND ELVERS ........ 235
XVIII. THE HONEY-BEE ........ 251
XIX. SPIDERS ........ . . 273
XX. CRAYFISHES ......... 287
XXI. OYSTERS , . 298
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Walruses Fighting . Frontispiece.
Sight in Darkness 1
A Family Meal 15
Lion's Claws 18
Caught at Last 31
A Clever Beast 35
Stumpy 41
Long-neck 43
Elephant's Tooth from above . 45
Section of Elephant's Tooth . 46
Section of Elephant's Skull . 47
Cousin Sarah 55
After the Bath 63
Proboscis Monkey 72
New World Old World . . 73
Monkey Skulls from Old and
New World 74
Spider Monkey 79
Marmozet 80
Hyoid Bone of Howler Monkey 82
Aye-aye 83
Chamois 87
Lion and Oryx 90
Manatee 99
Caught! 112
The Last Seal A Vision of
the Future 119
Wing of Bat 139
Wing Bones of Duck and Bat 140
Pipistrelle 144
Horse-shoe Bat 145
Long-eared Bat ... . . 145
Feather Tracts 151
Swift Sparrow 155
Gannet Gull Tern Penguin 158
Sparrow Kingfisher Grebe
Woodpecker Lark . . 162
Details of Bird's Wing ... 168
The Ostrich Dance 169
Poison Gland 192
Coral Snake of Brazil .... 197
Monkeys and Dead Snake . . 199
Chameleon . 204
Frog 215
Toad 218
The Tinker's Nest 231
An Unwelcome Capture ... 247
Touch-hair of Insect .... 260
Leg of Grasshopper 266
Eyes and Eyelets of Bee . . . 267
Eye of Fly 268
Diagram of Mosaic Vision . . 269
Spider's Web 277
Crayfish 288
Oyster 303
Fresh-water Mussel . . 309
IGHT IN DMlNESS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
ANIMATKETOHES
INTRODUCTION.
" world as God lias made it ! All is beauty.
And knowing this is love, and love is duty."
Guardian Angel.
11 This world's no blot for us
Nor blank it means intensely, and means good.
To find its meaning is my meat and drink."
Fra Lippo Lippi.
I WISH to advocate for all young folk the claims of the
study of nature. By the study of nature I mean, not the
poring over books on science, nor minute investigations in
the laboratory or the museum, but the habit of taking an
interest earnest, deep, and real in all natural objects
2 ANIMAL SKETCHES.
and natural operations. I want you, my young friends, to
be, with Wordsworth's Boy, to every mood of nature,
' ' As sensitive as waters are
To the sky's influence in a kindred mood
Of passion : and obedient as the lute
That waits upon the touches of the wind."
I want you to feel that
"The earth
And common face of nature speak to you
Rememberable things."
And I want you to have an eye ever restless in its search
for the beauty and the wonder of the world
" An eye
Which from a tree, a stone, a withered leaf,
To the broad ocean and the azure heavens
Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars,
Could find no surface where its power might sleep."
Do not think, however, that I am advocating the study
of nature to the exclusion of the study of mankind.
Remember that he who wrote the words that I have quoted
wrote also the Two Voices and the Sonnet to Milton.
First of all, then, I would have you cultivate the spirit
of interest for you may cultivate as you may stunt, or
even destroy, the varied germs of your nature. The child
is generally brimful of keenest interest in the natural sights
and sounds of the busy, restless world around him ; and we
may encourage or snub this early tendency of the mind.
The latter is, no doubt, the easier course. Snubbing
requires no knowledge and leaves a comfortable sense of
superiority; encouragement needs more knowledge than
some of us possess. It requires patience and sympathy ;
and since the young philosopher will no doubt press on
INTRODUCTION. 3
with questions which cannot be answered, even by the
wisest of us, there remains, alas ! but little sense of
superiority, nay, rather a sense of distress, that man should
be so ignorant that a child can ask questions in reply to
which we can but answer " I do not know."
But some will say " May not snubbing after all be best ?
Who wants his child to spend his life in collecting beetles,
or labelling bits of rock, or spending his time over dried
vegetables ? There are more important things in life than
these to perform." But I have not found that those who
love to understand nature's ways are more liable than
others to leave important things undone, or to do them ill.
Did Charles Kingsley fail in these respects ?
I want you, I even implore you, to cultivate this interest
in, this sympathy with, nature in all her moods and in all
her manifestations. I would have you dull to no aspect
of nature. I would have you know how the clouds are
formed in the sky, and why they sometimes lie in wreaths
on the mountain sides or in the valleys, sometimes form
billowy masses near the earth, sometimes spread out in
long streaks along the horizon, sometimes float in fleecy
fragments in the upper regions of the atmosphere. I
would have you know (from observation and not from
reading only) what the rain-drops are doing in helping to
model the surface of the earth, and what the collected
rain-drops in streams and rivers can effect. I would have
you understand why it is that in different parts of England
you find different kinds of scenery. Why the scenery of
the Isle of Wight differs from that of the Isle of Man,
why the South Downs, the Cotteswolds, the Mendips,
Exmoor, and the mountains of Wales all have their
peculiar and characteristic stamp. Believe me, if you will
be at the pains to learn how the elements of scenery are
constituted, how form is dependent upon structure, you
B 2
4 ANIMAL SKETCHES.
will find your interest and delight in the bays and promon- ,
tories of our coast-line, the hills and valleys of our inland j
districts, increased and deepened many-fold.
I would have you, too, study the trees, and shrubs, and
flowers with which nature invests and decks so lavishly
and so gladly the bare bones of her sculptured scenes.
Don't say that you love the flowers too well to mar the
effects of their beauty by a knowledge of their structure.
Think you that Linnaeus, when he thanked God that he
had been permitted to see the golden gorse, had lost his
love of the beauty of flowers by his knowledge of their
structure ? Depend upon it, that is but half enjoyment
that leaves untouched the intellectual faculties.
And then I would have you observe, with ever-renewed
sympathy, the animal world around you the kitten that
plays about your room ; the dog that gambols round you in
your walks; the horse that lends us so willingly his strength ;
the patient oxen and the " mild and innocent " sheep ; the
hare and the white-tailed rabbit ; even the rats that infest
our barns, and the mice that make us dream of ghosts ;
the domestic fowl and all the choir of woodland songsters ;
the snake that glides through the grass and the lizard that
runs across our path ; the frog that croaks in the ponds
and the ugly jewel-eyed toad ; the fish that dart through
the water ; the sea-anemone that looks like a flower in the
sea-side pools ; the crab, the limpet, and the star-fish' on
the rocks ; the spider in his silken web ; the butterfly that
flits through the summer air, and the bee that, "as he
hums along, seems to be talking heavily of the heat;"
the midges that pester us on summer evenings, and all the
myriad minutiae of insect life. I want you to take an
interest in them all, each in his due degree. Each has his
secret to tell you if you will only learn the language in
which he tells it. But you must listen with sympathetic
INTRODUCTION. 5
ear. Sympathy is one of the great and beautiful bonds of
life to life. Without sympathy you cannot study even a
humble-bee aright. I heard the other day a story, which is
perhaps worth repeating, of a young pupil-teacher who
was dealing in stern severity with a class of somewhat
refractory small urchins. " Don't you think," said a
clergyman standing near, " that you would be more
successful if you showed a little more sympathy ? I am
sure you would lead them to obey you more readily."
" Sir," replied the pupil-teacher, " I bend them to my will."
Now do not, I beg you, go and study nature in that spirit.
It is one of the peculiarities of nature that she will not be
moulded to one's will. One must humour her. If you
refuse to put yourself into sympathy with her, you may as
well let her alone. But if you do go to work sympathetic-
ally that is, moulding your spirit to hers you will
induce her to whisper you the very secrets of her heart.
I am sure that if you will only thus study nature you will
rind that you have added a new joy to life.
Not only so. I am persuaded that your appreciation of
literature will be deepened. In descriptions of nature,
you will be able to distinguish true gold from baser metal.
You will see the force of a hundred analogies, which
would otherwise have escaped you. Our great modern
writers have nearly always been students of nature, and
he only can rightly appreciate their works who is also a
student of nature. \/
It has been said that the antithesis to poetry is not
prose, but science. And there is truth in the saying. A
scientific interpretation of nature often differs widely from
a poetic interpretation of nature. But I trust that it does
not necessarily follow that the man of science is incapable
of appreciating poetry, or that the poet is and must be
antagonistic to scientific investigation. The latter is
6 ANIMAL SKETCHES.
perhaps more frequently the case than the former. But
surely in the richly-varied nature of man there is room for
both poetry and science. A feeling for poetry may save
the man of science from narrowness and a too mechanical
interpretation of nature. A knowledge of scientific
method may save the poet from vagueness and from
wandering too far from the stern facts of existence.
And in the interpretation of nature, no matter at what
point of observation, be it never so minute, you start, you
will be led on in ever-widening circles throughout the
whole broad universe. I have sometimes during one of
the pleasant breathing spaces in the ascent of a Swiss
snow-peak yielded up my mind to the reverie which a single
snow-flake would suggest, and the flake has told me its
story ; has spoken of its former free existence in the ocean
as a minute droplet, of its yet freer aerial life as the winds
bore it mountain-wards, of its crystallization amid the fury
of an Alpine storm, of its coming to rest where I found it ;
and then of its future, the constrained motion in the
glacier, the freedom of the mountain torrent, the stately
flow of the great river in which it will participate, the
final arrival once more in its ocean home. Ail this would
the snow-flake suggest -with a fulness which I need not
here describe, and side avenues of thought would open
out on all sides. Many scenes, for example, does the river }
of which the transformed snow-flake will form a constitu-
ent atom, reflect in the mirror of its broad surface. The
cottage and the hamlet are not less faithfully reflected than
the castle and the populous city ; the sheep in the upland
meadow are as clearly imaged as the deer in the broad-
stretching park ; sloping fields of corn and flax are mirrored
as truly as ancient trees of stately growth. But in the
upper reaches the reflections are only disturbed by the
plash of the ferryman's oars, while nearer the ocean the
INTRODUCTION. ?
screw-blades of the ocean steamer leave a longer and more
troubled track on the waters. From a Swiss snow-flake
to an ocean steamer and all that it carries and implies may
seem a long step, and you will say that it is merely a train
of association of ideas which leads me from the one to the
other. But I believe that this is only another way of
stating the fact that so closely interwoven are the strands
of causation that a perfect knowledge of the snow-flake's
history would involve nothing less than a complete know-
ledge of the universe.
" Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies ;
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is."
And if you are tempted to go deeper, and, following
Tennyson in his poem, to come nearer to the he^rt of
things, it is only in and through a study of nature that you
can hope to understand what has been done during the
last half century in philosophy. Within that time a new
philosophy based on a deeper and wider study of nature
has arisen, and has deeply influenced all our best thought.
Only the student of nature can hope fully to appreciate
its teaching.
O
Lastly, in the study of nature, you will find, I hope, a
deep religious inspiration. On this subject I dare not
speak at length, even if I had here the space, lest per-
chance I should say too little, or too much. Few, I think,
can stand untouched by a deep feeling of reverence in the
presence of the wonders and the mysteries that are opened
up by the study of nature. And here, perhaps, I may be
permitted to reiterate a hope, which I have elsewhere
expressed, that with all our advances in science we shall
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
always keep our hearts open to the simplest and commonest
daily occurrences. " The daily light, fresh as a young child
every morning, and dignified as the mellowness of age at
even," I quote from Dr. James Martineau, "the weari-
ness of nature as she drops her leaves, the glee with which
she hangs them out again, the silver mists of autumn, the
slanting rains of spring, the sweeping lines of drifted snow,
all are as the natural language of God the turns of His
Almighty thought to the spirit that lies open to their
wonder." And again " The modest flower nestling in
the meadow grass ; the happy tree, as it laughs and riots
in the wind ; the moody cloud, knitting its brow in solemn
thought ; the river that has been flowing all night long ;
the sound of the thirsty earth, as it drinks and relishes the
rain. These things are as a full hymn when they flow
from the melody of nature, but an empty rhythm when
scanned by the finger of art "
Again I say, Let us all so live our life that our spirits
may " lie open to the wonder " of these things ; then will
the " empty rhythm " form an integral part of the " melody
of nature " ; then, indeed, shall we be able to feel that
" beneath the dome of this Universe we cannot stand
where the musings of the Eternal Mind do not murmur
round us, and the visions of His loving thought appear."
CHAPTER I.
THE KING OF BEASTS.
" De Lion, lie wuz dere, kaze he wtiz de King, en he hatter be dere.
En w'en de Lion shuck his inane, en tuck his seat in de big cheer, den de
sesshun begun for ter commence." UNCLE REMUS.
Is be king or coward ? That is a question which has
been raised in these later unheroic days. We have been
so accustomed to regard the lion as the type of kingly
magnanimity, that it seems almost like listening to a piece
of impiety when it is suggested that Leo the Magnificent
is in truth a sneaking, cowardly, underhand beast, who
cannot even meet a timid, soft-eyed antelope face to face,
but always attacks his prey from the rear and in the dusky
half-light of evening. And yet this is not only suggested
but maintained with no little show of reason ; by those, too,
who have hunted the lion and seen him in his native
haunts. Dr. Sparrman says : " From all the most credible
accounts that I could collect concerning lions, as well as
from what I saw myself, I think I may safely conclude that
this beast is a great coward." Livingstone also tells us that
nothing he ever learned of the lion could lead him to
attribute to this animal either the ferocious or the noble
character so often ascribed to it ; and he makes invidious
comparisons between the roar of the king of beasts and the
voice of the ostrich ! Selous grants him his roar, considering
10 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
a chorus of lions the grandest sound in nature ; he also, as
does Dr. Sparrman, admits his courage when hungry or
provoked ; but he questions his majesty. " It has always
appeared to me," he says, "that the word majestic is
singularly inappropriate to the lion in its wild state, as
when seen by daylight he always has a stealthy, furtive look
that entirely does away with the idea of majesty. To look
majestic he should hold his head high. This he seldom
does. When at bay, standing with open mouth and gleam-
ing eyes, holding his head low between his shoulders, and
keeping up a continuous low growling, twitching his tail
the while from side to side, no animal can look more
unpleasant than a lion ; but there is nothing majestic or
noble in his appearance." Sir Samuel Baker, however, than
whom there lives no higher authority, says of a lion he
encountered, " He rose majestically as we disturbed him by
our noise in breaking through the bushes." The hunter
put a bullet through his shoulder, rolling him over wounded
but not killed. He proceeded to reload, but the bullet
stuck. In this perplexity his Arab hunter advanced to-
wards the wounded lion, with his drawn sword grasped
firmly in his right hand, while his left held his projected
shield, and thus, unsupported and alone, this determined
fellow marched slowly forward until within a few yards of
the lion, which, instead of rushing to attack, crept like a
coward into impenetrable thorns, and was seen no more.
All this is to some of us very painful. We do not like to
have our heroes even our natural history heroes proved
to be less heroic than we had thought them to be. King
Richard of the Lion's Heart may not have been all that
romance once painted him, but no one has yet accused him
of cowardice. And yet the lion, his symbol and device, is
written down a coward. What a shattering of ideals ! We
have been wont to imagine that the one thing in nature
1. THE KING OF BEASTS. 11
that could quell him was the steady gaze of the human
eye. We have loved to picture the noble hunter, whose gun
has exploded or somehow gone wrong, and who therefore
stands at the mercy of his splendid foe, gazing fearlessly
at the king of beasts, who answers him for a while with a
look as proud, but at last, unable to sustain the concen-
trated power of man's eye, turns and walks majestically
into the thicket. Even as he turns we have fancied the
danger hardly past, for Mr. Bingley tells us that " one
sweep of his tail will throw a strong man to the ground."
Have you ever tried, at a safe distance and through the
bars of a cage, to stare the lion out of countenance ? In my
experience he generally blinks at us sleepily and considers
us beneath his notice. But I lately tried the experiment
on a little wild cat at the Dusseldorf Zoological Gardens,
and can safely say that had it not been for the wire network
I should have had my eyes scratched out for my pains, so
savagely did the little spitfire fly at me. A gentleman
once tried the subduing effect of the human eye on an
ostrich at the Cape. At first he thought that his theory
was shown to be correct, for the bird sat down, flapped
his wings, inflated his neck, and struck its flat stupid
head against its hollow bony body. The etfect could only
have been temporary, however, for the gentleman was
found some hours afterwards lying on his stomach, in such
a position that his eye could no longer quell the stupid
bird, which alternately jumped upon and sat upon his
prostrate body. The great John Hunter, the anatomist,
when his lion got loose at Earl's Court House, and his
friends urged him to retreat to a safe place, trusted not to
the power of his eye, but took out his handkerchief and
flipped the beast back into his den. There is something, I
say, painful in these disclosures. And I went to the Clifton
Gardens the other day thinking mean and democratic
12 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
things of the king of beasts. King of beasts ! Scarce
worthy to be called the king of cats ! But as I stood
before Hannibal the Second perhaps the finest captive
lion in Europe my democratic doubts vanished, and I
became again a royalist pur sang. Whatever may be his
conduct in action, in repose he looks every inch a king.
And many would have us believe that this is now the sole
surviving kingly function. In any case, the king of
beasts in the popular mind the lion is likely to remain.
Many stories are told of the lion's recollection and re-
quital of acts of kindness. One of these I will quote : In
the reign of James the First Mr. Henry Archer, a watch-
maker in Morocco, had two whelps given him, which had
been stolen not long before from a lioness near Mount
Atlas. They were a male and a female ; and till the death of
the latter were kept together in the Emperor's garden. He
at that time had the male constantly in his bedroom, till
it grew as tall as a large mastiff dog ; and the animal was
perfectly tame and gentle in its manners. Being about
to return to England, he reluctantly gave it to a Marseilles
merchant, who presented it to the French king, from whom
it came as a present to our king ; and for seven years
afterwards was kept in the Tower. A person of the name
of Bull, who had been a servant to Mr. Archer, went by
chance with some friends to see the animals there. The
beast recognized him in a moment, and by his whining
voice and motions, expressive of anxiety for him to come
near, fully exhibited the strongest symptoms of joy at
meeting with a former friend. Bull, equally rejoiced,
ordered the keeper to open the grate, and he went in.
The Honed fawned upon him like a dog, licking his feet,
hands, and face, and skipped and tumbled about, to the
astonishment of all the spectators. When the man left
the place the animal bellowed aloud, and shook his cage
i. THE KING OF BEASTS. 13
in an ecstasy of sorrow and rage ; and for four days after-
wards refused to take any nourishment whatever.
It is pleasant to read such stones, pleasanter perhaps
than to be one's self subjected to the blandishments of an
affectionate lion. To have one's face licked by one's
favourite soft-tongued dog requires an amount of affection
at least equal to that of our canine friend. But if you
have ever been licked by a cat you will have felt the
difference between pussy's tongue and Nero's. The lion's
tongue is, like the cat's, provided with a number of horny
spines, by means of which the creature is able, very
effectually, to rasp the meat from a bone. To be licked
by a lion must therefore be something like being caressed
by a warm damp nutmeg grater ; very touching, but hardly
pleasant. The philosophy, or rather the psychology, of
licking would seem to be as follows : There can be little
doubt that the roughened spiny state of the tongue is of
advantage to the cat tribe in cleaning their fur. We
know how particular puss is in this respect. We know
with what maternal fondness she licks her little ones.
Her primary object is cleanliness ; but the affection she
feels becomes associated with the act. And thus licking
becomes an expression of endearment, very pleasant no
doubt to Mr. Lion when coming from his spouse, but a
little embarrassing one would think to mortals.
Of course you have seen the lions fed at the Zoo, and
have noticed how they use the tongue then. Not many
hoAvever have had the good fortune of the Hon. W. H.
Drummond, who was able to watch a lion family enjoying
a quiet meal at home in Africa. He once saw, towards
evening, a lion pick out the leader of a herd of zebras, and
lay the pretty striped creature dead at his feet. Then he
sent forth a splendid and sonorous roar, which was
answered from the direction in which the zebras had come ;
14 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. i.
and soon Mrs. Lion and four whelps came up to join him.
The little ones tore and worried at the dead zebra, but
could not get through the tough skin. Then the lioness
and her whelps politely lay d'own about five yards off, and
waited till the head of the family had eaten a leg ; after
which he in turn retired, and Mrs. Lion took her supper,
while the whelps, quarrelling and snarling and fighting
with each other, picked up a morsel here and there, the
mother taking no notice of them except when they got in
her way, at which times she soundly boxed their ears.
Between them they left little but bones for the hungry
vultures which were hovering near.
Lions as a rule prefer thus to kill their own prey, but
they will sometimes not despise a dead carcase. When
they grow old they often like to hang about the villages
picking up what they can find, and killing goats and sheep,
and if they get a chance, women and children. Hence the
saying, " His teeth are worn ; he will soon kill men/'
The whelps or chits, to use an old term long since
diverted, are, like kittens, born blind, but I am informed
by the keeper at the Clifton Gardens that their eyes are
opened after two days instead of nine as with kittens.
They are delightful, clumsy, kitten-like creatures, and are
spotted, the spots not entirely disappearing for two years
or more. I had an opportunity some little time ago of
fondling one of these little princes, and letting him mumble
my finger in his almost toothless mouth. He was really
the most engaging little fellow. There are generally two
or three, but sometimes as many as five in a litter. On
one occasion a little lion-whelp had tottered forward to
the front of the den, and I patted his head through the
bars. I shall never forget the look which the lioness
gave me as she rose with the utmost dignity, came forward
slowly, took the whelp by the scruff of the neck, and car-
m
j\
I
7
CHAP. i. THE KING OF BEASTS. 17
ried it back to the further end of the den. " How dare
you touch my child ! " she seemed to say, or rather to
look. But Mr Nettleship, who knows lions and how to
paint them, to whom I mentioned this fact, observed, " I
dare say she was mightily afraid of you, and that was the
meaning of her look." So difficult is it to get at the
thoughts of animals. Only a short time ago two little
lions born at Clifton were sent out to some zoological
gardens in India ; which seems a little like sending coals
to Newcastle.
At the age of a year or somewhat earlier they begin to
hunt for themselves, and then do a large amount of mis-
chief, since they kill not only to appease their hunger, but
to learn their trade. Like cats they often play with their
prey, allowing it to escape and pouncing upon it again.
This is often put down to wanton cruelty, but I think
erroneously. The cat or kitten plays with the mouse not
from innate cruelty, but for the sake of getting some
little practice in the most important business of cat life.
Only man, who has the capacity for nobler things, can be
cruel for cruelty's sake.
You cannot watch the lion pacing to and fro in his den
without noticing how like a cat he is, not of course in his
colouring, but in his general build and gait. In the mane
indeed he has an ornament, and more than an ornament,
for it is probably a great protection to the neck in fighting,
to which puss cannot aspire. And it is said that the wild
lion seldom has so fine a mane as those we see in our
zoological gardens and menageries. His tail too has a
tuft of hair at the end, in the midst of which is a sharp
horny spike, with which, according to some old writers,
he goads himself to fury when he lashes his tail against
his flanks. The eye of the lion is much smaller in pro-
portion than that of the cat, and his muzzle is decidedly
c
18 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHA*.
longer. The pupil of the eye, too, is round, and does not
in the half light contract to a narrow slit like that of our
harmless necessary pet. The teeth hardly differ at all
from those of the cat, except in size. They bite up and
down, and the lower jaw cannot be rolled from side to side
like ours, and that of all animals who have to grind their
food. Like the cat too he walks upon his toes, the heel
and wrist being raised well above the ground ; and as in
the puss, so too in the lion, the paws are provided with
LION'S CLAWS.
thick pads or cushions. And he who has seen a cat
stealing stealthily towards a poor innocent bird, with head
held low and body almost touching the ground, has a very
good idea of how the lion approaches his prey before making
the final and generally fatal spring. As in the cat, once
more the great sharp claws are retractile, or can be drawn,
by the beautiful mechanism of a self-acting elastic band,
into sheathes or pouches which protect them from being
worn as the creature walks.
The cats " sharpen their claws," or more probably tear
otf any ragged points, by scratching at the bark of trees.
In South America Darwin noticed trees which had been
I. THE KING OF BEASTS. 19
used for this purpose by the jaguar, and I dare say most of
us have had to rebuke puss for making use of the drawing-
room furniture for this purpose. V
The lion, then, belongs to the great family of cats, of
which there are about fifty existing kinds or species. He
rules in Africa and South- West Asia : while his cousin the
tiger, also admittedly of royal blood, holds his court in
Southern and Eastern Asia. Although these territories
overlap a little in South-West Asia they are in the main
tolerably distinct. Extending into the domain of both
these royal beasts, and having therefore a wider range than
either is the panther or leopard, an arboreal animal which
frequents the forests, while the lion and tiger are found in
jungles and thickets, and seldom or never climb trees.
The leopard may be distinguished at a glance from the
tiger by his smaller size and ring-spotted coat ; for the
tiger is not spotted but striped. A Javan variety of the
leopard is however black, with only the ghosts of spots.
And there is scarcely a more cruel looking beast on
the face of the earth than this black panther with his
treacherous gray-blue eyes. These are the great cats of
the old world.
Not much inferior in size however are the ounce a
large thick-furred cat that lives in the highlands of Central
Asia, seldom descending far below the snowy regions
and the clouded tiger which dwells in the trees of South-
Eastern Asia, the Malay peninsula, and the great islands
Borneo, Sumatra and Java. And here we must add the
beautiful spotted cheetah or hunting leopard, with its
delicate rounded head, long limbs and tail, and lithe body,
one of the swiftest beasts of the field, but perhaps the least
cat-like of cats. It is found in both Africa and Central
Asia. In Europe we have no very large cats, the largest
being the lynx, easily recognized by the pointed ears, each
c 2
20 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
with a tuft of long stiff hair at the tip. At Berlin I saw a
charming little baby lynx who had a large rabbit for a
playfellow. The rabbit, a sedate creature, for whom the
days of playful and giddy youth were long past, seemed
scarcely to appreciate the rough-and-tumble game on which
Master Lynx good-humouredly insisted.
But though the larger cats are now no longer to be
found in Europe, this was not always so, and the lion him-
self was wont within historic times to seek whom he could
devour in its south-eastern districts ; for Herodotus tells
us that lions attacked the baggage camels of the army of
Xerxes in Macedonia. And in yet earlier times, when men
were cave dwellers and fashioned rude weapons and other
implements in stone, a great cat, the cave lion, regarded by
Mr. Boyd Dawkins as a variety of the existing lion, ranged
over Northern Europe and even over our own England.
In Australia, that strange fossil continent, there are no
indigenous cats great or small ; but in America, besides
smaller species, there are two great cats, the puma, which
i# often spoken of as the South American lion, and the
jaguar, which is a spotted cat and takes the place of the
old world leopard. Both these creatures may generally be
seen in the Zoo. The puma is a tawny beast considerably
smaller than the lion and destitute of mane. He never
roars ; but I am sorry to say he sometimes swears
horribly. The whelps, of which there are two fascinating
little fellows, now at Clifton, are spotted like the little
lions ; so that we believe that both these tawny creatures,
in the old and new world, come from spotted ancestors.
The mother of the Clifton whelps is quiet and gentle, and
likes to be fondled by the keeper; but the male is bad-
tempered. Professor Parker says that the female may
often be seen swearing at her lord in a most reprehensible
manner ; but here the tables are turned. The other big
I. THE KING OF BEASTS. 21
American cat, the jaguar, is an ill-tempered fellow, ring-
spotted like the leopard ; but the spots are larger and more
definitely arranged.
Such are some of the great cats, the cousins more or less
distant of the king of beasts. They have played a great
part in the economy of nature, each having some particular
forms of prey among the larger herbivorous creatures which
they keep in check. Nature is full of balance : the animal
world, breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbonic
acid, is balanced against the vegetable world which seizes
the carbon from the carbonic acid and restores the oxygen
to the air. And in the animal world the carnivorous
creatures are balanced against the herbivores on which
they prey. Man steps in and alters the balance of nature.
He clears the forests, he slays the carnivorous creatures
for sport and the herbivores for sport and food. Who can
say what ultimate changes are effected by his actions ?
In but few cases can we attempt to follow them. Darwin
describes one which I will give in a somewhat extended
form. Who would think that the force and vigour of the
English race depended largely on the number of old maids
in certain districts ? And yet the two are connected in a
beautiful manner. Every one knows that the character of
John Bull is mainly the result of the roast beef that he
consumes. But the beasts from which some of the best
roast beef is obtained are fed on clover. So that our pluck
and courage depend on clover. The clover is fertilized by
humble-bees, which carry the pollen from flower to flower.
The more humble-bees therefore the wider fertilization,
and the better the crops of English clover. But the number
of bees is dependent upon the number of field-mice which
destroy their combs and nests. The more mice the less
bees, and the worse clover. Now the number of mice is
largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of
cats, and to complete the chain, the number of cats, it is
22 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. i.
said, depends on the number and amiability, or the reverse,
of the old maids in those parts. Thus many old maids
mean many cats, and many cats mean few mice ; few mice
bring many bees, and many bees luxuriant clover ; good
clover crops mean good roast beef, on which depends the
vigour and force of character of the English race, who have
thus perhaps taken that great cat, the king of beasts, as
their device from purely zoological considerations.
In conclusion I may perhaps be allowed to narrate the
following lion anecdote which, in the days gone by, puzzled
my child-mind not a little. My father used to tell of a
great tamer, in the days before Van Amburgh, who used to
place his head within the lion's jaws, but instructed his son
to tell him if ever on such an occasion the lion should
begin to wag his tail. At last, one fateful day, the little boy
exclaimed, " Father ! Father ! The lion's a- wagging his tail.'
And the father answered from within the lion's mouth,
"My son ! My son ! If the lion's a-wagging his tail your
father's a dead man." Whereupon the noble animal
snapped to his jaws and fulfilled the prediction by biting
off the man's head. Now the question is Why did the
tamer stop to make a little speech instead of at once with-
drawing his head ? This used to trouble me sorely. But
then I gradually came to see that if he had first removed
his head and then made his remark, what he said would
not have come true. This materially alters the position.
To have their firm convictions proved incorrect is highly
distasteful to many people. Doubtless it was so with the
lion tamer. On the other hand, to have one's head bitten
off and swallowed like a pill must also, I should suppose,
be highly distasteful. Doubtless the lion tamer found it
so, poor fellow. In any case he was in a delicate and
difficult position, and I should strongly advise all who read
these lines never to place their heads within the lion's
jaws lest they too should be in like case.
CHAPTER II.
BKUIN THE BEAK.
"As regards Bears, you can teach 'em to do interestin' things; but
they're onreliable." ARTEMTJS WARD.
NCE only have I dreamed of hunt-
ing the uncouth bear. I was
proceeding from New Orleans
to Washington and stayed for
a day or two en route in the
heart of the Alleghany moun-
tains. It was winter, and a
thin mantle of snow on the
ground served to enhance
the beauty of the mountain
scenery. Our quarters were
of the roughest; but sitting
with our pipes and glasses
before a stove, heated almost
to redness, my companion and I forgot the bitter cold
without.
Two Americans joined us in our chat, and one of them,
a wiry little hunter, discoursed of the buffalo he had shot
on the open prairie, and of marvellous adventures with
the bear. He spoke of lean and savage rangers, who.
24 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
instead of taking the long hibernation nap of winter,
prowled round the farms, the terror of their inmates ; and
he mentioned incidentally that a ranger was said to be
abroad that winter and in that very neighbourhood. Our
other visitor was not a hunter; he had indeed hunted
only once in his life. Unacquainted with the weapons
of the chase, he was, he informed us, on that occasion in
doubt how to load his gun, but considering half and half
a fair measure, he had filled the barrel half up with gun-
powder, added shot to within an inch or two of the muzzle
and rammed all tight. Thus armed he sallied forth, pre-
pared to shoot anything he might meet with, from a
sparrow to an Indian. The day wore away however, and
he saw nothing but a few birds and beasts which refused
to remain in that stationary state which he deemed
essential for success. At last he saw in the middle of
the road a large bull-frog which sat contentedly blowing
out its sides and meditating. He guessed he'd shoot that
frog. Fetching a large stone on which to rest his gun he
lay down at a distance of about three yards, and fired.
" Darn my grandmother, sir, I missed that frog ; I guess
something was wrong with the gun, for the tarnation
thing burst and shattered that stone, blowing me back-
wards some four hundred yards ; and when I recovered
from the shock and returned to the spot, the old bull-frog
was still there, just contentedly blowing out its sides and
meditating. But I'm of opinion, sir, that if I had not
attempted a shot at long range, and if that aged weapon
had not exploded, I should have bagged that bull-frog."
Our visitors departed, and we discoursed of the ranger
bear. If only we might meet him on the morrow ! I
agreed that my travelling companion should have the
skin if I might have the skull, and so we departed to
our rooms to dream of bears.
IT. BRUIN THE BEAR. 25
In the early morning we sallied forth. Over the moun-
tains and in the silent valleys we wandered somewhat
aimlessly seeking our prey. Not a shot did we fire ; not
even a bull- frog did we see. Animate life was steeped
in that winter torpor which supervened,
' ' When the mesmerizer snow
With his hand's first sweep
Put the earth to sleep."
The cold was intense, our fingers were numbed, I could
scarce grasp my Winchester repeating rifle. Crossing a
stream bridged with ice my foot had gone through ; my
boot was encrusted with ice, and rny trouser was frozen
like a board. Hark ! What was that crackling of the
branches away to our left ? My companion looked up at
me and murmured " bear " ! His face had not the eager
expression of the genuine hunter. For myself I looked
round for something big enough to hide behind. We
waited breathlessly. No further sound broke upon the
stillness. When we were quite sure there was nothing
moving we proceeded in the direction of the sound.
" No trace of our ranger here," we said in tones to which
we endeavoured to give a sorrowful ring of disappoint-
ment. It was perhaps only the vegetation groaning at
the cold. At. all events we saw no bear that (Jay; but
when in the evening we sat before the stove, and the
blood once more coursed freely in our veins we could
speak more fully of our disappointment. If only it had
been a bear after all !
The black bear with which I had this thrilling
adventure is found in North America, and there repre-
sents the brown bear of Europe. In common with this
and other members of his family (the grizzly of the Rocky
mountains, the Polar bear of the Greenland ice-floes ? the
26 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP,
sun and sloth bears of the East) he differs very markedly
from the Cats. Just look at Bruin as he slouches about
his den or sprawls his ungainly length upon the floor.
How different are his clumsy shape and awkward shuffle
from the clean-cut form and silent elegant tread of Leo
or of Tigris. Although taught to dance from time im-
memorial, he has not learnt the art of walking upon his
toes, being what zoologists call plantigrade. He has no
sheathes for his long and untidy claws. His shaggy hair
is luxuriant with too much natural bear's-grease. In tail
he is little better than a guinea-pig. His little eyes give
to his face an expression half silly and half sly ; and his
ill-bred manners and deportment have made him pro-
verbial as a very churl among beasts.
Yet hath he his points of interest, this Bruin the bear.
Foremost among these to the naturalist is his prolonged
winter sleep. In the plentiful summer season he eats all
he can, fruits and vegetables, honey and balsam, insects,
fish, and flesh, and thus becomes plump and sleek and fat.
Then he goes into winter quarters, in a natural cave, or a
hole of his own digging, or the hollow trunk of some old
tree. There he may be snowed up for months ; his vital
processes are reduced to a minimum. Breathing and cir-
culation continue in a languid fashion, but not a morsel
does he eat. He subsists on the stores of fat he had pre-
viously laid up ; and not till spring has melted the snows
of winter does he emerge thin and weak, and in sorry
condition. With what an appetite must he sit down to
his first breakfast after his hibernation sleep ! But he is
a wise beast, and eats sparingly at first, and for some days
after awakening he gets thinner rather than fatter.
He has an affectionate heart, too, this great uncouth
monster. Boehm tells of a little boy who crept one night
for warmth and shelter into the cage of a savage bear.
ii. BRUIN THE BEAR. 27
Instead of devouring the child, Bruin took him under his
protection, kept him warm with the heat of his body, and
allowed him to return every night to his cage ; and when
the boy died soon after of small-pox the bear refused all
food, and joined his little friend in death.
The mother is devoted to her cubs, literally, according
to old writers, licking them into shape. " When first
born," says Pliny, "they are shapeless masses of white
flesh, a little larger than mice, their claws alone being
prominent. The mother then licks them into proper
shape." But if she sternly licks them into shape, she
also fearlessly protects them from danger. Bingley quotes
an account of a female Polar bear who, with two large
cubs, was seen by the crew of an exploring frigate. When
they came near the vessel the sailors threw over to them
great lumps of the flesh of a sea-horse. These the old
bear fetched away singly, laid every lump before her cubs
as she brought it, and dividing it, gave to each a share
reserving but a small portion to herself. And the sailors
shot the cubs and wounded their dam. " It would have
drawn tears of pity from any but unfeeling minds to have
marked the affectionate concern expressed by this poor
beast in the last moments of her expiring young. Though
she was herself dreadfully wounded, she carried the lump
of flesh she had fetched away, as she had done others
before ; tore it in pieces and laid it before them ; and
when she saw that they refused to eat, she laid her paws
first upon one, and then upon the other, and endeavoured
to raise them up ; all this time it was pitiful to hear her
moan. When she found she could not stir them she went
off, and when she had got to some distance looked back
and moaned ; and that not availing her to entice them
away, she returned and began to lick their wounds. She
went off a second time as before ; and, having crawled a
28 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
few paces, looked again behind her, and for some time
stood moaning ; but still the cubs not rising to follow her,
she returned to them again ; and with signs of inexpres-
sible fondness went round pawing them, and moaning.
Finding at last that they were cold and lifeless, she raised
her head towards the ship, and uttered a growl of despair,
which the murderers returned with a volley of musket-
balls. She fell between her cubs, and died licking their
wounds." Oh ! 'tis sometimes gay sport that of the
hunter !
Nor is it so very long ago that people in England used
to throng to see the " merry disport " of baiting the bear,
the proceedings on which occasions were of so orderly,
quiet, and respectable a character that the word " bear-
garden " has become proverbial. The bear was fastened
behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs;
" but not without great risk to the dogs ; and it some-
times happens they are killed upon the spot ; fresh ones
are however immediately supplied in the place of those
that are wounded or tired." The onlookers used to stand
on scaffolds hounding on the dogs by their cries, and
betting eagerly on their favourites ; and they were told
that they ''must not account for any pleasant spectacle
unless they pay one penny at the gate, another at the
entry of the scaffold, and a third for quiet standing."
Let us be thankful that such " pleasant pastimes " and
" merry disports " are now matters of the past. To hunt
the bear in the open forest may be noble sport ; but to
bait poor Bruin in a bear-garden seems to us nowadays
contemptible.
Mr. Lloyd, in his Northern Field Sports and Scandi-
navian Adventures, describes at length the method of
hunting the bear in Norway and Sweden. If it be winter
the first, proceeding is (or was) to " ring the bear." This
n. BRUIN THE BEAR. 29
is done by following the tracks of the creatures in the
snow. So long as they continue in a straightforward
course the hunter knows that the bear had no immediate
intention of lying down ; but when the course becomes
crooked and shows that the bear had doubled on his track,
he infers that Bruin has taken up his abode somewhere
near. He then leaves the track and makes an extended
ring or detour round the suspected part of the forest. If
he completes the circle without again meeting the track
he knows that he has ringed his bear. If not, he com-
mences another ring ; and thus he continues until he has
accomplished his object. This being done, a skall or
great hunt is then proclaimed, a notification thereof being
given out from the pulpit after divine service, for every
good and loyal subject is expected to attend at church ;
and by the laws of Sweden every house in the district
where cattle are kept is bound, after such notification, to
furnish at least one man to take part in the skall. Several
hundred men may thus be got together, armed with axes,
pikes, and guns. They are divided into two parties. A
certain number, and among them some of the best shots,
form a stationary division in a more open part of the
forest. The others constitute a driving division. The
members of the two parties thus form an environing
cordon round the space in which the bears are ringed.
It is then the duty of the members of the driving division
gradually to close in, beating the bush, and shouting. As
the circle grows narrower and narrower the work becomes
exciting. The bears are roused from their repose, and
charge hither and thither, sometimes attempting to break
through the cordon with violence, but generally retreating
before the noise and firing. At last, if they have not
already succumbed, they are driven to the more open
space, and fall before the rifles of the more experienced
30 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. n.
hunters. The danger of the sport is not, it would seem,
very great, there being more risk from the bullets of eager
but inaccurate marksmen on the other side of the cordon
than from the teeth or claws of Bruin the bear. Mr.
Lloyd describes a summer skall (where the bears are not
ringed, but are known to be hidden in the forest), to
which no less than 1,500 men were summoned, which
embraced a tract of country some sixty miles in circum-
ference, and which occupied several days. A lynx and
three bears, besides a few timid hares, were the somewhat
sorry return for all the trouble and expense of the battue.
In Scandinavia, as elsewhere, the bear is sometimes
domesticated, and if taken young becomes quite tame,
and is gentle in its disposition. It is not well, however, to
annoy even a well-disposed bear ; for Bruin, like the rest
of us, resents practical jokes of too unpleasant a nature.
A Swedish peasant had one who used to stand on the
back of his sledge when he was on a journey, and the
beast had so good a balance that it was next to impossible
to upset him. One day, however, the peasant amused
himself with driving over the very worst ground he could
find with the intention, if possible, of throwing the bear
off his balance. In this he succeeded, but not in the
manner he expected. The bear retained his balance of
body, but lost his balance of mind, becoming so irritated
that he fetched his master, who was in front of him, a
tremendous thump on the shoulder, which frightened the
man so much that he had poor Bruin killed immediately.
An American writer gives another instance of ursine
irritability. A friend of his would persist in practising
the flute near his tame black bear. Bruin bore this in
silence for a while, went so far indeed as himself to try
and play the flute on his favourite stick ; but at last he
could stand it no longer, and one morning knocked the
CAUGHT AT LAST.
CHAP. ii. BRUIN THE BEAR. 33
flutist's tall hat over his eyes. If any act of retribution
is justifiable this was. To practise the flute anywhere
within earshot is annoying ; to do so in a tall hat would
be simply exasperating.
It would be easy to fill a small volume with anecdotes
of captive bears. They would show that Bruin is not so
stupid as he is sometimes painted, even if they did not
altogether justify the Swedish saying that the bear unites
the wit of one man with the strength of ten. Frank
Buckland's bear, Tiglath Pileser, was cute enough to know
where to find the sweetstuff, of which he, in common with
his race, was so inordinately fond ; for one day when he
had broken his chains he was found in a small grocer's
shop seated on the counter, and helping himself with
liberal paw to brown sugar and lollipops, to the no small
discomfort of the good woman who kept the shop. A
black bear in America had a weakness for chickens. His
master noticed the thinning of the poultry yard, and
suspicion fell on Bruin owing to the feathers which lay
round his pole. They could not catch him in the act how-
ever. He was too sharp for that, and if disturbed when he
had but half demolished a pullet he would hastily sit on
the remainder and look as innocent as could be. He was
discovered at last, however, by the cackling of a tough old
hen which he had failed to silence.
When fearlessly faced the bear will often refuse an
encounter even with a woman. Mary Reynolds, an American
girl, was afflicted with what is called " double personality."
She led two distinct lives which alternated the one with
the other. In the one life she was dull, taciturn and morose ;
in the other merry, jocose and buoyant. When first she
woke up, after a profound and prolonged sleep, to the latter
state, she was found to have forgotten all that she had ever
learnt. Her mind was a blank. She did not recognize
D
34 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHA*.
her relations, and resented the restraint that they put upon
her, for she loved to wander away into the trackless forest.
Once when she returned from one of these excursions she
told the following incident. " As I was riding to-day along
a narrow path a great black hog came out of the woods
and stopped before me. I never saw such an impudent
black hog before. It stood up on its hind feet and grinned
and gnashed its teeth at me. I could not make the horse
go on. I told him he was a fool to be frightened at a hog,
and tried to whip him past, but he would not go, and
wanted to turn back. I told the hog to get out of the way,
but he did not mind me. ' Well,' said I, ' if you won't for
words, I'll try blows ; ' so I got off and took a stick and
walked up toward it. When I got pretty close by, it got'
down on all fours and walked away slowly and sullenly
stopping every few steps, and looking back and grinning
and growling. Then I got on my horse and rode on." The
impudent black hog was an American black bear.
The black bear would seem to be fonder of animal food
than his brown cousin in Europe ; but all bears will eat, at
any rate occasionally, both kinds of food, most of them
giving the preference to a vegetarian diet, while the grizzly
and the Polar bear are mainly carnivorous. Their teeth
are of the crushing type, and fitted for a mixed diet, and
thus differ from the purely cutting or shearing teeth of the
cats. They cannot, however, freely roll the lower jaw
from side to side, so as to grind the food ; and there
does not seem to be a marked difference in the teeth of the
relatively carnivorous and the more fully vegetarian kinds.
There is more difference in their dispositions, the flesh-
eaters being more savage and courageous. Curiously
enough the Polar bears at the Clifton Zoo seem to be
especially fond of cocoa-nuts a kind of food to which they
can scarcely be accustomed among the ice-floes of the
II.
BRUIN THE BEAR.
35
North. A friend of mine gave one a whole cocoa-nut
which the bear dashed to the ground until it cracked.
Then he placed his paw upon it and crushed it, licking up
the milk, and eating with much gusto the sweet white
flesh. These bears, like others of their kind, are fond of
walking up to the bars of the cage, and then retreating
backwards, wagging their heads from side to side ; and one
of them has the curious habit of walking through the
water to one end of his tank, and then swimming to the
other end on his back. They seem sometimes to object to
taking to the water ; and Mr. Grenfell records how one of
our Clifton bears, anxious to obtain a cocoa-nut that was
floating in his tank, pawed at the water so as to create a
current, which brought the desired object within his reach.
We must be careful, however, while noting with interest
D 2
36 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. n.
the fact, not to be too sure that the bear thought to himself,
" a current will bring me the object ; I'll make a current
with my paw." That is a piece of reasoning perhaps
beyond the bear. Probably he simply pawed after the
cocoa-nut, and was mightily pleased when it carne towards
him ; but if through experience he learnt that pawing had
the desired effect, a definite habit might be instituted.
With all his faults, his clumsy form (which is not his
fault), his awkward gait (which he cannot help, poor fellow),
and his predatory disposition (which, after all, is his nature),
I confess to some liking for Bruin the bear. Were I a poet
I would sing his praises. Burns has his mouse, Wordsworth
his green-linnet, Shelley his sky-lark, Blake his burning
tiger. Why may I not in verse apostrophize the bear ? It
is indeed difficult to throw over his choicest gift, the
unctuous product of the coiffeur's laboratory (by the vulgar
called bear's-grease) the delicate glamour of poesy; but
even this shall not daunt my muse :
Inveterate shuffler ! murmurous plantigrade !
"Why sitt'st thou ever mumbling at thy toes
Revolving many ills ? What are thy woes ?
Dost mourn thy missing tail ? Or hath it made
Thee sad that man so meanly hath repaid
Thy many gifts, the rug that tempts repose,
The busby striking terror to his foes
But dear (how dear !) to many a nursery-maid ?
Yet are we not ungrateful (take this bun !)
Still round thy choicest gift fond memory plays
Mid sweetest scents of fragrant orange-sprays
Ah happy years ! when life had scarce begun,
Ere baldness came with age. Ah fragrant years !
I thank thee for them, Bruin, through my tears.
CHAPTER III.
LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY.
" How happy I could be with either
Were t'other dear charmer away."
" AND which of all the animals in the Zoo do you like
best ? " I said to a bright, fair-haired little girl whom I
had assisted in her descent from the elephant.
" I think I like Long-nose, Long-neck, and Stumpy
best, because they are so big and curous, and Long-nose
best of all because he has given me a ride. Did ymi
know it was his nose ? "
Of course I affected the most extreme surprise and
delight at the novel suggestion that the big, patient
animal's trunk was really his nose ; and said that I had
always thought it was his proboscis.
" No, it isn't that, it's his nose. Auntie says so. That's
Auntie over there waiting for me. I suppose you's seen
Stumpy ? "
I inquired who Stumpy was, and whether I might not
know him by another name.
" I think they sometimes call him Pottums. But we
call him Stumpy. Now I must go to Auntie."
And so my little maiden ran off, happy at having
taught a fellow-creature something new.
I know not whether what I have to tell about little
38 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Fair-hair's big friends, the elephant, the giraffe, and the
hippopotamus, will be very new to those who do me the
honour to read these pages. Perhaps my information will
be not much more novel than that of the nine-years
maiden when she said so impressively, " No, it isn't that,
it's his nose." But after all my object is not so much to
give information as to awaken interest. And if I induce
a few young folk to go to the Zoo and look at Long-nose,
Long- neck, and Stumpy with a new interest, and with
some wish to learn more about them than I have here
the space to tell, I shall not have written these lines
in vain.
The three animals which, at Fair-hair's suggestion, I
have brought into association, afford good examples of that
essential similarity which underlies well-marked and even
conspicuous diversity. Who would have supposed that
the number of joints or vertebral bones in the neck of the
giraffe and of the hippopotamus, of Long- neck and of
Stumpy, was the same ? Yet this is so. Each has seven
bones, as you may see for yourself in the Natural History
Museum the same number that Long-nose has, that you
and I have, and that nearly all mammalian animals have.
Watch the giraffe as he bends his long neck to one side.
You may see some indications of the seven straight long
joints. Very different is the graceful neck of the swan, in
which there are a great number of short bones very
beautifully and perfectly hinged together. The neck of
the swan is therefore very much more supple than that of
the giraffe, and its sweeping curves are unbroken by
angularities.
Look, too, at the limbs. How very different the long,
slender legs of the giraffe from the massive hinged
pedestals of the elephant. Half-way down the fore-leg
of the giraffe is the so-called knee, making, when the limb
ITT. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 39
is bent, an angle, with its hinge directed forwards. Higher
up, near the body, the leg is hinged so as to swing out
freely in front ; and lower down, a little above the hoof,
the horny substance of which is very beautiful, there is
another hinged joint. This lowest hinge-joint answers to
the knuckles of your own middle and third fingers, and
the hoofs to your finger-nails. The giraffe has only two
fingers or digits. The knee answers to your wrist, and
the long bones in the lower part of the fore-leg to the
bones you may feel in your own hand between the wrist
and the knuckles. Above the knee is the part that
corresponds with your fore-arm below the elbow, the
giraffe's elbow being close to the body. The upper arm
is easily traceable, as the muscles swell out beneath the
skin. In the elephant this upper arm is relatively longer,
and when he kneels down to be mounted he bends his
fore-leg at the elbow with all the lower part of the limb
projecting in front. The wrist is quite low down near the
flat five-toed foot with its curious large nails or hoofs.
The same kind of story is told by the hind limb. The
ankle-joint in the giraffe is high up, the part answering to
our heel being half-way up the leg. I will not call it, as
it is called in the horse, the hough (hock) lest you should
say " No, it isn't that, it's his heel." The thigh is short
and shades off gracefully into the body. But in the
elephant the thigh is much longer, and the ankle-joint is
not very far above the foot, which has four (rarely five)
nails in the Indian elephant, and three in his African
large-eared cousin. Now watch the elephant walk. The
gait is at first sight curious and awkward. And why ?
Because of the unusual position of the elbow and the
knee, which are much lower down the leg than in most of
the quadrupeds we are wont to see, to whose limb-move-
ments we insensibly grow accustomed.
40 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Then again the teeth. The teeth in these three
animals are as different as they well can be. Yet they
show us modifications of a single definite system, though
the modifications in the case of the elephant have certainly
been pushed to extremes. In our own mouth we have the
front teeth or incisors, two on each side of the middle line
in each jaw (feel for them, if you please with your
tongue). Then come the eye-teeth, or canines, which are
often larger in savages than in civilized folk, and form
cruel fighting weapons in some of the apes. Behind
these again are the grinding teeth. We have two sets of
teeth the early set of milk teeth, and the later set of
permanent teeth. As the latter grow they press on the
roots of the milk teeth, and cause the part embedded in
the jaw to be absorbed ; and from this absorption the
early teeth become loose, and at last can be pulled out
quite easily. To these two sets the kindly dentist in our
old age often adds a third, which have the advantage of
never aching. They used to be made of hippopotamus
ivory, which does not, like that of the elephant, turn
yellow. So there is a closer connection between Stumpy's
teeth and your grandmother's than you suspected.
Now let us turn to Stumpy's jaws. He will open them
wide for you to pitch a bun on to that great pink tongue
of his. You probably will not be able to see the grinders,
which form nearly parallel series of seven teeth, all told,
in each jaw and on each side. When they first cut the
gum they present a number of rounded projections, giving
them a hilly appearance such as you may see in the jaw-
bone of Stumpy's second-cousin-once-removed, the pig.
But the work of grinding down the coarse vegetable food
wears off the summits of the hilly prominences and dis-
plays the dentine (or ivory) lying beneath the hard
glistening white enamel which coats the tooth. Thus a
in. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 41
double trefoil pattern is produced on the worn teeth.
These teeth do not differ so very much from yours. In
the front part of the hippopotamus's mouth there are, as
in yours, two cutting teeth, or incisors, and one eye-tooth
STUMPY.
on each side of each jaw. But I do not think you would
care to exchange the arrangement of yours for the arrange-
ment of Stumpy's. The eye-teeth of the lower jaw
stick out sideways like ugly tusks, while the inner
cutting teeth project forward in a most forbidding
42 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
manner. And all the front part of the mouth, armed
with these awkward misshapen projections is broadened
out so as to give support to the enormous blubbery lips.
Not a refined face, Stumpy's, is it ? Scarcely a refined
animal in any sense. Its habit of wallowing in the water
has made it lumpy and unwieldy, and, according to the
board-school boy, thick-skinned. " The hippopotamus,"
said this little fellow, "is like a little mashed elephant
with its trunk sawed off. Its skin is so thick that it can
stay in its pond all day without the water soakin' through."
I like that boy. He had imagination. I forget whether
it was the same boy or another who wrote they had been
to the Zoo and were told to write of what they saw :
" When we got to the giraffs, I did like them. They are
just the same as the picters, only alive and walking about.
They have little tails, but the giraffs is so big, that you'd
say as they couldn't wag 'em. But they can, just as easy
as a little dog can, whether you bleeve it, or don't." Per-
sonally, I do believe, for I've seen them do it.
It is with the giraffe's head, however, and not his tail,
that I have now to do. A much more refined personage
is Mr. Long-neck. He occupies a good social, but a some-
what peculiar zoological position in the animal kingdom,
standing near the horned cattle and the antlered deer,
allied to both and yet distinct from either group. Like
all these animals, he has no cutting or canine teeth in the
front of the upper jaw, but, instead, there is a pad against
which the lower teeth close. The giraffe makes great use
of his long flexible tongue, with which he daintily plucks
the leaves of the trees on which he feeds. From his
great height he can reach leaves eighteen or nineteen feet
from the ground. But his favourite food, Sir Samuel
Baker tells us, is the red-barked mimosa, which seldom
grows higher than fourteen or fifteen feet, and on the flat
m. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 43
heads of which the giraffe can feed when looking down-
wards. He can, if he likes, feed on the grass at his feet,
but he has to straddle his front legs into an attitude so
exceedingly uncomfortable that I expect he usually
regards a vegetable which only grows a few inches high as
LONG-NECK.
beneath his notice. In any case the food cropped by the
tongue, aided by the lower incisors, is masticated by the
strong grinding teeth, which wear down so as to give a
crescentic pattern, the crescents being marked out in hard
enamel, within and between which is the softer dentine.
This crescentic pattern is characteristic also of the cattle
44 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
and the deer. Like these animals the giraffe has horns ;
but they differ from the horns of cattle and the antlers of
deer, for they consist of bony cores covered with hairy
skin with a tuft of stiff bristles. In old giraffes there is
also a prominent projection in the middle of the forehead
looking somewhat like a third horn.
Notwithstanding certain marked peculiarities in the
tooth arrangement in the hippopotamus and the giraffe,
the ungainly tusks of the former, and the absence of
upper front teeth in the latter, both these animals, like us,
have two sets of teeth the baby-set of milk teeth, and the
larger and fuller series of permanent teeth. And these
permanent teeth come up from below to displace their
smaller precursors, except the hinder cheek-teeth, which,
like our larger molars and wisdom teeth, have no milk
predecessors. But when we come to the elephant's teeth,
we find some of the most marked peculiarities which are
exhibited by any members of the animal kingdoms.
Most striking perhaps are the long, curved tusks, which
continue to grow throughout life. They are incisors.
All the other front teeth and the canines are non-existent
in the elephant's upper jaw, and there are no front teeth
or canines in the lower jaw of the existing elephants,
though a fossil elephant, the mastodon, had long incisor
tusks in the lower jaw. The tusks of the elephant are
the only teeth which in this animal have milk pre-
cursors or baby teeth in the ordinary way.
If you examine the cheek-teeth of an elephant, in the
skulls for example in the Natural History Museum, you
will find that they are few in number but of great size.
Their worn surfaces show the eroded summits of a number
of ridges running across the tooth, each with a shallow
valley at the top, and separated from the neighbouring
ridge by a deeper valley- trench. In the tooth which lies
in. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 45
before me as I write, and which weighs nearly six pounds,
there are seventeen such ridges. But the hinder part of
the tooth had not cut the gum, and the last seven ridges
have not undergone any attrition. The ridges are com-
posed of hard enamel, the shallow valley along its summit
disclosing the softer dentine which lies beneath the fold
of enamel. Between the folds of enamel-coated dentine is
a much softer substance, called cement, by which the folds
are bound together. Since the cement and the dentine
are much softer than the enamel, they are more readily
worn away, and the tooth always preserves its ridgy,
grinding surface.
The accompanying figures, one of which shows the
appearance of a tooth as seen from above, while the other
ELEPHANT'S TOOTH FROM ABOVE.
shows a diagrammatic section of a tooth cut in half along
its length, will, I hope, enable you to understand how
this most elaborate but most efficient grinding surface is
produced by the folding of the substance of the tooth
into a number of parallel ridges, and by filling up the
interspaces between the ridges with cement. In the
Indian elephant the foldings are much deeper and much
closer than in his African cousin.
46
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
This folded structure is, however, not the only remark-
able thing about the grinding teeth of the elephant.
Instead of the milk teeth being succeeded vertically by
permanent teeth coming up from below, as is usual among
mammalian animals, the teeth succeed one another from
behind forwards. During the long life of the elephant,
which runs to a hundred years or more, six cheek-teeth in
each jaw and on each side are developed. Of these the
(c) Cement.
SECTION OF ELEPHANT'S TOOTH.
(d) Dentine. (e) Enamel. (6} Portion worn away.
first three seem to answer to milk-teeth, while the last
three belong to the permanent series. The teeth are
successively larger and more complexly folded from the
first to the last ; and the whole series of teeth is gradually
pushed forward in the jaw, those in front being worn away
and their roots absorbed before the hinder ones come into
use. Thus there are never more than portions of two
teeth in each jaw and on either side in use at the same
time, and sometimes only one. If you will visit the saloon
in. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY.
47
in the Natural History Museum you will find an ele-
phant's skull arranged so as to show this 7 ; the fifth tooth
of the complete series is in position for immediate use,
while the sixth and last of the series is ready formed
behind to take its place. %! beg you, if I have aroused
a particle of interest in this matter, to go and see it for
yourself. And before you leave the museum do not fail
SECTION OF ELEPHANT'S SKULL.
to examine the elephant's skull that has been cut in half
to show the character of the bones. When you see the
elephant at the Zoo, or look at pictures of some noble
Indian or African tusker, you are apt to think " What a
fine forehead he has ! No wonder he displays such re-
markable intelligence." But a glance at this specimen
in the museum will show that the massive forehead does
not bespeak a massive brain within, but is due to the
48 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
large development of air-cavities in the bones, the object
of which is to afford at the same time strength, size, and
comparative lightness : strength to support the heavy
tusks and trunk, size to afford attachment to the great
muscles, arid yet lightness from the spongy structure of
the bones. The brain-case itself is comparatively small,
and may be a foot or more behind the prominent fore-
head. Though Jumbo's weight was some six and a half
tons his brain did not probably weigh more than nine
pounds at most.
But I must now turn from the structure of these
animals to say a few words concerning their habits and
intelligence. Not that I have by any means exhausted
the points of interest and those profitable for comparison
in the matter of structure. But space, and perchance
your patience, are not limitless.
All observers seem to agree that the giraffe is one of
the gentlest and most harmless of animals. No doubt he
will kick when hard pressed ; not to do so would betray
meanness of spirit impossible to a beast who holds his
head so high. Sir Samuel Baker, the great large-game
sportsman, says : " I have never pursued them except upon
occasions when my people were devoid of meat, as the
destruction of such lovely creatures without some neces-
sary purpose I regarded as wanton cruelty." Would that
all sportsmen were animated by the same spirit ! I do
not suppose the giraffe is conspicuous for intelligence.
But after all, cleverness is not everything. He has a
melting eye. " The eye of the giraffe," says Sir Samuel,
"is worth special study, as there is nothing to compare
with its beauty throughout the animal creation." I expect
he looked down tenderly with that eye on Miss Fair-hair.
That, no doubt, is how Long-neck came to be one of her
favourites. We know that Long-nose kindly gave her a
in. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 49
ride ; and kindness will always win a maiden's heart
that is, so far as liking is concerned. How Stumpy
managed to ingratiate himself into her affections is a
problem I have not altogether satisfactorily solved. I
imagine that he must have accepted a bun with a heavy
sigh of gratitude and a well-meaning attempt at a smile
with those blubber lips of his. Our hearts are always
warmed to those who accept with gratitude be it never
so clumsy so long as it is genuine the favours we bestow
on them.
Although he can be grateful for kindnesses from a bonny
lass, Stumpy can be a dreadfully savage fellow if put out.
He will charge a boat and knock a hole in its bottom,
or drive his tusks through the iron plate of a steamer, or
take a huge bite out of the side of a canoe. He can travel
a good pace, too, under water. Sir Samuel Baker's
steamer going ten knots an hour down stream only gained
upon one that was racing ahead of it when the engineer
put on full steam !
If you will watch the hippopotamus in his tank you
will see that when it needs a breath of fresh air it only
just raises the nostrils out of water and then sinks again
beneath the surface. It is from this habit difficult to
shoot these amphibious monsters unless you come upon
them unawares. And even if you do shoot them they
sink, and no one is much the gainer. The Arabs harpoon
them, swimming up to within a few yards of them, when
they are basking half asleep, hurling the harpoon home,
and then diving for the shore. To the harpoon is attached
a rope and float ; other ropes are then made fast to the
float, and a number of hunters haul the great beast
towards the shore, where they pierce him with their sharp
lances. Often he boldly challenges and rushes at his
foes and crushes their lances in the grip of his powerful
E
50 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP
jaws. But in the end cunning and agility prevail over
brute force, and their huge prey lies quivering at the
Arabs' feet.
According to the Rev. Mr. Bingley the Egyptians manage
things much more simply. They mark out the places
which the hippopotamus chiefly frequents, and there
deposit a quantity of dried peas. Stumpy prowling
around that way fills himself with the peas ; hence arises
an insupportable thirst ; he rushes to the river and drinks
copiously; the peas swell and the poor beast But
I think we may draw a veil over the last scene of this
tragedy. When sufficiently young and tender his skin
we are told makes excellent turtle soup.
Every one knows a number of anecdotes in illustration
of the sagacity of the elephant. It will therefore, perhaps,
be a surprise to hear that Sir Samuel Baker, who knows
the elephant so well, says that in his opinion he is over-
rated. "He can be educated to perform certain acts, but
he would never volunteer his services. There is no
elephant that I ever saw," writes Sir Samuel, " who would
spontaneously interfere to save his master from drowning
or from attack. An enemy might assassinate you at the
feet of your favourite elephant, but he would never attempt
to interfere in your defence ; he would probably run away
or remain impassive, unless guided and instructed by his
mahout. This is incontestable ; the elephant will do
nothing useful unless he is specially ordered to perform a
certain work or movement. While condemning his
apathetic character, however, we must admit that in the
elephant the power of learning is extraordinary, and that
it can be educated to perform wonders."
Without presuming either to support or gainsay the
opinion of one who is so intimately acquainted with the
elephant, I would suggest that we are apt to expect too
in. LONG-NOSE, LONG-NECK, AND STUMPY. 51
much of the sagacity of animals. How inscrutable must
be the ways of men to the intelligence of the elephant !
How can we expect him to interfere and do something
useful in so mysterious and complex a business ? Employed
in tiger shooting and in war, he might well come to regard,
were he able to consider the matter rationally, assassination
as part of the normal progress of things human, in which
elephantine interference was neither expected nor desired.
What astonishes me is that he is able to throw himself
into the strange business of human life with such apparent
zest. For there are many well-authenticated instances of
his modifying his conduct intelligently to meet exceptional
circumstances in his daily routine.
We are so apt, too, to use misleading expressions and
thus to credit animals with a kind of knowledge which is
to them quite impossible. We read, for example, "Most
wild animals possess a certain amount of botanical know-
ledge which guides them in their grazing." To speak of
this instinctive preference of certain food-stuff as botanical
knowledge is, of course, ridiculous. I happen to prefer
carrots to parsnips, but I base thereon no claim to botanical
knowledge. Sir Samuel Baker tells of an elephant which,
having found fruit beneath a tree, looked up at the laden
boughs, and then retiring for a few feet, rammed his
great hollow brow against the stem and shook down a
plentiful shower of the coveted fruit. Sagacious old fellow !
But this implied neither botanical knowledge nor acquaint-
ance with the laws of gravitation. Botany and physics lie
in a region of thought beyond the grasp of the most
sagacious of brutes.
With all his great size and strength and cleverness for
he is a wonderfully clever fellow the elephant is mighty
timid at times. Moolah Bux, a magnificent animal, was
the proud bearer of Sir Samuel when his men were driving
E 2
52 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. m.
a hill for a tiger, which was supposed to be concealed in
the long grass. Half hidden in the jungle elephant and
sportsman waited breathlessly. Suddenly a hare emerged,
raced towards them, and ran in its fright almost between
the elephant's legs. This was too much for the mighty
Moolah's nerves. He fairly bolted with sudden terror as
the little harmless puss dashed beneath him. Ladies,
thereat take comfort. If the great intelligent Moolah was
scared by a hare, why should you be ashamed if a mouse
arouses in you some signs of trepidation ?
The elephant is said to be fond of music. I cannot
speak for the whole race, but I am sure the elephant at the
Berlin Zoo has no sensibilities of this kind. The keeper
produces an excruciating barrel organ which the elephant
stimulates to hideous activity by turning the handle with
his trunk. Had he the smallest musical faculty he would
rather submit to any other form of torture than this ; nay,
he would assuredly long ago have sat on the thing and
silenced for ever its exasperating anatomy.
CHAPTER IV.
COUSIN SARAH.
' ' Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally." CAREY.
NOT know Cousin Sarah ! you surprise me. Allow me
to have the pleasure of introducing you. " Fair Reader
Miss Anthropopitheca Calva." Miss Calva is possibly
already known to you, reader, by her pet name, "Sally."
She has several aliases. At home, in Africa, she is spoken
of, by those who can pronounce the name, as N'tchego
Mbouve ; and here in England some folk call her the bald-
headed chimpanzee ; but she not unnaturally resents per-
sonal allusions of this sort, unless they are gracefully
hinted in Latin.
" Not very beautiful," do you say ? Well ! there is a
slight want of prominence about the nose and an absence
of delicacy in the moulding of mouth and chin. But
beauty is not everything : and I can assure you that Cousin
Sarah is full of talent. Have you heard her sing ? Have
you seen her sip her beef-tea with a spoon ? Have you
heard her murmur hoo-hoo, her way of saying I thank you ?
A young lady who can sing passably, who can sip her five
o'clock tea with grace and ease, and who possesses an
amiable and grateful disposition, is capable of winning an
assured place in fashionable society. I have no doubt,
54 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. iv.
moreover, that in the Gaboon, her native home in Africa,
Miss Calva and the other young ladies of her acquaintance
display a great number of other accomplishments which,
though surprising to us, are there considered natural and
pleasing.
The question of age where ladies are concerned is
always a matter of difficulty and delicacy. Even the
courteous Mr. Bartlett, whose name is so honourably asso-
ciated with the Zoo, pleaded lack of time to answer certain
impudent questions of mine as to Sally, who is, in some
sort, a ward of his. I prefer therefore to make no direct
statement on this delicate question, and content myself
with saying that she was of still tender age when she was
brought to the Zoo in October, 1883. 1 Since then she
has grown considerably in stature if not in beauty. Her
diet is beef-tea and cold boiled mutton. She is partial to
sandwiches, and enjoys her dessert of oranges, apples, and
especially bananas.
I am not going to narrate any anecdotes of Sally's quaint
ways, or demonstrate her remarkable intelligence. I de-
sire that my readers should visit her themselves. But
in comparing her intelligence with that of the dog, for
example, I would have them remember that Toby and his
ancestors have been for centuries the companions of man,
and have had the advantages of his society, his training
and selection ; whereas poor little Sally is just a wild girl
of the woods, and has nothing to fall back upon but her
own native wit.
Sally belongs to a group of animals known as the
anthropoid or man-like apes. These include the gorilla,
the true chimpanzee and Sally's more immediate relations,
all of which live in tropical Africa. They comprise also
1 As these lines are passing through the press, I learn that poor Sally
has died at the Zoo, aged twelve years.
COUSIN SARAH.
CHAP. IV.
COUSIN SARAH. 5?
the orang-utan which inhabits Borneo and Sumatra ; and
the siamangs and gibbons which are also found in the
great islands of the Malay Archipelago but inhabit too the
mainland of Eastern Asia. At the Zoo in the same house
as Sally, you may see one of these gibbons, an impish
embodiment of ever-restless mercurial activity. Nothing
can exceed her marvellous yet graceful agility, the wonder-
ful precision of all her surprising leaps, and the way she
uses her long arms as she swings her lithe body through
the air. I propose, as serving to throw some light on the
character and disposition of these several relations of
Sally's, to give a short account of what has been told us of
the man-like apes in captivity. I will then try and show
by what right Sally and the rest can claim even a remote
cousinhood to us.
The traveller Du Chaillti, who in 1855 set sail from
America with the express object of meeting the gorilla
face to face, tells us of a savage little fellow, about three
years old and two and a half feet high, whom he kept for
a short time in a bamboo cage. When the traveller
approached him, soon after he had been ushered into his
new apartment, with words of encouragement and wel-
come, Master Joe so was he styled most uncivilly made
a precipitate rush for him. And though the intrepid
hunter retreated as quickly as he could, I regret to say
that Joe was unmannerly enough to thrust his hind-leg
through the bars and (think of the indignity !) tear the
great man's trousers. This was indeed a bad beginning.
Ill-tempered he was at first : ill-tempered I am sorry to
say he remained. On the fourth day he made his escape
by forcing apart two of the bamboo rails of his cage.
Luckily Du Chaillu came up just as his flight was dis-
covered, and was hurriedly mustering all his negroes for
pursuit when he was startled by an angry growl from
58 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
under his bedstead, where Master Joe had, in fact,
ensconced himself. So terrific was the appearance of the
three years old ape that the hunter, hastily shutting the
windows, decamped with his followers, leaving Joe in pos-
session of the field. At last, seeing him quite quiet, Du
Chaillu despatched some black fellows for a net and, open-
ing the door quickly, with astonishing intrepidity and
presence of mind threw it over poor little Joe's head. Two
men seized his arms, another secured his legs, Du Chaillu
held his be-netted head ; and thus, borne by four strong
men, the two foot six inches of infuriated gorilla was once
more returned to his bamboo prison. Again he escaped ;
and this time he made for the open. But the odds were
fearfully against him. " About one hundred and fifty of
us surrounded him," says the veracious traveller. What
could a baby gorilla of three do against a hundred and
fifty brave men ? He was again secured, again carried off
by four men, and placed in irons. Ten days afterwards,
Death, the friend and foe of apes and men, somewhat
suddenly released him from his chains.
More recent observers give the young gorilla credit for
a much more amiable disposition. Falkenstein, who
brought to Europe a fine gorilla boy which lived for some
time in the Berlin Aquarium, says that he showed no
trace of mischievous, malicious, or savage qualities, though
he was, he adds, sometimes self-willed. What little fel-
low with any grit in him is not ? Perhaps among gorillas
as among human folk there are naughty boys and good
boys ; perhaps Falkenstein understood gorilla boy-nature
better than Du Chaillu ; or perhaps (may we not hope it
for the sake of Master Joe's memory ?) the stories told
against him as against other naughty boys were not all
quite true. At any rate Falkenstein was able to give his
young charge a very fair character for cleanliness, docility
iv. COUSIN SARAH. 59
and good conduct. His behaviour at meals (always a
trying time for the young) was quiet and mannerly. He
only took as much as he could handle gracefully and with
propriety. If nothing was given him, while others around
him were enjoying their fill, he did indeed look askance at
the dishes, and give a short resentful cough as each plate
was carried off by the negro boys ; or sometimes even seized
the arm of a passer-by to draw attention to his wants or
indicate his displeasure somewhat more forcibly. He was
seldom ill-humoured, and, even when he was chastised, he
never resented his punishment, but came up with a be-
seeching air, clinging to his master's feet and looking up
with an expressive air that disarmed all displeasure.
Altogether I think we may say that many a young gentle-
man who goes to Eton and gets into Parliament has worse
reports than that which we receive of the poor little
gorilla boy who died of a galloping consumption in the
Berlin Aquarium. And if you will inquire of Sally's
keeper, he will, I think, tell you that she is, unless she is
put out, good-tempered and affectionate. When she is
put out well ! well ! young ladies in all stations of life are
apt to lose their tempers sometimes.
Near Sally's cage I beg her pardon near Miss Calva's
apartment in the Zoo there is, or was, an ordinary chim-
panzee. The story of the chimpanzee in captivity, like
that of most apes, generally ends soon and sadly. Con-
sumption too rapidly does its dread inevitable work.
What can be more touching than the death of Mafuca in
the Dresden Zoo ? " When her illness began," we learn,
" she became apathetic, and looked about her with a
vacant unobservant stare. Just before the end came she
put her arms round Schopf the director's neck, looked at
him placidly, kissed him three times, stretched out her
hand to him, and died." Poor little dumb cousin ! My
60 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHA!>.
heart is filled with a great pity, and my mind with not
irreverent wonder as I read these words.
Sally has, so far, escaped this cruel Nemesis of our
northern clime, probably because she comes from the
highlands of the Gaboon whereas the true chimpanzee
inhabits the tropical forests near the coast.
Mafuca was a strange wayward mixture of roguish
mischief and good-humoured affection. She could sip her
tea with a spoon, but not so gracefully as Sally. She could
pour from one vessel into another without spilling a drop.
She would steal her keeper's boots ; and then throw them
at his head like any young English lord whose valet has
disturbed his slumbers at too early an hour. She could
blow her nose with a handkerchief; which feat, when one
remembers how remarkably little there is to catch hold of,
is not a little noteworthy. She was fond of playing with
old hats ; a trait on which one might moralize. It is
remarkable what a charm for simple minds there is in what
is vulgarly known as " a topper." My small son, only last
Sunday, got hold of mine and pulling it down over his ears
exhibited himself with no little pride to the family and
household to the detriment however of the hat. And
some years ago, when I was in America, some redskins
obtained one of these coveted pieces of personal furniture.
It was too much property for a single individual and was
therefore neatly divided among three. Whether they cast
lots for first choice I know not; but he to whose share
fell the brim seemed very proud.
The young chimpanzee most thoroughly enjoys a rough
and tumble game. One that was deposited in the Berlin
Aquarium lived for a while in the director's office and
entered into the most friendly relations with Dr. Hermes'
two-year-old boy, with whom he was always gentle and
docile. " But when a number of schoolboys visited the
iv. COUSIN SARAH. 61
office he ran towards them, went from one to the other,
shook one of them, bit the leg of another, seized the jacket
of a third with the right hand, and with the left gave him
a sound box on the ear ; in short, he played the wildest
pranks." A learned zoologist who visited, for grave
scientific purposes, a chimpanzee that lived in our London
Zoo, says of this little fellow : " He showed a great dis-
position to play with me, jumping on his lower extremities
opposite me like a child, and looking at me with an
expression indicating a wish for a game at romps. I confess
I complied," he naively adds, " and a capital game we had."
Would you not like to have caught the distinguished
zoologist romping with Tommy the Chimpanzee ? I should.
But if you think any the worse of him for doing so, I hope
you may live to grow wiser.
When he was tired of the game Mr. Broderip tried a
very interesting experiment. Many of us have an instinc-
tive dread of snakes. By an instinctive dread I do not
mean fear arising from the knowledge that snakes are
harmful, but a nameless and inexplicable horror that seems
part of our very being. The apes share with us this
instinctive dread, as Mr. Broderip proved in the case of
this chimpanzee. For while Tommy's attention was
directed elsewhere, a hamper containing a large python
was brought in and placed on a chair near the dresser.
The lid was raised, and the snake disclosed to view. Soon
Tommy came gambolling that way. "As he jumped and
danced along the dresser towards the basket he was all
gaiety and life ; suddenly he seemed to be taken aback,
stopped, and cautiously advanced towards the basket,
peered or rather craned over it, and instantly, with a
gesture of horror and aversion and the cry of ' hoo ! hoo ! '
recoiled from the detested object, jumped back as far as he
could, and then sprang to his keeper for protection."
62 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Of the young orang-utan, to which we must now turn,
Mr. Wallace gives a charming description in that delightful
hook of his, The Malay Archipelago. Having shot a mother
Mias (as the creature is called in the Dyak tongue) he
found a poor little orphaned child lying face downward in
the swamp. Its toothless mouth was full of dirt ; but when
this was cleaned out it began to cry right lustily and
seemed quite strong and active. So Mr. Wallace took it
unto himself and became its foster-father. Unfortunately
there was no milk to be had, and the little Mias had to be
content with a somewhat thin and cheerless substitute
rice-water from a bottle with a quill in the cork. The great
naturalist was very gentle and tender with his pet. He
fitted up a little box for a cradle, with a soft mat, which
was changed and cleaned every day, for it to lie upon. With
his own hands he washed the little Mias. " After I had
done so a few times," he says, " it came to like the operation,
and as soon as it was dirty would begin crying, and not
leave off till I took it out and carried it to the spout, when
it immediately became quiet, although it would wince a
little at the first rush of the cold water, and make ridiculously
wry faces while the stream was running over its head. It
enjoyed the wiping and rubbing dry amazingly, and when
I brushed its hair seemed to be perfectly happy, lying quite
still, with its arms and legs stretched out, while I
thoroughly brushed the long hair of its back and arms."
I confess I like this picture of the strong, bearded naturalist,
to whose voice all Europe was soon to listen, whose name
was to be intimately associated with that of Charles Darwin,
washing, wiping, rubbing dry, and thoroughly brushing
up a little baby ape. " How could he touch the nasty
little thing !" may be the exclamation of some. I do not
think they see so deeply into the beauty and mystery of the
great world of living things as did Alfred Russel Wallace.
IV,
COUSIN SARAH.
63
Not content with washing and brushing his pet, Mr.
Wallace went so far as to make an artificial mamma for it
out of a buffalo skin made up into a bundle. At first this
seemed to suit it admirably, as it could sprawl its legs about
A\
AFTER THE BATH.
and always find some hair, which it grasped with the
greatest tenacity. But the little one, tired of a thin and
meagre rice-water diet, expected more of its foster-parent
than the buffalo bundle was in a position to supply,
64 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Whence arose so much lamentation that it had to be unsewn
and taken to pieces. Mr. Wallace then gave the little
fellow as a companion a young Macaque monkey of about
his own age. The difference between the two, he remarks,
was very curious. "The Mias, like a very young baby,
lying on its back, quite helpless, rolling lazily from side to
side, stretching out all four hands into the air, wishing to
grasp something, but hardly able to guide its fingers to
any definite object, and when dissatisfied opening wide its
almost toothless mouth, and expressing its wants by a most
infantine scream ; the little monkey, on the other hand, in
constant motion running and jumping about wherever it
pleased, examining everything around it, seizing hold of
the smallest objects with the greatest precision, balancing
itself at the edge of the box, or running up a post, and
helping itself to anything eatable that came in its way.
There could hardly be a greater contrast ; and the baby
Mias looked more baby-like by comparison." Poor little
baby Mias ! I am sorry to say it did not live long, but
died of an intermittent fever about three months after the
death of its mother.
Now when we read these stories of little apes, we seem
(do we not ?) almost to be hearing tales of little human
children. We might almost say, They have all the vices
and some of the virtues of childhood. The baby boy
and the baby Mias, the little girl and the young chim-
panzee are, in fact, much more like each other in character
than the savage male gorilla is like a respectable green-
grocer or old Mrs. Mias is like Mrs. Smith. In early
childhood there is not much to choose between the pro-
spective bishop and the future costermonger. Nay, not
improbably, the embryo costermonger is the sharper lad
of the two. It is a curious fact that, in Cape Colony
schools, the children of negroes and Kaffirs sometimes
iv. COUSIN SARAH. 65
learn more rapidly than the children of intelligent white
folk for a while. But there comes a time when they
cease to progress thus rapidly, and the white boy shoots
ahead. So too does the little chimpanzee seem almost
as intelligent as a child. But very soon the human child
shoots ahead, and the "young monkey," as we call him,
becomes a respectable and responsible member of society.
As he grows, the man within him develops year by year :
and similarly the ape in the chimpanzee or gorilla de-
velops with its advancing years. Starting within an
almost measurable distance from one another, the ape
and man rapidly diverge, until the chasm between them
becomes immense.
Not only of character is this true ; to a certain degree it
is true also of organization and structure. The baby ape is
much more like a human child than an old gorilla with its
enormous brow-ridges, or orang-utan with its great cheek-
pads, is like a man. The development of the savage
brute-nature is accompanied (there is a moral lurking
hereabouts) by the development of a fierce and savage
aspect. Even Sally is not so human-looking as she was
some years ago. (Not that I would hint, Miss Calva, at
any falling-off in good looks. I merely mean that your
beauty is developing along its own special lines.) But
whereas the character-chasm becomes well-nigh infinite,
the structure-chasm, in essential points, does not widen to
anything like the same extent.
The favourite distinction between man and beast, the
presence or absence of a tail, scarcely holds good in the case
of the anthropoid apes at all. Sally has no more tail than
I have. But if you will watch Sally you will find that she
cannot assume a truly erect position. And this holds
good of all the man-like apes. They cannot stand upright.
A gorilla can balance himself for a time on his hind-legs ;
F
66 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
but if he wishes to move rapidly along the ground he will
gallop on all fours, the fingers being bent and the backs of
the second joints being applied to the surface, and being
provided with hard pads of toughened skin. The favourite
mode of progression of the anthropoid apes is however in
the trees, swinging themselves from branch to branch, both
hands and feet being prehensile or fitted for grasping. In
all anthropoid apes the arm is very much longer in propor-
tion than in man, in whom the middle ringer reaches to
the middle of the thigh. In the gorilla the fingers reach
the knees ; in the chimpanzee somewhat further; in the
orang they reach to the ankle ; and in some gibbons
the palm may be applied to the ground while the body is
as upright as is possible to the ape. And with regard to
the upright position it is a curious and interesting fact
that, according to certain French anatomists, the thigh-
bones of some of the earliest known men, those found
with the remains of extinct animals at Spy in the pro-
vince of Namur, indicate that these ancient folk could
not assume a perfectly erect position. Even in a very
little baby child, round-backed as a chimpanzee, you will
find that the leg will not quite straighten ; while the
soles of the feet turn markedly inwards as they do in
anthropoid apes. The legs are, moreover, relatively to the
length of the arms, much shorter than in the grown-up
man or woman. And you cannot look at Sally or any
man-like ape without noticing that not only are the arms
disproportionately long, but the legs are to almost the
same degree (though this is more marked in the orang) too
short. So that here again the ape preserves throughout
life a character which is present in the child but which the
man outgrows.
I should weary you if I were to enter critically into the
likenesses and differences in structure between Sally and
iv. COUSIN SARAH. 67
her allies on the one hand, and you and me on the other.
We are all built upon the same plan, and even in details
the resemblances are very close. Except that Sally has
an extra pair of ribs, her bones answer to your bones each
to each. I do not mean that they answer to yours in
precise shape; the shoulder-blades and collar-bones for
example are not quite like yours ; but they answer closely
in number and general arrangement. So too with the
other parts. There is a plane of correspondence deeper
than the superficial points of diversity. And Sally is not
less admirably fitted for her natural mode of life than you
for yours. Her brain is not so highly developed as yours ;
but she has the best of it in muscular power. Her hand
is not so delicate an organ or capable of such nice adjust-
ment as yours ; but her foot is prehensile which yours is
not. Hence some differences of structure and muscular
equipment. But on the whole the resemblances are so
close that most anatomists include man and the anthro-
poid apes in the same group. In doing so, you must
remember, they are guided by structure alone ; for in
classification it is to this we must look, and not to intel-
lectual and moral characters. And we may consistently
believe that although these high qualities, and the power
of speech in and through which they have arisen, alto-
gether mark off and distinguish man from the rest of the
animal kingdom, yet still, in his structure and organiza-
tion, he is one with the anthropoid apes ; and that, so
far, he may not deny to Sally the title of " Cousin Sarah."
F 2
CHAPTER V.
SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS.
" It is true that the ape is a merry and bold beast." BACOX.
I STOOD for an hour this morning before the Madonna
di San Sisto of Raphael. Of all pictures it has been my
good fortune to see, none has so won its way to my inner-
most soul as this, the genius of which thrills through
every fibre of my being. Last night I listened to Don
Giovanni, and held my breath lest I should lose one note
of Mozart's enchanting music. And this afternoon I
visited the Dresden Zoo, and watched the chimpanzee at
play.
Does there seem a bathos here ? A sudden drop from
the sublime to the ridiculous? Yes. And it is inten-
tional. I know not how better to enforce the fact of the
immense difference between the intelligence of the ape at
its best and human genius at its highest. The gulf
between the chimpanzee and Raphael or Mozart is tre-
mendous. Between the chimpanzee and the poor woolly -
pated bushman I saw the other day at the Vogelweise
the annual fair of Dresden or indeed the German
peasants who were paying their ten pfennigs for the show,
it is less wide. But even the rudest savage, through
additional brain-stuff, and the wondrous power of language,
CHAP. v. SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS. 69
stands intellectually head and shoulders above the whole
ape tribe. Having said and endeavoured to enforce which,
I may now repeat that structurally and physically you and
Sally or shall I rather say Sally and I ? are not so very
far apart ; and that even intellectually there was a time,
during early childhood, when I was nearer the monkey
than I trust I am now.
In this chapter I am to tell you something about Sally's
poor relations ; by which I mean the Primates (pronounce
if you please the three syllables, lest you should think I
allude to certain dignitaries of the Church) the Pri-ma-tes
lower than the anthropoid apes in the scale of life. But
before doing so I wish to say a few words about some of
Sally's more nearly related cousins most of them cousins-
german with whom I have made acquaintance, at a
distance, since writing my last paper. Not that I have
very much to say about my little friends, for there is a
sameness in the childhood of apes and men, the time for
originality having not yet come. Four of them were in
the Antwerp Zoo two orangs in separate cages, and two
chimpanzees who shared common quarters. The orangs
were each provided with a blanket, which to most anthro-
poids seems the embodied ideal of bliss. It was so with
the little chimpanzee in the Clifton Gardens : it was so
with these Antwerp orang-utans. They were constantly
active, swinging about hither and thither in their large
cages, and dragging the blanket after them, muffling
themselves therein, or poking their serious heads through
convenient rents. The two chimpanzees on the other
hand were comparatively inactive or played together list-
lessly, aimlessly, with a sad, depressing air of hopeless
dejection. Perhaps it was the weather ! Very different
however was the mien of the chimpanzee in the Dresden
Gardens. One could not indeed but long as one always
70 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
does with the anthropoids for the smile that never
comes, though all the onlookers are laughing. Still he
seemed healthy and happy, on excellent terms with his
keeper, and in thorough enjoyment of a game with his
toys. Much that was interesting and amusing enough to
see would be tedious and tiresome to narrate. I want
you to watch the animals for yourself and to take an in-
telligent interest in their habits and structures. One of
this chimpanzee's favourite amusements was to scamper
round his cage bowling with his feet a large wooden ball
after him. To this he constantly recurred. At one time
he endeavoured to collect his six nine-pins in a bundle
and carry them all at once. I dare say you have seen, at
the pantomime, the clown picking up sausages, or babies,
or bits of policemen, or such-like odds and ends, tucking
them under his arm and gravely letting fall the last as he
opens his arm to receive the next. The chimpanzee was
in similar difficulties. Thrice he all but succeeded in
carrying the six, but then some one or more would slip
away, and spoil the whole arrangement. At the third
failure he was so disgusted that throwing the nine-pins
away in all directions he resumed the ball-trick where he
was certain of success. Now here the points of interest
seem to be : first, the perseverance shown by the thrice-
repeated attempt, and secondly, the apparent annoyance
at the continued failure and the resumption of an easier
game. There is always however a danger of reading the
thoughts of men into the actions of animals ; and it is
perhaps best, so far as is possible, simply to record the
actions. One other act of the chimpanzee will I here
record. He had been given some broth which he drank
very tidily from his tin pannikin ; and also some biscuits.
In the adjoining cage separated by wide, strong bars
was a little mona monkey who cast longing glances at the
v. SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS. 71
biscuit. Twice did the chimpanzee place a biscuit just
beyond the monkey's grasp, and watch her trying to reach
it and once, when she was turning somersaults in the
further corner of the cage, he placed a piece through the
bars and sat watching it ; but as soon as the monkey ran
down towards it, snatched it hastily away. A second time
Miss Mona was too quick for him and he lost his biscuit ;
upon which he shook the bars of his cage and pouted like
a spoilt child. But soon he was swinging hither and
thither as blithely as if biscuits had never been invented.
As one watches these anthropoids one cannot but notice,
not without wonder and admiration, the great freedom of
motion possessed by the hind leg, which could almost be
swung round in a circle from the hip like the arm from,
the shoulder. There is no small advantage to a climber
in this supple freedom.
In their large commodious quarters at the Berlin
Aquarium you may see the chimpanzees full of activity
swinging across the cage with the peculiar hand-over-hand
motion which is their most natural mode of progression.
A chimpanzee on the flat ground is like a swan walking.
He does not show at his best. Place the one among the
boughs of a forest, or the other on the broad face of a
lake, and they are at home and exhibit the poetry of
motion. I fell in love, too, with a chimpanzee at the
Berlin Zoo, and delighted in watching his placid enjoy-
ment as the kindly keeper washed his hands and face and
brushed his hair before he went to sleep, to dream perhaps
of luxuriant forests, his ancestral heritage. Still none of
the anthropoid apes I have seen is cleverer than our Sally,
who under Dr. Romanes' tuition knows the difference
between three straws and five, and black straws and white,
and who can enjoy a ham sandwich, but does not like the
mustard too thick, being still young and inexperienced.
72
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
Passing now to Sally's poor relations, we may note at
the outset that they fall into two great groups her
nearer relations in the old world and her more remote
relations in the new world. Now if you wish to find out
PROBOSCIS MONKEY.
to which group any monkey belongs you must look at his
nose, and then, to make sure, you must look at his tail
if he has one. Not all the old world monkeys can boast
so remarkable a nose as the proboscis monkey from
V.
SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS.
73
Borneo, of which there is a fine stuffed specimen in the
Natural History Museum at South Kensington : nor
indeed is it the size of the organ which is of importance
to us, whatever it may be to its fortunate possessor. It
is the position and direction of the nostrils to which we
must look. All the old world monkeys have the nostrils
close together and directed downwards. In all new world
monkeys they are more widely separated and directed
somewhat outwards. Hence the former are called catarr-
hine, down-nosed, and the latter platyrrhine or broad-
nosed. As to the tail there is, I think, only one American
NEW WORLD.
(Platyrrhine.)
OLD WORLD.
(Catarrhine. )
monkey which is almost tailless ; and the commoner sorts,
such as the spider-monkeys, the capuchins, and the
howlers, have prehensile tails which they use in climbing ;
as you may see any day at the Zoo. No old world
monkeys have prehensile tails this is an American
monopoly and in the mandril and the Barbary ape the
tail is reduced to an insignificant stump. All the old
world monkeys have the same number of teeth as you and
Sally have, viz., twenty grinding teeth, four eye teeth or
canines, and eight cutting or incisor teeth. But the
American monkeys, except the pretty little marmozets,
74
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
have four more grinders. And if you should happen to
see a monkey's skull, you may tell whether it belongs to
an old world monkey or an American by noting whether
there is a bony tube to the ears, for this is absent in the
American monkeys.
MONKEY SKULLS FROM OLD AND NEW WOULD.
There is some difficulty at the Gardens in Regent's
Park in recognizing the different monkeys which live
together in the large central cages. At Antwerp there
are three circular cages, of which the largest is divided
into eight, and the other two into four compartments by
sheets of plate glass which meet in the middle. This
v. SALLY'S POOH RELATIONS. 75
keeps the species separate ; but there is far less fun among
the monkeys. The keeper at our Zoo, will, moreover,
point out to any one who shows an interest in his charges,
the several kinds. Among the catarrhine or old world
monkeys he will probably be able to show you examples
of the long-tailed Africans (Cercopithccns), and will give
one a handful of nuts, all of which the little fellow will
tuck away into his mouth and thrust them into his cheek-
pouches till he seems to be suffering from a severe attack
of the mumps. Then he may be able to show you a
long-tailed Indian monkey (Semnopithecus), one of the few
kinds of old world monkeys which have no cheek-pouches
but have most voluminous and complicated stomachs
instead. There is such a dear little fellow of this kind in
the Dresden Zoo with black face fringed with light grey
hair. He and I are the best of friends. He is intelligent
enough to understand my broken German better than
many of the Deutschlanders themselves, and is under the
firm belief that I have visited Dresden on purpose to
bring him cherries and nuts. The keeper will also point
out the macaques, which are for the most part from Asia ;
and will call them by their names and perhaps point out
a particular pig- tailed macaque as the most intelligent of
all and the cleverest thief under his charge. The
macaques are a hardy race and are highly intelligent.
Darwin tells us that a dealer who used to train monkeys
to perform offered a far higher price if he was allowed to
select one after a few days' trial. When asked how he
could ascertain in so short a time which would best suit
his purpose, he replied that everything depended upon the
power of attention. If a monkey whom he wished to
teach something more serious kept looking off to watch a
fly on the wall, or turned aside to admire his own tail, or
indulged in any frivolities of that sort he was a hopeless
76 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
case. So whenever you, my young friend, are inclined to
but never mind the moral.
We have only one kind of monkey now living wild in
Europe, the tailless Barbary ape, a relation of the maca-
ques, and even he is perhaps not a true native but only a
colonist. It is said that there are now scarce a dozen left
to lead a precarious existence on the Rock of Gibraltar :
but in North Africa they are still abundant. In the ages
of the past, however, we have evidence that monkeys lived
much further north in Europe, as far as Eppelsheim,
though they have not as yet been found in England. They
were gradually driven southwards by the on-coming of the
more rigorous climate which culminated in the intense cold
of the Glacial Epoch.
The last group of the old world monkeys I will mention
is the tribe of the dog-faced baboons. Who can have for-
gotten the baboons in Ready's narrative ? I well remem-
ber being somewhat rudely disturbed by a troop of these
creatures near Ceres, a village in South Africa. I had
selected a spot of exceeding beauty near to the village, to
which I returned again and again. It was an open cave or
rock-shelter, in the cool shade of which grew ferns in rich
and luxuriant profusion. Before me lay a little lakelet or
large rock pool, into which I could plunge from an over-
hanging rock ten or twelve feet high into clear water of
thrice that depth, and enjoy a delightful swim. It was
surrounded with green rushes, and was fed at the upper
end by a bright cool stream which leapt and sparkled be-
tween walls of smooth rock before making a leap of some
ten or a dozen feet. From where I sat in my rock-shelter
the stream was invisible, but through the gap which it had
made in the sandstone rocks could be seen the blue flat-
topped outline of one of the mountains or hills of the Cold
Bokkeveldt, distant some twenty miles. Hither I would
v. SALLYfS POOR RELATIONS. 77
take my books or writing materials : and here, I confess, I
would sometimes after my bath and frugal lunch take a
siesta during the heat of the afternoon of a South African
summer's day. One afternoon I had dozed longer than
usual when I was rudely awakened by a hideous yell or
bark. Starting up I saw at the mouth of rny rock-shelter
a great baboon, while near the lakelet were thirty or more
scampering off at the warning cry which had so rudely
awakened me. My friend and I stared at each other for
a minute or so, and then he leapt on to a ledge of rock
above me. Although I had no fear of the baboons, for
they rarely if unmolested attack man, I was uncertain
whether, if I issued from my shelter, they might not roll
a few rocks down from above, just by way of making in-
teresting experiments. But when after some minutes I
put a bold face on it and emerged from my cave, I found
that they had climbed far up the rocks and were eying me
from a respectful distance. Nor did they take much
further notice of me as I crossed the little ravine and as-
cended the rocks of the opposite side, though they woke
the echoes of the valley with their hoarse bark. Once
when a friend and I were benighted on a mountain in the
Hex River Valley we heard the baboons barking among
the rocks the long night through. We were perhaps a
little nervous lest they should pay us an unwelcome visit :
but they left us quite unmolested.
I have sometimes seen the baboons come down to drink
in the evening or early morning. Their walk on the level
is peculiar owing to the downward slope of the back ; but
they are perfectly at home among the rocks. The tail is
carried with a peculiar bend in it, which the bushmen
have faithfully depicted in red ochre on the walls of South
African caves. Often the mothers may be seen carrying
their babies, and not infrequently when the mother is
78 ANIMAL SKETCHES.
taken in a trap the little baby baboon may be caught and
tamed. So long as they are young they are pleasing and
intelligent pets. One at Ceres surprised me by dropping
on to my shoulder from the tree which stood before the
inn. It was quite a little fellow, very tame and friendly.
To one of the visitors at the inn, however, it had taken a
violent dislike : but doubtless he had ill-treated or teased
the little fellow.
The baboons are inhabitants of Africa and Arabia and
have tails of moderate length, projecting dog-like snouts,
and huge canine teeth as you may have an opportunity
of observing if, as is often the case, a captive baboon at the
Zoo, overcome with ennui, should yawn immoderately.
They are terrible weapons those teeth. If attacked by a
dog the baboons will seize him with the great canines and
thrusting him away with their hands will tear him horri-
bly. Darwin tells how a great savage baboon once at-
tacked the keeper at the Zoo and would certainly have
done him a serious injury had not a brave little monkey,
in spite of his own great fear of his big cousin, sprung on
its neck, and turned on himself the rage of the angry
creature. Brave little monkey ! May we not fairly be-
lieve that he was impelled to this courageous deed by his
love for the keeper for whose safety he feared ? Perhaps
so. I would not deny it. But nothing is harder to get at,
in apes and men, than the motives of their acts and deeds.
Closely allied to the baboons and members of the dog-
headed group, are the drill and mandril. They have short
stumpy tails and are quaintly decorated. I saw a splendid
mandril the other day at the Dusseldorf Gardens. His
snout was brilliantly tinted sky-blue and vermilion ;
and he seemed mightily proud of these and sundry other
decorations.
Turning now to the American monkeys the broad-
SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS.
79
SriDEii MONKEY.
nosed platyrrhine group we shall probably Lave oppor-
tunities of seeing at the Zoo the slender-limbed long-tailed
spider-monkeys, and shall be struck with the continual
80
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
use they make of the prehensile taiL Their hands are
peculiar from the absence or quite rudimentary condition
of the thumb. The capuchins, on the other hand, have the
thumb well developed. They are pretty, hardy little
MAKXQZKT.
fellows, fall of fan and intelligence. I was introduced to a
capuchin near Rio de Janeiro. My acquaintance, to whom
he owed allegiance, had also a little dog with a tail I
do not wish to imply that he was peculiar in the posses-
v. SALLY'S POOR RELATIOS.<. 81
sion of this appendage, but rather that it was evidently a
part of his anatomy of which the young puppy was not a
little proud, and that it was here that the point of connec-
tion occurred between him and the capuchin. The latter
was chained to a ring which slid up and down a long pole,
on the top of which Master Cap would sit and grin
horribly at the dog. No puppy with any sense of dignity
and in little folk the sem>e of dignity is often strongly
developed could stand this ; and Nip plainly intimated in
sharp tones his very poor opinion of the capuchin's im-
polite manners. Tired at last of remonstrating thus at
the bottom of the pole, Nip marched off wagging his tail in
the lordliest fashion. Down slid Cap in a twinkling;
seized the noble appendage ; gave it a wrench round, a
twist, a twirl and a final tug, and was up the pole again
before the offended puppy could recover any semblance
of his lost dignity. Indeed he was so surprised and scared
that, as my friend briefly expressed it, " he quit."
To the American group of monkeys belong the pretty
little squirrel monkeys, and the curious howler so called
from his voice, to which, in the male, resonance is given by
a hollow bone at the root of the tongue. In the rolled ox-
tongue you eat for breakfast, you may have sometimes
come across unwelcome little bones. These are part of the
hyoid or tongue apparatus, which is seldom very large in
mammalian animals. But in the howler one of the bones
is blown out into a great hollow bulb, as you may see
for yourself in the Natural History Museum at South
Kensington.
To the American monkeys but to a distinct family of
them also belong the marniozets pretty little South
American animals differing in many respects from the or-
dinary monkeys especially in the paw-like character of
the hand, with a claw in place of a nail on the thumb, and
G
82
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
in the rudimentary condition of the great toe. In the
commoner kinds the soft long fur is prettily marked. I
have seen them playing about like squirrels in the trees
in South America. One my brother brought to England
was a most engaging little fellow, but could scarcely be
tempted in cold weather from his favourite seat on the
handle of the kitchen tap. At Par, on the Tocantins
branch of the Amazons, we took on board among other
live stock, including a great snake and a number of little
HYOID BONE OF HOWLER MONKEY.
tortoises the very dearest little silver marmozet, which
became a great favourite but unfortunately died ere we
reached Rio.
Before leaving the monkey house we must just notice
the large-eyed, fox-snouted lemurs which are by many
zoologists included in the Primates. The fore and hind
feet are hand-like : the nostrils are curved ; the tail is
generally long, bushy, and not prehensile. They are al-
v. SALLY'S POOR RELATIONS. 83
most confined to Madagascar. In the day they are gener-
ally resting quietly, often cuddled up together, disliking to
be disturbed, and giving vent to sundry pig-like grunts
and squeaks. But in the evening, when the monkeys are
getting sleepy, and collecting in little groups or cliques of
five or six for they are very exclusive and will not readily
AYE-AYE.
let any outsider or new comer join their party then it is
that the lemurs begin to be active. In the evening too
the aye-aye wakes up from his daily snooze. If you visit
the South Kensington collection, do not fail to notice this
curious Madagascar creature, with its great ears, its long
bushy tail, and its delicate thin fingers. It is perhaps a
poor relation of Sally's. But Sally thinks the relationship
is somewhat distant.
G 2
CHAPTER VI.
HORNS AND ANTLERS.
" High o'er his front his beams invade the skies." DRYDEN.
THERE is one great and obvious disadvantage in the
study of animal life at the Zoo. We do not see the
creatures in their native freedom. How different the lion
as we watch him through the bars of his den, mumbling
the thigh-bone of a horse, from the lion as he steals noise-
lessly on his prey by the side of some African streamlet
in the fading twilight of evening. How different the eagle
as he sits motionless upon his perch, the picture of dis-
consolate inactivity, from the eagle as he soars aloft among
the mountain fastnesses, or swoops sudden upon its quarry.
How different the patient antelope mewed in his straw-
littered pen, from the chamois as I have seen him among
the glaciers of the high Alps, or the wild buck leaping
from point to point among the sandstone blocks of Table
Mountain. On the other hand, we have at the Zoo an
opportunity of studying quietly and at leisure the form
and features of animals, still instinct with the grace of
life, if not still thrilling with the joy of freedom. From
all that I have seen of living antelopes in South Africa
my image of the creature would be no more defined than
CHAP. vi. HORNS AND ANTLERS. 85
that of an arrow as it cleaves the air. It has never been
my good fortune (printed type cannot show the tremble
of glad anticipation which the written words disclose) it
has never, I say, been my good fortune to meet a grizzly
bear face to face ; but I fancy that the pleasurable excite-
ment of the encounter would prevent my observing him
with that calm scientific curiosity of which I am conscious
as I offer him a propitiatory bun at Regent's Park, or that
perfect fearlessness with which I handle him when
stuffed.
In truth, if we are led to take a real interest in animal
life we shall be glad to become acquainted with it in
all possible ways. We shall examine the stuffed speci-
mens in the museum, even if we do see where the creature
has been sewn up, and perceive a little hay protruding
here and there ; we shall stand without a shudder before
the skeleton that we may learn what the supporting
framework of the beast is like ; we shall visit the Zoo to
observe the movements, attitudes, and living expressions
of our dumb subjects ; we shall be glad to learn something
of the marvellous life processes which are running their
orderly course beneath those sleek hides and behind those
gleaming eyes ; and, best of all, we shall lose no oppor-
tunity of becoming acquainted with their joyous life in
the woods or on the plains beneath the canopy of heaven.
Yes, I say joyous life, notwithstanding the keen struggle
for existence ; for life while it lasts is full of health and
activity, the work of to-day's existence leaves no room for
cares for the morrow, and death when it comes is sure
and swift.
I must not, however, thus moralize on life in general,
but must tell you something about horns and antlers, and
the creatures on whose heads they are borne.
Well, then, come with me and let us look at these
86 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. vi.
creatures together. We shall find plenty of material for
study. Among the horned creatures, apart from the
rhinoceros with horns on its nose, we shall note the com-
paratively heavily-built oxen, the bison, or so-called
buffalo of North America, with his cousin the aurochs of
Europe, and the true buffalo of the Cape, the heavy horns
of which meet base to base over the brow ; we shall see
the stupid-eyed sheep and the goats of offensive odour.
Poor things, they are suffering for their importunity. For
the natives of New Guinea, where they abound, tell us
that they pestered a certain goddess to be allowed to
anoint themselves with the sweet-scented aromatic oint-
ment she used at her own toilet; but she, offended at
their request, rubbed them with a nasty nauseous grease,
the unpleasant smell of which they and their descendants
retain to the present day. We shall see, too, the timid
gazelles, the delicate-horned antelopes, and the clumsy
gnu, a very clown among horned cattle, whose snort is a
poor imitation of the lion's roar, and who scampers over
the plains like a skittish donkey.
Such are some of the animals whose brows are orna-
mented with horns. In most cases both males and
females bear a pair of these singular and beautiful appen-
dages, but sometimes the female is hornless, and
occasionally, as in the four-horned antelope, there are two
pairs. No matter at what time of the year you visit
them the horns are there ; they persist throughout
life, and increase in size and strength. And when the
animal dies and the flesh is stripped from the bones,
the horn may be taken from the skull, and is then
found to be a hollow sheath, which is moulded on an
internal bony core growing out from the brow-bones of
the skull.
I said that the horns persist throughout life and are
CHAMOIS.
CHAP. vi. HORNS AND ANTLERS. 89
never shed. There is, however, in America, a curious
antelope which differs from other horned creatures in that
its horns are branched or forked (from which it is called
the prong-horn), and in that they are periodically shed.
In December and January all the bucks seem to be young
ones, because the developing horns are so small, whereas
iu the spring and summer months most of them appear to
be old ones, because their developed horns are so large and
noticeable. When the horn is newly shed the skin of the
horn-core has an abundant covering of long, straight, silky
and light-coloured hairs ; but these soon become matted
or felted together, and fuse into a solid mass at the points,
and this felting and fusion continues during the growth
and development of the horns. This helps to tell us the
secret of the structure of horns. They are formed of
strangely modified hairs which fuse together and agglutinate
into a solid horny mass.
And what is the special use of these curious and beau-
tiful appendages ? Old writers say that the huge-horned
ibex goats use their great strong ribbed and gracefully
curved horns to break their fall in leaping from a height.
But though Mr. Hutton says that he has seen captive
wild goats use the horns for this purpose, most hunters
seem to think that this is at any rate not the main purpose
of these appendages, and that their employment in this
way is, to say the least of it, unusual. Some people, again,
have believed that the chamois of which strange stories
have been told uses his hooked horns to hitch himself on
to rocky ledges in places where he cannot obtain certain
foothold. But the truth is, that the main use of the horns
is for fighting. It may be, indeed, that Madame Chamois
admires the delicately-curved horns of her lord, which are
finer and stronger than her own, just as Mrs. Goat, like
other ladies, admires the beard of her spouse, and delights
90
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
in his natural patchouli. But in the practical economics
of the animal kingdom utility takes precedence of beauty,
or, at any rate, the beautiful is built upon the practical
basis of the useful. And it is as weapons (even if, as Mr.
Bland Sutton believes, they originated in abnormal or
diseased conditions of the brow) that the horns have
reached their full development. Few of us have seen a
LION AND OIIYX.
fight between wild buffaloes such as the Hon. W. H.
Drummond witnessed at the Cape ; but many of us have
seen the horned cattle of our parks butting at each other
in mock combat, if not in the serious earnest of battle.
When fighting the ox tribe run at each other and clash
their mighty heads together ; but the more delicate-horned
chamois, we are told, lowers his head under the throat of
his antagonist, or turns his head sideways that the sharp
vi. HORNS AND ANTLERS.
points may reach and pierce the shoulder, and then
drawing them fiercely back, inflicts most formidable gashes.
And Anderson's man Hans informed him of an instance
where a lion and an oryx the beauty of whose long, sharp,
straight or slightly curving jet-black horns you may see
any day at the Zoo were found lying dead in each other's
grasp, the antelope having with his horns transfixed his
powerful assailant. Indeed, Mr. Gumming on one occasion
narrowly escaped being himself transfixed. He had
wounded a gemsbok, and foolishly approached her without
firing again. Lowering her sharp horns, she made a
desperate rush towards him, and would inevitably have run
him through had not her strength failed her. She stag-
gered forward, and fell to the ground within a few feet of
the hunter.
Before passing to the antlered deer, I will say a word or
two about the great nose-horns of the rhinoceros. These
too are formed of a dense and solid mass of hairs cemented
and glued together ; only the hairs, instead of being, like
true hairs, developed in little pouches or pits of the skin
with a minute pimple or papilla at the bottom, grow from
a cluster of much larger and longer papillae projecting on
the surface of the nose, while the horny mass which
cements the hairs together is formed in the spaces between
the papilla?. The nose-horn of the rhinoceros is thus a
solid mass of agglutinated hairs, and is not supported on a
bony core like that within the brow-horns of the ox. But,
like the horns of cattle, these long sharp spears are used
as weapons. These the rhinoceros will use even against
the giant elephant ; and an instance is described where a
rhinoceros, having driven his horn up to the base into the
body of an elephant, and being unable to extricate it from
the wound, died, crushed by the weight of his huge
antagonist.
92 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Turning now to the antlered deer, we shall find that
their horns (antlers they are more correctly termed) are
very different from those of the oxen and the antelopes.
As a rule (the reindeer is the exception that proves it) they
only adorn the brows of the male. They are generally in
full-grown stags splendidly and nobly branched. They
are, at any rate in cold and temperate latitudes, cast off or
shed every year, new antlers of greater size and com-
plexity being formed in the following spring; and they
are, when growth has ceased and the time for fighting
has come, composed of hard dense bone without any horny
covering.
Pause as, in autumn, you enter the Gardens by the
southern gate, before the splendid wapiti often misnamed
the elk by American hunters. Is there a more noble and
beautiful animal in the Zoo ? See how the antlers branch
and rebranch and once more branch again ! How proudly
he carries them ! What terrible weapons they are with
their sharp bony points ! How he clashes them against
the bars of his enclosure ! But come again in spring or
early summer when the antlers are growing. How different
they look ! How careful he is not to bring them in
contact with the bars against which he will clash them in
the autumn ! They are covered over with a dark skin
provided with short, fine, close-set hair, and technically
termed the velvet. If you could lay your hand upon this
velvet, as I laid mine on the growing antlers of a reindeer
in Dresden, you would feel that it is hot with the nutrient
life-blood that is coursing beneath it. It is, too, exceed-
ingly sensitive and tender. An army of tens of thousands
of busy living cells are at work beneath that velvet surface
building the bony antlers, preparing for the battles of
autumn. Each minute cell knows its work and does it for
the general good. It takes up from the nutrient blood the
vi. HORNS AND ANTLERS. 93
special materials it requires ; out of them it elaborates tlie
crude bone stuff, at first soft as wax, but ere long to become
as hard as stone ; and then, having done its work, having
added its special morsel to the fabric of the antler, it
remains embedded and immured, buried beneath the bone-
products of its successors or descendants. No hive of bees
is busier or more replete with active life than the antler of
a stag as it grows beneath the soft warm velvet. And
thus are built up in the course of a few weeks those
splendid " beams," with their " tynes " and " snags/' which
even in the confinement of the Zoo may reach a weight of
thirty-two pounds, and which in the freedom of the Rocky
Mountains may attain such a size that a tall man may
walk without stooping beneath the archway made by set-
ting up on their points the shed antlers. When the antler
has reached its full size, a circular ridge makes its appear-
ance at a short distance from the base. This is the " burr "
which divides the antler into a short " pedicel," next the
skull, and the beam with its branches above. The cir-
culation in the blood-vessels of the beam now begins to
languish, and the velvet dies and peels off, leaving the hard,
dead, bony substance exposed. Then is the time for
fighting, when the stags challenge each other to single
combat, while the hinds stand timidly by. But when the
period of battle is over, and the wars and loves of the
year are past, the bone beneath the burr begins to be eaten
away and absorbed, and, the base of attachment being thus
weakened, the beautiful antlers are shed ; the scarred
surface skins over and heals, and only the hair-covered
pedicel of the antler is left. It is stated on the best
authority, scientific and practical, that stags often eat the
shed antlers, and thus utilize over again the material of
which they are formed.
Undoubtedly the most useful to man of all the antlered
94 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
kind are the reindeer. To the Laplanders they are
everything.
Their reindeer form their riches. These their tents,
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sledge their necks, and whirl them swift
O'er hill and dale, heaped into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glazed. THOMSON.
The brows of both sexes in the reindeer bear antlers,
but those of the male are the finer and stronger. It is
said that they use the brow-tyne, which projects forward
from the antler, to remove the snow when they are
feeding, and it has been suggested that it is for this
purpose that the antlers of the female are developed. Or
it may be for protection against their fierce and cruel
enemy the wolf ; or possibly for some other reason of
which we are ignorant. Note, as you watch the reindeer,
the broad spread of the hoofs, the so-called false hoofs behind
the foot being unusually large. This increases the surface
for support upon so yielding a material as snow. And as
the reindeer walks or runs, the hoofs, which have spread
with the creature's weight, come together with a sharp
knacking sound.
When they are hunted they are said to afford but tame
sport, from their boldness and fearlessness. Mr. Kennedy
tells of one of these deer, who upon receiving a bullet in
his ribs made a furious attack upon a companion of about
his own size, evidently under the impression that the
bullet wound was the result of a treacherous prick from
the horns of his friend. This reminds us of Mr. Romanes'
experiments on guinea-pigs. He fed them on nettles, a
kind of food to which they were unaccustomed, and set
vi. HORNS AND ANTLERS. 95
them all a-fightiDg, since each attributed the pricking
sensation in his nose to the influence of his next-door
neighbour.
It is stated by M. Yaschenko, that in Asia the reindeer
are gradually changing their habits, and are beginning to
forsake for the forests the tundras, or spaces covered with
the lichens which constitute their favourite food. The
reason of the change is, according to this observer, the
desire to seek a more favourable shelter from the hunter.
In the open whole herds may be taken, but in the forest
it is only practicable to hunt one or two at a time.
The senses of the horned and an tiered creatures are
wonderfully acute, especially those of smell and hearing.
A chamois dashing down the mountain will suddenly stop
some yards from the spot where recent human foot-prints
are to be found in the snow. He will stand and snuff the
air, and turning scared away will bound off in a new
direction. The deer-stalkers in Scotland must often make
a long ddtour lest they should get to windward of the
keen-scented animals. Even the snapping of a twig will
disturb the wary elk of North America. And this animal
is said to have a cunning habit of making a sharp turn in
his route and choosing a place of repose so near some part
of the path he has traversed that he can hear the least
noise made by one who attempts to track him. Living-
stone describes a similar procedure on the part of the
African buffalo, which will " turn back to a point a few
yards from his own trail, and then lie down in a hollow for
the hunter to come up."
We are wont, perhaps unjustly, to regard the whole
group of ruminating animals as somewhat wanting in
intelligence. Endowed with senses so wonderfully acute,
they trust to the impressions these convey, and do not as
a rule display any large amount of cunning. They do not
96 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
readily adapt themselves to new circumstances, and have
not much power of meeting unwonted emergencies. But
if it be true, as experienced hunters have assured us, that
some kinds post sentinels to watch while the rest of the
herd may feed or rest in peace and without anxiety ; and
if others, like the bisons, when they scent the approach of
wolves, throw themselves into the form of a circle, having
the weakest in the middle and the strongest on the
outside, thus presenting an impenetrable front of horns,
we cannot deny them some power of organized co-operation,
a sure sign of intelligence. The very curiosity which so
many of them display, luring them sometimes to their
destruction, is a mark of mental faculties by no means
dormant and inactive.
Sometimes indeed they seem preternatural ly stupid.
Mr. P. G. Hamerton gives us an anecdote from Messrs.
Hue and Gabet which I will quote in conclusion. The
long-tailed cows of the Lama herdsmen, they say, are so
restive and difficult to milk, that, to keep them at all
quiet, the herdsman has to give them a calf to lick mean-
while. But for this device not a single drop of milk could
be obtained from them. One day a herdsman, who lived
in the same house with ourselves, came, with a dismal face,
to announce that the new-born calf of a favourite cow was
dying. It died in the course of the day. The Lama forth-
with skinned the poor beast and stuffed it with hay. This
proceeding surprised us at first, for the Lama had by no
means the air of a man likely to give himself the luxury
of a cabinet of natural history. When the operation was
completed we found that the hay-calf had neither feet nor
head ; whereupon it occurred to us that, after all, perhaps
it was a pillow that the Lama contemplated. We were in
error ; but the error was not dissipated till the next
morning, when our herdsman went to milk his cow.
vi. HORNS AND ANTLERS. 97
Seeing him issue forth, the pail in one hand and the hay-
calf under the other arm, the fancy occurred to us to
follow him. His first proceeding was to put the hay-calf
down before the cow ; he then turned to milk the cow
herself. The mamma at first opened enormous eyes at
her beloved infant ; by degrees she stooped her head
towards it, then smelt it, sneezed three or four times, and
at last began to lick it with the most delightful tenderness.
This spectacle grated against our sensibilities ; it seemed
to us that he who first invented this parody upon one of
the most touching incidents in nature must have been a
man without a heart. A somewhat burlesque circumstance
occurred one day to modify the indignation with which
this treachery inspired us. By dint of caressing and
licking her little calf, the tender parent one fine morning
unripped it ; the hay issued from within, and the cow,
manifesting not the slightest surprise or agitation, proceeded
tranquilly to devour the unexpected provender.
Poor, simple-minded old cow ! But let us laugh at her
in the right place. That she should fail to distinguish
between the dead bundle and her living offspring is
surprising. But being deceived, why should she think it
odd to find hay inside? Ignorant of anatomy and
physiology, she knows nothing about insides. Had she
considered the matter and it doesn't fall in the line of
bovine rumination she would doubtless have expected to
find in her calf not hay but condensed milk. But if not
milk, why not hay ? She was well acquainted with the
process of putting hay inside, why therefore should she be
surprised to find hay inside ? But of course she had never
bothered her dear sleepy old head about any matter of the
sort. And the moral is that we must not expect to find
in animals that kind of intelligence which has no bearing
whatever upon the life that they lead.
H
CHAPTER VII.
THE MERMAID.
"A mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and har-
monious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her
song. " SHAKESPEARE.
LIVING mermaid at the
Zoo! Impossible!
You will tell us
next that there is
a unicorn in the
Lion-House, and
that on Mondays
at four o'clock
there is a fight
for the crown :
that a cruel har-
pie may be seen among the eagles : that a two-headed
snake has been placed in the Reptile House : that a
young sphinx has recently been added to the collection :
and that a buzzing chimsera peacefully consumes second
intentions in a vacuum near the southern gate. Every
one knows that the mermaid is a myth-maid, and lives
only in the pages of Hans Andersen's charming story."
CHAP. viz. THE MERMAID. 99
Nevertheless there is as I write a mermaid a veritable
siren at the Zoo. And you now have an opportunity of
seeing for yourselves how far the living, breathing, lettuce-
eating reality resembles the beautiful, long-haired, fish-
tailed creature of fable and romance. Come with me to
the new Reptile House.
" That ugly creature the real, original mermaid ! Why, it's
more like a porpoise ! You surely cannot mean to tell us that
this creature with its great swollen bristly lips, its little eyes?
short neck (where are the long waving hair-tresses ?), its
rounded dun-coloured body, its paddle limbs, its flattened
MANATEE.
spoon-shaped tail this undersized whale, creeping along
the floor of the tank on the tips of its flippers, tucking in
lettuces with its fat blubber lips you cannot seriously ask
us to suppose that this comically repulsive fellow, is the
mermaid of science and sober fact ? "
Yes ! This curious creature and its allies seem to be the
organic centres of the mermaid and siren stories. They
are indeed called by scientific men the Sirenia. And this
is not the only instance in which the naked reality, stripped
of the investiture of myth and poesy, is discovered after
all to be dull and commonplace. It would seem that the
H 2
100 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
manatee of the Atlantic of which this living mermaid at
the Zoo is a young example, about a year old and three
feet seven long and the dugong of the Indian Ocean
have a way of raising themselves head and shoulders out
of the water. The mother is said moreover to hold the
young to her breast with those curious mobile flipper arms.
These were the facts observed. A warm imagination did
the rest.
The mermaid having thus fallen from her high estate
there only remains to make the best of her as she really
is. She may not be so beautiful as she has been painted
(a fact not altogether unprecedented), but she is not without
a certain special interest of her own.
At first sight you might think that the manatee was an
undersized whale ; and the anatomist Cuvier thought so
too. He divided the \vhales into two families. The
manatee and its allies he called herbivorous whales : the
rest he described as ordinary whales or blowers. But there
are so many important points of difference between
the sirens and the true whales, that zoologists are now
agreed in placing the former in a group by themselves.
The general similarity of external form is probably due to
their both leading an aquatic life under somewhat similar
conditions.
You will notice that the nostrils of the manatee each
shaped like a crescent moon with the horns of the crescent
upwards are placed near the upper margin of the swollen
muzzle, and that they are some little distance apart. They
can be kept closed while the animal is under water, but
open when it rises to the surface every two or three
minutes to breathe. The nostrils of the whales are in a
different and very peculiar position. They are on the top of
the head, and are very often united into a common spiracle.
The whale can stay under water a long while, much longer
vii. THE MERMAID. 101
than the manatee, but it must at length come to the
surface to breathe, for it cannot respire the air dissolved in
the water as the fishes do ; and when the hot pent-up
breath comes out into the cold air of the northern
latitudes it condenses into a cloud of fog-spray, which looks
from a distance like a jet or column of water. This is
called the spouting of whales. I have seen them spout-
ing in the North Atlantic, and it looks very much as
if they were spouting up water, but it is really only the
condensed breath together with some spray carried up
with it that one sees. In most animals in ourselves for
example the windpipe coming from the lungs opens
by a slit-like aperture into the top of the throat. But in
the whale it is prolonged into a tube which, passing up
from the floor to the roof of the great cavern-mouth, is
thrust into the passage leading straight up through the
front of the head to the spiracle. Whereas therefore in us
and in the great majority of air breathers the breath comes
up from the lungs into the back of the mouth cavity, and
then passes out from the mouth cavity to the nostrils
through the nasal passages above the palate, in the whale
the breath need not enter the mouth cavity at all, but is
carried up by the tube into the nasal passages at once, and
so to the spiracles. There is however no arrangement of
this sort in the manatee.
In the paddle both of the whales and sirens all the parts
of our own upper limbs are represented the arm, the fore-
arm, the wrist and the hand. But in the whales the arm
and fore-arm are very much shortened, the fingers, or
some of them, are flattened and elongated, and are com-
pletely embedded in flesh and skin, so as to form a paddle.
The nails or claws which the fingers of a hand generally
bear have quite disappeared. The bones are moreover so
locked together that the paddle can only be moved from
102 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
the shoulder joint. In the manatee however, though the
arm is paddle-shaped it is capable of free motion at the
shoulder, at the elbow, and at the wrist. The arm and
fore-arm are not so much shortened, nor the fingers so
much lengthened, and there are flattened nails to three of
the digits.
But is it not a wonderful and interesting fact that in
the arm of man, in the leg of a horse, in the wing of the
bat, in the very different wing of the bird, in the flipper of
the seal, and in the paddles of the manatee and the whale,
we can recognize the same parts in all cases an arm, a
fore-arm, a wrist, and a " hand " though they have been
so strangely and beautifully modified and adapted to the
special part they have to play according to the mode of
life of the creature that possesses them ? In some lizards
the arm is so reduced in size as to be quite small and use-
less, while in the snakes there is no arm at all. And all
this that is true of the fore-limb is also true of the hind-
limb. Always, where the limb exists, there is the thigh,
the shank, the ankle and the foot. But in both whales
and sirens the hind-limb is wanting. There is however in
both, near the root of the tail, a bony remnant of the hip-
girdle to which a very rudimentary hind-limb is attached
in some whales.
You will notice that the manatee quite easily maintains
a horizontal position in the water ; so too do the whales ;
and so do the fishes. Now if you open a cod fish you will
find, lying beneath the back-bone, a tough bag full of air
or gas. This is the swim-bladder the " sound " it is called
when the cod fish is brought to table. It is in the best
position to act as a float and keep the creature right way
upwards and horizontal. There is no swim-bladder in the
whales and sirens, but the lungs extend backwards beneath
the backbone in a somewhat similar way. In most crea-
vii. THE MERMAID. 103
tures the lungs lie in the front part of the body in the
chest, and the partition between the lungs and the other
organs is placed in such a way as to separate the lungs in
front from the other organs behind. These creatures there-
fore tend to float with the forepart of the body upwards
and the hinder parts sunk more deeply in the water. But
in the whales and sirens the partition runs backwards and
upwards in such a way as to separate the lungs above from
the other organs below, and thus to enable the creatures to
maintain a horizontal position.
I will not trouble you with any description of the skull
of the manatee, which is very different from that of the
whale, the bones being also very hard and dense, whereas
those of the whale, except the ear-bones, are very light
and porous ; nor of its brain, which is small and smooth,
whereas that of the whale has a great number of folds or
convolutions, generally a sign of intelligence. But I
must ask you to let me say a word or two about the
teeth.
In the great whale-bone whales there are no teeth, but
instead there is a great quantity of that curious substance,
baleen or whalebone, which frays out at the edges to form
a strainer to prevent the small animals on which this huge
monster feeds from escaping from its capacious jaws. But
even in these creatures when they are very young there
are minute rudimentary teeth which never cut the gum.
They are quite useless, and are merely indications of a by-
gone state of affairs. Just so gentlemen wear on their
coats two useless buttons behind. They are useless now,
but in days gone by it was the custom to fold the coat-
tails back and fasten them to these buttons. The buttons
therefore tell us a little bit of the history of dress coats ;
and so do these rudimentary teeth tell us a little bit of the
history of whales. There are, however, other whales, like
104 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
the monster sperm whale or cachalot, which have a most
formidable array of conical teeth.
In the manatees there are a number of ridged grinding
teeth, by means of which they munch the lettuces and
beet-root at the Zoo, or the aquatic plants in their native
haunts. And the curious point about these teeth is, that
they are not all in position and in use at the same time.
As the years go by those in front get past work and drop
out making room for fresh ones coming into position, from
behind. I have already spoken of the similar mode of
succession of teeth in the elephant. It is quite different
from the succession in us and in most animals, where the
child-teeth are replaced by others coming up from below.
And then, in front of the mouth, beneath those great
swollen lips there is, instead of a row of teeth, a roughened
horny plate ; and in the lower jaw a second plate answer-
ing to the one above. With these it crops the submarine
herbage which forms its food. But when quite young the
manatee has two rudimentary front teeth in each jaw,
which become covered in by the overgrowth of the horny
plates, and here the manatee resembles that very curious
animal the Duck Bill of Tasmania. They are probably at
no time of any use to the possessor. It is another case of
the apparently meaningless buttons on the tail coat.
As you watch the mermaid feed the mermaid of poesy
was probably too ethereal a spirit to require to eat at all,
much less to enjoy so prosaic a diet as lettuce-salad you will
see that she uses her fore-limbs to draw the leaves towards
her or to tear them asunder. And then you will observe
how she uses those bristly lip pads. They have a strange
mobility, these cushion lips. The cushions, one on either
side, can be drawn apart so as to form a broad notch be-
tween them ; the muzzle is then stretched out towards a
lettuce, which is thus seized between the two bristly
vii. THE MERMAID. 105
cushions, for they can be drawn together for this purpose.
The under surface of the whole upper lip is then drawn
inwards, and the leaf tucked into the mouth. The lower
lip hardly takes any part in the process.
When she is at home this manatee mermaid frequents
the estuaries, creeks, and inlets of tropical Africa and
America. She does not often venture far out to sea her
cousin, the dugong of the Indian Ocean, being somewhat
more marine in its range. But none of the sirens are lovers
of the wide and open seas like the typical whales. Some
years ago, in 1866, Mr. Clarence Bartlett was despatched
by the Zoological Society to Surinam to escort to the Zoo
a baby manatee. Dr. Murie gives an amusing description
of Mr. Bartlett's conscientious endeavours to perform effi-
ciently the duties of wet-nurse to this sucking mermaid.
She lived in a little lakelet, at the edge of which Mr.
Bartlett would wade about coaxing the little creature to
the water's edge. After a stolen suck or two at the
" black jack " containing a good supply of cow's milk, she
would at length submit to be taken on to his lap, and
there she would suck away might and main till the bottle
was dry. Fancy being privileged to supply a baby mer-
maid with milk from a black bottle ! Happy Mr. Bart-
lett ! Perhaps he washed her too, like the keeper at the
Zoo, who washes his little mermaid every day. After a
good meal the mermaid would seem in high glee, and
would tumble and roll about until at length, like Bottom
the Weaver, she had an exposition of sleep, reposing lazily
and happily near the surface. Sometimes she would
have a game of romps with her kind nurse (oh, thrice happy
Mr. Bartlett !), and would overturn him into the water,
" where the two spluttered and floundered for possession of
the bottle." This poor little baby mermaid only lived just
long enough to reach England ; but her corpse was ably
106 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
anatomized by Dr. Murie, and she lives in the printed
pages of the eighth volume of the Society's Proceedings.
" We are told," says the Rev. Mr. Bingley, "that the mana-
tee is often tamed by the native inhabitants of America,
and that it delights in music." I wonder whether this
musical susceptibility is part of the mermaid myth, or
whether the animal is really, as some of the seals are re-
ported to be, fond of a tune. Perhaps Mr. Clarence Bart-
lett used to croon a soothing lullaby over his baby
mermaid in Surinam. Perhaps she lisped a song herself
in reply. Her forbears could accomplish great things by
such means, For are we not told that
" Certain stars shot from their spheres
To hear the sea-maids' music " ?
I suppose his pet was too young for him to ride ; but it is
said of a tame manatee which a governor of Nicaragua had
for twenty-six years, that it would carry people across the
lake on its back. It would also play familiarly with the
servants and children, crawling up to the house to do so
and to be fed. It is probable however that this is another
mermaid myth. At any rate the manatees at the Brighton
Aquarium in 1879 would never take food when they were
out of the water, and seemed very helpless when stranded.
Miss Agnes Crane, who described these Brighton mer-
maids, says that they did not seem at all at their ease out
of water, being apparently oppressed with their own bulk,
and always making off to the deepest corner of the tank
when the water was readmitted.
The sirens of science and of flesh and blood have not
escaped persecution by man, perhaps in retribution for the
deceptions which their mythical sisters practised on too
susceptible mariners. But it is not for their beauty but
their blubber that they have been persecuted. As in
vii. THE MERMAID. 107
whales, walruses, and the seal tribe, this blubber forms a
thick warm layer of fat just beneath the skin, and for this
there were " fisheries" at .the Cape and in Australia. The
oil derived from the fat is said to be remarkably pure and
sweet, and to be nicer and more efficacious than cod-liver
oil. The flesh of young mermaids is also reported to be
particularly good eating ; and Jack at sea vastly prefers it
to salt junk.
It was a fatal day for certain mermaids of the Northern
Pacific when a practical naturalist, named Steller, found
out that they were eminently palatable. A palatable
mermaid was a doomed creature. Steller sailed with
Behring in the middle of the last century. Off the coast
of Kamschatka, round an island, which bears Behring's
name, they found a great number of large, stupid, tame
creatures which they called northern sea cows. They had
small heads with bristly snouts ; rugged, gnarled hides ;
short, stumpy flippers, and a black, crescentic, fringed tail.
Teeth there were none ; but horny plates took their place,
and with them these uncouth mermaids contentedly
munched the seaweed around Behring's Island. For
centuries they had disported themselves there and con-
tentedly munched the seaweed. But Steller came and
proclaimed that they were good for eating. This was their
only and fatal virtue. In twenty-seven years, or there-
abouts, they were practically exterminated digested by
seamen and natives.
The mermaid of myth is no more. The siren of science
seems doomed to extinction at no distant date. Go there-
fore, ere it be too late, 1 and pay your respects to the living
mermaid at the Zoo.
1 Alas ! It is now too late. The mermaid died soon after these lines
were written and first printed.
CHAPTER VIII.
SEALS AND SEA-LIOKS.
"One of the herd of Proteus," said the Antiquary " a phoca or seal
lying asleep on the beach." SCOTT.
IF, as some would have us believe, it be the special
function and final cause of dumb animals to minister, alive
or dead, to the wants of man, seals and sea-lions should
have easy consciences. They do their duty to the tune of
yielding up something like half a million of lives in every
year. To the fine lady they give their soft warm under
fur; for the Aleutian they provide nearly all the neces-
sary articles of his simple life. Their skins are stretched
on frames to form his canoe; their dried flesh becomes
a choice article of food ; their blubber is used for fuel,
and the oil from their fat is burnt in lamps ; their sinews
are twisted into thread ; the lining of their throats is
tanned into leather for boots, of which the soles are made
from their fin-like flippers ; the intestines are dried and
worked up into waterproof clothing ; their stomachs are
turned inside out and converted into oil-jars or receptacles
for preserved meat ; their very whiskers are plucked out
and sold to the Chinese as pickers for their opium pipes ;
and their babies are stolen from the murdered mothers,
and sent to the Zoos of Europe. Where can you match
these creatures for conscientious all-round utility ?
CHAP. viii. SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 109
At the present time there are at Kegent's Park two kinds
of sea-lions, one from the Auckland Islands, and one from
Patagonia ; a fur-seal from the Cape of Good Hope ; and
two of the pretty soft-eyed little harbour seals (Captain
Mclntyre's friend, the phoca) that are sometimes found on
our own coasts. In addition to these there may often be
seen the noisy barking Californian sea-lion and the grey
seal which is found on the coasts of Ireland, Scotland,
and the Hebrides. And if you visit the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington you will see many other
kinds of seals and sea-lions, among them the curious
bladder-nosed seal of the North Atlantic.
Let us note in the stuffed specimens some of the
peculiar features in the structure of these interesting
animals. We shall soon be able to distinguish the seals
from the sea-lions and the fur-seals, for they have no
external ears. It is as if the outer ear had been shaved
off, leaving only the ear-hole visible amid the fur. For
you must not suppose that when zoologists speak of the
earless seals they mean that these animals are destitute of
the sense of hearing, which is, on the contrary, remarkably
acute. It is only the outer ear-shell that is wanting ; the
delicate and sensitive organ of hearing lies deeply embedded
in the skull and protected by special bones. In both the
seals and the sea-lions the limbs are converted into paddles,
and if you compare the stuffed creature with the skeleton,
you will see that both arms and legs are so enveloped in
the skin of the body that not much more than the wrists
and hands of the front legs and the ankles and feet of the
hind legs are free to move. It is as if my tailor had made
me a coat without arms, and with only a pair of holes on
each side through which I could pass my hands, and had
also made my trousers with only one leg, into which I was
obliged to insert both mine, with my ankles and feet pro-
110 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
jecting from the end. If I then had big broad flippers for
hands and feet, I might be able to swim by wagging them
to and fro ; but I should find walking, even on all fours, an
awkward business. And so, in truth, do the seals and sea-
lions, though the sea-lions and fur seals are the better off
in this respect, because their fore-flippers are longer and
stronger, and their hind-flippers can be turned forward at
the ankle. At the Zoo, you will be able to see how these
creatures manage on the land. The poor little seal, when
the keeper tempts him from the water with a fish, will
probably not attempt to use its flippers at all, but will
shuffle along by a series of comical spasmodic jumps on its
sleek round body. The sea-lions get on better ; but their
gait is very funny. You must see for yourselves. The
fore-flippers reminded Frank Buckland of Bob Ridley's
shoes in a nigger performance " From the wrist they
flop, flop, in a semicircle as right and left foot is alternately
raised, while the hind-quarters hitch, hitch, as each hind
foot comes wobble, wobble, under the body, the great toes
even over-lapping the fore-flipper." Yes ! we may laugh
at the clumsy old sea-lion on land, as he flops and hitches
and wobbles along. But let him just slip into the water !
There he is in his element. Even in our round tank at
Regent's Park you may get some idea of the consummate
grace and ease of his movements in the water. At Ham-
burg the sea-lions have more space, and one can command
a view of the pond from above. I was astonished at the
velocity with which the Californian sea-lions there cleaved
the water, at the ease with which they turned, and at the
absolute command they had over every movement. To
those who like to see a thing really well done I commend
the poetry of aquatic motion in the seals and sea-lions.
Of course you must see the sea-lions fed. The intel-
ligent keeper has taught the tractable creatures to catch
viii. SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. Ill
the fish he throws them, but to miss any particular piece
out of five. He says, " You must let the third (or the
fourth, or any other) go by ; " and the creature allows this
piece to pass him, catching all the others without fail.
The fish is bolted whole, and the mouth and teeth of the
members of the seal-tribe are modified in relation to their
special diet. The jaws are rather long and narrow, and
the cheek-teeth behind the long canines are conical, sharp-
pointed, and backward sloping, and are thus well adapted
for seizing and holding, but not for masticating or divid-
ing, the active slippery prey. Although fish is the staple
food, and is devoured in large quantities, a captive sea-
lion at San Francisco consuming no less than forty pounds
every day, both seals and sea-lions will also eat crus-
taceans, and do not disdain, on occasion, a penguin or a
gull. According to Captain Scammon, the Californian
sea-lion displays no little cunning in decoying and catch-
ing galls. When in pursuit the animal, he says, dives
deeply under water and swims some distance from where
he disappeared ; then rising cautiously, he exposes the tip
of his nose above the surface, " at the same time giving it
a rotary motion, like that of a water-bug at play." The
unwary bird, seeing the object near by, alights to catch it,
while the sea-lion at the same moment settles beneath
the waves. Then at one bound, with extended jaws, he
seizes his screaming prey, and instantly devours it.
A curious fact with regard to the dietary of the seals
and sea-lions is the habit they have of swallowing stones,
of which several pounds weight may sometimes be found
in the stomach of a sea-lion. The sailors believe that this
is for ballast, to enable the fat, sleek creatures to dive
more easily. Captain Pain, speaking of Patagonian sea-
lions, says : " They are fatter at this time (November 7)
than at any other, and have to take in a quantity of
112
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
ballast to keep them down, without which they could not
dive to catch fish. I have opened them at this time, and
found in a pouch they have inside upwards of twenty-five
pounds of stones, some as large as a goose-egg. As they
get thin they have the power of throwing up these stones,
retaining only a sufficient quantity to keep them from
CAUGHT !
coming up too freely to the surface." It is probable how-
ever that the primary object of swallowing the stones is
to aid in the preparation of the food (which is not masti-
cated in the mouth) for digestion ; but at the same time
it is not impossible that on this primary digestive purpose
a secondary ballasting purpose has been engrafted. The
captain of a small sailing vessel at the Cape assured me
vin. SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 113
that he had seen the mother seal teach her little one
thus to swallow stones.
Curiously enough the young do not take to the water
very readily. On this head Mr. F. J. Thompson records
some interesting observations made in the Cincinnati Zoo.
The female sea-lion, one of the Californian species, had
given birth to a little one. For five weeks the little
thing, though afforded every opportunity, showed no
disposition to enter the water. Then Mr. Thompson's
attention was attracted one day to the peculiar appear-
ance of the mother on emerging from the water after
taking her customary bath. She was completely covered
with a whitish oily substance, about the consistency of
semi-fluid lard. As soon as she got into the crate with
the young one, she commenced rolling, so that in a short
time the young one and the inside of the crate were
completely besmeared with the oily substance. The calf
seemed to enjoy it hugely, and rolled about "until his
coat glistened as if he had just left the hands of a first-
class tonsorial artist." "It instantly struck me," says Mr.
Thompson, " that the mother had been preparing him for
the water, and I immediately tested the matter by taking
him out and placing him on the edge of the pond, when,
in a few minutes he began to paddle about in the water
which he had never done before."
Let us now turn from the seal-pond or sea-lion tank to
the Prybilov Islands of Alaska, and see these creatures in
their native haunts. It is early spring, and the coast-line
of St. Paul's Island is free of ice and snow. In the water
around the shores there are swimming, in an idle, indo-
lent mood, a few plump, sleek bulls of the Northern Fur
Seal. After a while they land or " haul up " on the shore,
and each chooses out a convenient station, some near the
coast-line, some further inland. Here they remain until
I
114 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
the humid, foggy weather of summer sets in with the
month of June. Then it is seen that they are only the
pioneers or advance-guard of a great army of bull-seals
which come up in hundreds and thousands to establish
themselves in the " rookery." There is not room for all,
and the shore becomes a scene of fierce confusion and of
an endless series of battles by single combat. See how
that gray old bull guards his chosen piece of ground !
An interloper approaches ; they growl and spit at each
other ; the snarling lips are drawn back and display the
glistening teeth ; they make a number of feints or false
passes at one another; their heads are darted out and
back ; they roar hoarsely and their fat bodies swell with
exertion and rage; now one has fairly gripped, nothing
but sheer strength can shake him loose, and that effort
can only be made at the cost of an ugly wound. And so
the fight continues until the interloper, gashed and pant-
ing, is forced to retire. And what is all this savage
fighting about ? What have men and beasts fought about
from time immemorial? It is true thre is riot a sign
of a cow-seal at present, but the ladies are coming, and
soon they too will be hauling up in thousands on the
rocks. Happy the old bulls on the water-line station !
How that sleek old gray -whiskers bows and coaxes and
wheedles the little dames (they are only one quarter the
size of their lord) and assists them to land in the politest
fashion. And having seen them comfortably ashore, he
goes down to do the polite to fresh arrivals. But mean-
while his neighbour just inland of him shuffles forward,
reaches out his sleek round head, and picks up one of the
shy demure dames by the scruff of her neck, just as a cat
does a kitten, and transfers her to his station. Then
bulls number three, four, and so on in the vicinity, see-
ing his high-handed operation, all assail each other, and
VIIL SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 115
especially bull number two, and have a tremendous fight,
during which somebody else carries off the unfortunate
cow seal and removes her further inland to his own
quarters. Thus do matters proceed until by a process
of all-round robbery the cows are pretty well distributed
through the rookery. " Some of the bulls," says Mr.
Elliott, from whom my description is mainly taken, "show
wonderful strength and courage. I marked one veteran,
who was among the first to take up his position on the
water-line, where at least fifty or sixty desperate battles
were fought victoriously by him with as many different
seals who coveted his position."
The extraordinary thing is that they are able to carry
on all this strange courtship and sanguinary battling
during an uninterrupted fast of three months or more.
No wonder that they return to the sea mere torn and
tattered bags of bones, weighing about half what they
did when they " hauled up " sleek and plump three
months before. That the bear and other creatures that
hibernate can exist for months without food is sufficiently
wonderful ; but such continued fast during the suspended
animation of winter sleep is far less extraordinary than
the long abstinence of the sea-lion at a time when his
energies are strained to the utmost.
The little seal-pups are born while the seals are on the
land, and then the rookery soon begins to break up and
lose its compactness. Speaking of the Californian sea-
lion, Mr. J. R. Browne says that he could not discover
any individual claim set up by the mother for any par-
ticular little lion ; maternal love seemed he says " to be
joint-stock property, and each infant communist had a
mother in every adult female." This is so surprising that
I cannot but think that the statement is the result of
erroneous observation. This at any rate is what Captain
I 2
116 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Bryant says of the fur-seal " On landing, the mother
calls out to her young with a plaintive bleat like that of
a sheep calling to her lamb. As she approaches the mass
several of the young ones answer and start to meet her
responding to her call as a young lamb answers its
parent. As she meets them she looks at them, touches
them with her nose as if smelling them, and passes hur-
riedly on until she meets her own, which she at once
recognises." This description, though of a different species
is, I believe and hope truer than the other.
When they are a little older the young fur seals seern
to be very playful, sporting and frolicking with each other
like young puppies, and when weary of this gamboling,
dropping off to sleep in all sorts of odd attitudes. Their
sleep is short and they are soon frolicking and loping
about again, and this they continue for hours without
cessation ; or perhaps they struggle for and clamber on to
some favourite point of rock, pushing one another off and
struggling good-humouredly for the mastery, fairly brimful
and overrunning with warm life.
Fur seals are, if the weather be at all hot, dreadfully
oppressed with their own warm natural fur cloaks.
Nature, however, who has given them the fur, has given
them also a fan to counteract the effects of the heat
And an old lady seal who has made herself warm with
too much flopping, hitching and wobbling, will lie down
on her side or back and fan herself into a state of content-
ment with her hind flippers.
And now let us learn how these curious creatures are
hunted for their skin, and for their blubber. The skins
of the true seals those without ears and with the hind-
limbs helpless on land and of the sea-lions are of com-
paratively little value. The sealskins that ladies wear
are obtained from the fur seals (sea-bears they are some-
viii. SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 117
times called), which are closely related to the sea-lions,
but which, unlike them, are characterized by a thick
covering of close, curly under fur. Different species of
these fur seals are found on the coast of South-America,
at the Cape of Good Hope, in the New Zealand and
Australian Seas, round the islands of Kerguelen and Juan
Fernandez, and in the North Pacific. Of the latter
species alone the number that annually visit St. Paul's
and St. George's of the Prybilov Islands is estimated at
not less than five millions.
The natives employed in the seal-fishery select a group
of young bachelor seals, which do not haul up very far
from the water, and quickly and craftily running in
between them and the surf, cut them off from the water
and turn them inland. The timid creatures, startled
from sleep, seeing the men between them and the water,
lope and scramble back, with many a flop, hitch, and
wobble over the land. Thus a drove of some thousands
may be formed, to be driven inland to the killing grounds.
It's a bad business, that driving. The poor creatures are
forced on, panting and helpless. They are allowed to rest
from time to time to cool down lest the fur should be
spoiled ; but many a poor creature is left behind breathless
and spent to die of sheer exhaustion or to be more mer-
cifully (if we may here dare to speak of mercy) clubbed.
Looking at a drove of sea-lions (which are driven in a
similar way) a soldier once observed to Captain Bryant
" This is the first thing I have ever seen or heard that
realizes my youthful conception of the torments of the
condemned in purgatory.'"' Captain Scammon, describing
a drove of sea-lions, says that they were at length all
despatched, " save one young sea-lion, which was spared
to see whether he would make any resistance by being
driven over the hills beyond. The poor creature only
118 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. vm.
moved along through the prickly pears, that covered the
ground, when compelled by his cruel pursuers ; and, at
last, with an imploring look and writhing in pain, it held
out its fin-like arms, which were pierced with thorns, in
such a manner as to touch the sympathy of even the
barbarous sealers, who put the sufferer out of its misery
by a stroke of a heavy club." It is not pleasant to con-
template. A hundred thousand fur seals per annum, in
the Alaska fishery alone driven onward for hours over
ground which it must be torture for them to traverse, and
then allowed to " cool down " before the butchery com-
mences. Think of it, ye tender, soft-skinned English
ladies, as ye sit at ease in your warm fur mantles.
And the soft-eyed earless seal, whose skin is so much
less valuable, he does not fare much better. Through the
ice of the Gulf of Bothnia they fish for the pretty
creatures. " For this purpose they employ an iron imple-
ment of three barbed hooks, on one of which a young
seal is impaled alive. The mother hearing its cries
approaches it quickly, and immediately embraces it, in
the hope to free it, but in so doing presses the other
barbed hooks into herself, and both mother and young
are drawn out of the water together." Brave and bonny
fishing that, is it not ? Professor Jukes, in a sealing
vessel in Newfoundland waters, says " When piled in a
heap together the young seals looked like so many lambs ;
and when occasionally from out of the bloody and dirty
mass of carcases, one poor wretch, still alive, would lift
up its face and begin to flounder about, I could stand it
no longer, and arming myself with a hand-spike, I pro-
ceeded to knock on the head and put out of their misery
all in whom I saw signs of life." The professor also
states that the young seals are "sometimes barbarously
skinned alive," and they have been seen to swim away in
CHAP. vin. SEALS AND SEA-LIONS. 121
that hideous state, since, when the first blow fails to kill
the seal, their hard-hearted murderers " cannot stop to
give them a second."
No doubt things are better now than they were nearly
fifty years ago when Professor Jukes wrote. The pocket
more sensitive by far than the heart has been touched.
The barbarous custom of shooting the mother seals when
they came ashore to suckle their young, and thus leaving
the poor little orphans to die by thousands of starvation
on the ice, has brought its own reward. The herds were
diminished to one-twentieth part of their former size.
Now, thank God, a close season has been established by
international treaty.
I have dealt enough (unwillingly, too, believe me !) in
horrors, and will spare the reader any description of the
manner in which the drove of fur seals that I described
above is finally butchered. Let us hope that the blow of
the heavy club is generally fatal at once.
The skins are salted and sent to England. Very
different do they look from my lady's dyed fur mantle ;
for the soft, rich, curly under-fur is hidden by the outer
coat of longer hairs. These are embedded more deeply
in the skin than the short fur, and by shaving and
scraping away the under surface of the skin their roots
are cut, and they readily come out. The curly under-fur
is then displayed. It has not the rich brown tint we
know so well this is given by the dyer's art. And
sometimes I am wont to fancy that the fur is dyed in
the poor creatures' own warm blood. But this of course
is only a foolish dream.
CHAPTER IX.
AWUK THE WALRUS.
" This kind of whale is much less in quantitie than other kinds, having
not in length above seven elles." HAKLUYT.
" THEREFORE these fish called Rosmari, or Morsi, have
heads fashioned like to oxes, and a hairy skin, and
hair growing as thick as straw or corn-reeds, that lye loose
very largely. They will raise themselves with their
Teeth as by Ladders to the very tops of Rocks, that they
may feed on the Dewie Grasse, or fresh Water, and roll
themselves in it, and then go to the Sea again, unless in
the meanwhile they fall very fast asleep, and rest upon
the rocks, for then Fisher-men make all the haste they
can, and begin at the Tail, and part the Skin from the Fat ;
and into this that is parted, they put most strong cords,
and fasten them on the rugged Rocks, or Trees that are
near; then they throw stones at his head, out of a sling,
to raise him, and they compel him to descend, spoiled of
the greatest part of his Skin which is fastened to the
Ropes ; he being thereby debilitated fearful, and half dead,
he is made a rich prey, especially for his Teeth, that are
very pretious amongst the Scythians (as Ivory amongst
the Indians) by reason of its hardness, whiteness, and
ponderousnesse."
CHAP. ix. AWUK THE WALRUS. 123
Thus wrote Albertus Magnus in the early part of the
thirteenth century (Englished in 1658). And here we
have one of the earliest accounts of the Walrus or Horse-
whale of the northern seas ; Awuk as he is called by the
long-headed Eskimos.
A huge ugly brute is this said horse-whale. His blunt
stubbly snout, his great tusks, twenty inches or more
in length, his small bloodshot angry eye, his shaved-off
ear, his low forehead (though the form of the brain within
points to possibilities of unsuspected intelligence), his
wrinkled skin, scarred and gnarled with many a wound,
give him anything but a prepossessing appearance. His
forequarters are exceedingly massive and heavy, the body
tapering backwards ; and when he squats on the ice his
hind-quarters are so bent forward as to give his back a
rounded curve. His front limbs are embedded in the
huge forequarters to the elbow and are converted into
nipper paddles which can be turned forwards at the wrist.
His hind limbs are enveloped in the general skin of the
body as far as the ankles, the almost invisible tail lying in
the fold of loose skin which connects them heel to heel.
The feet can be turned forward at the ankle during pro-
gression on land or ice, and their under surfaces, as also
those of the fore-feet, are provided with rough warty
ridges giving them foothold on smooth ice and rock.
With these awkward limbs (awkward for progression on
land) they hitch, flop, and straddle along in a clumsy,
indolent fashion; though when hard pressed or alarmed
they can break into a hobbling canter.
Such is the walrus on the ice. But let him tumble
into the water and he is a different being. There he is at
his ease. The hind feet held backwards form a powerful
stern propeller the fore flippers, efficient shovel-shaped
paddles. His ungainly awkwardness is exchanged for
124 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
complete and most excellent mastery. He will tear
through the water; and if he have been harpooned he
will tow a large boat astern as if it were a cockle-shell.
He will dive with consummate ease as to the manner
born. The simultaneousness, says Mr. Lament, with which
a herd of walruses will dive and reappear again is remark-
able. One moment you see a hundred grisly heads and
long gleaming white tusks above the waves ; they give
one spout from their blowholes, take one breath of fresh
air, and the next moment you see a hundred brown hemi-
spherical backs, the next a hundred pair of hind flippers
flourishing ; and then in a twinkling they are all down.
Yes ! The walrus can swim and dive excellently. In the
water he is at home, Like the British tar he leaves his
awkwardness ashore.
In hunting the walrus, a peculiarly barbarous device
is or let us hopefully say used to be sometimes adopted.
This consisted in securing a young calf, which must be
harpooned lightly and tenderly lest it untimely perish.
Thus secured it was " stirred up " by much prodding
with the butt end of a harpoon. The object of this
humane procedure was to cause it " to emit a peculiar,
plaintive, grunting cry, eminently expressive of alarm
and of a desire for assistance." The mother and other
walruses then came to its aid, and were thus brought
within lance-thrust; for this ugly and ungainly brute
has a strange and beautiful tenderness for its young.
Lamont describes how a cow- walrus protected her infant
with touching solicitude. Whenever the harpooner (whose
name, of all others, was Christian), desirous of obtaining
a calf to " stir up," prepared to launch his weapon " she
seemed to watch the direction of it, and interposed her
own body, receiving several harpoons which were intended
for the young ones. I don't think I shall ever forget,"
ix. AWUK THE WALRUS. 125
he adds, " the faces of the old walrus and the calf as they
looked back at the boat. The countenance of the young
one, so expressive of abject terror, and yet of confidence
in its mother's power of protecting it, as it swam along
under her wing; and the old cow's face showing such
reckless defiance for all that we could do to herself, and
yet such terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf."
And what return is there for this merciless procedure,
this "tenderly" harpooning and "gently" stirring up to
the groaning point a harmless walrus calf? What in
return for all this cruelty ? Several pounds of blubber,
some indifferent ivory, and a hide which can be boiled
into glue.
It so chanced that I was standing the other day in the
mammalian gallery of the Museum in Liverpool and look-
ing up at the stuffed specimen of the walrus picturing him
hanging to the rugged rocks by his great tusks fast asleep
while the fishermen busied themselves around ; some
skinning his hinder regions, others affixing ropes to the
neighbouring trees, and others preparing the sling stones
by which, when all was in readiness for him to flay himself
alive, he was to be awakened. (Fancy requiring to be
awakened after the skin of your tail had been parted from
the fat and firmly fastened to most strong cords ! ) I was
trying to picture to myself the living, breathing reality
with blubber and pulsating flesh (instead of hay) beneath
the wrinkled skin, and a throbbing brain behind the small
wary eyes ; when a weather-beaten old sailor at my side,
jerking his head towards the walrus, volunteered the
remark
" I's 'unted 'e."
Just the man I wanted. He was a most intelligent
fellow, listening for awhile with apparent interest to my
126 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
zoological descriptions (with a little Darwinism thrown in
for flavouring) of the creature he knew far more about
than I did. I wonder whether it crossed his mind that my
discourse was intended merely to act the part of the water
one pours into an old-fashioned pump to make it draw;
and that my real object was, not to air my own knowledge
but to tap the well-springs of his I doubt it. In
any case the method was successful, and soon the pump
was drawing beautifully. At first I posed as an opposition
spout. But soon this became unnecessary and all that was
required was a little judicious working at the handle.
My friend had, it seems, been for a year or two, how long
ago I cannot say, a hand on an American sealing vessel,
and a rough time he had of it. He gave me some account
of his privations and the hardships of a sealer's life. But
it is of his experiences with the walrus that I have
now to speak ; and I give them somewhat in his own
words.
" I'll not forgot," he said, " the first time I went after he,"
again jerking his head towards the walrus who reposed
above the glass cases in stuffed majesty. " It was on the
morning of a warm summer's day the sun can be hot enough
up there I can tell you and a good deal of broken ice was
coming down sound. Whether we sighted the sea horses,
or heard 'em barking in the distance, I can't rightly say.
You can hear 'em a way off sounds like c luck ! luck !
luck ! ' me and my mates used to say. Leastways we
soon had the boat down and went after 'em. Each of us
rowed two short oars, like what they call on the river
sculling though it ain't proper sculling neither and the
mate he steered with a pair of oars keeping a look out
ahead. Dick he rowed forrard and was ready to use the
harpoon when we came to close quarters. We used to
have five or six harpoons, each with ten or twelve fathom
ix. AWUK THE WALRUS. 127
of line made fast to the boat. The captain and mate had
two guns apiece. After we'd pulled a matter of three
mile we were told to row slow and quiet so as not to
disturb the sea-horses. There were a couple of score of
them or more. I guess they hadn't seen the likes of us
before. Leastways they took mighty little count of us.
They just sot on the ice and wagged their old heads at us
solemn as an ugly old judge.
" When we got a bit nigher Dick Rowney, he sung out
' give way, boys ' when he'd got harpoon in hand Dick
always bossed us ' give way, boys/ said Dick ; and we shot
in under the ice. How the lubberly brutes rolled off into
the water ! Dick got his harpoon well into an old bull and
the captain and mate they each gave him a charge. He
didn't require no more attention. The whole lot was now in
the water about a furlong ahead of us. We were soon in the
thick of 'em, and Dick he got fast another harpoon. Down
went the old bull and took with him pretty nigh all the line.
Then he rose and was making off when the line brought him
up. Captainhe gave him a charge; but it onlymade him mad,
and he towed us half a furlong with the sea horses all
round us and the dead un towing alongside. One or two
of the beasts drove at us with their tusks. I don't think
they went for to attack us, but just let drive at us when
we were nearly on them. I remember one great bull
raised hisself out of the water and was almost down on us.
I drove at un with my oar and kept un off. Another was
nigh doing us damage but mate gave un a charge as made
his head ache, and he went down like a stone.
" Did we bag the one as was towing of us ? I guess we
did ; Captain he plugged he, which made two alongside.
We got one more, a little un, and then hauled up on the
ice. We took the ivories of two; the other was only a
yunker and his tusks were just sprouting : and we skinned
128 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
all three. The blubber comes away with the skin and we
stripped it off and stowed it in casks aboard.
" That's all we got that morning. But sometimes we
got as many as a dozen in the day. Dick he knew how to
stick the biggest and fattest bulls, he did. We used to
say Dick Rowney's father must have been a farmer 'cause
he knew the best bulls so well. And when he said as how
he was a gardener, we said leastways he could plant a
stick in a sea horse with the best of 'em.
" Yes ! I once seed two old bulls fighting on the ice.
Lord ! it would have made you laugh to see the way they
jobbed at each other with their tusks. Damage each
other ? Well I can't say whether they did much harm
because of the distance. They prodded each other pretty
smart. Bat their skins is an inch or more thick, let alone
another inch or more of blubber. Why they'll flatten a
bullet at 50 yards. You might as well aim at an ironclad
(not as I thinks much of them. What with boilers busting
and running ashore they do a lot of fooling, they do).
But their skins is often covered with old wounds where
the tusks have gone in. So they must do some damage
though it is so thick. I can't say rightly, but Dick
Rowney a bit of a scholard was Dick I dare-say some of
your books and things can tell I can't say myself but
leastways Dick he said and Dick knew a thing or two, and
things as isn't in the books which books ain't everything
though Dick he'd read by the hour leastways Dick he said
and if he didn't know he oughter as the blubber was a
kind of ointment given them brutes by God Almighty to
heal their wounds. That's what Dick said, and I don't
know as why he shouldn't know as well as them as thinks
they knows."
At this stage of our conversation I ceased to work the
pump handle quite so vigorously; for I found that my
ix. AWUK THE WALRUS. 129
excellent friend had given of his best, and had only
repetitions of similar experiences, together with a digest
of Dick's opinions, to offer in addition. Dick was clearly
a great hero. And I was amused to find that my good
friend, in scornfully rejecting Darwinism as applied to the
walrus, clearly felt that he was on safe ground because
he was sure that Dick would have agreed with him.
" Now you just look at his great tusks, and his nippers,
and his great big body. Why any one could see with half
an eye, as Dick would have said, that God Almighty made
un. Dick was a scholard, he was, and knew a sight of texes
from the Bible though he did swear sometimes fit to blow
the bung out of an oil cask but that's what he'd have said
' any one could see with half an eye that God Almighty
made un.' Why he's that stupid he couldn't make hisself
if you gave him right away from the first chapter of
Genesis. How could he get hisself those long tusks to
fight with ? Oh, yes ! I've heard some say that they're
only good for grubbing up mussels with and sich like
But as Dick says, seeing's believing, and Dick's seen 'em
fighting with them great tusks and so have I. And what
you've seen, you've seen. And you can't say nothing to
that. Let alone the ointment. As Dick would have said,
if they're not for fighting, why did God Almighty give
them the ointment ? And do you think they could have
gotten the ointment for themselves ? No, sir ! Don't you
believe it. They're too stupid for that."
It was quite in vain for me to attempt to give my
worthy friend some idea of what Mr. Darwin really meant.
I was met by
" Oh ! you needn't think I don't understand what he
meant. Dick he didn't never say nothing about it which
shows it wasn't m uch. Well may be it was after Dick's time
But that ain't much odds. I know as how you believe
K
ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. ix.
that monkeys lost, their tails and became men and I've
seen savages as couldn't jabber no more sense than
monkeys But that's no argument, because God made 'em
so. Leastways you'll never persuade me as he " (another
jerk of the head towards the walrus) " or any number of
'em could make them tusks, and that skin, and them
flippers. They're that stupid. You'll not tell me they
could make themselves give 'em a thousand years. And
it ain't no ways likely that them as was made at the
creation weren't no stupider than what these ain't now.
Not a bit, sir, nohow."
This accumulated negative was too much for me ; I
yielded gracefully. And finding that I could get no
further information of the kind I wanted, I thanked the
good fellow for his tale, gave him a trifle to expend in
tobacco, wished him God speed (his vessel lay in the
Mersey and would be under way ere the week was out)
and coming home committed the substance of his remarks
to paper to form part of that book knowledge which he,
notwithstanding that Dick was a scholard, affected to
despise. May his voyage be prosperous, though he has
long ceased to be a hunter of Awuk, the walrus.
CHAPTER X.
FLITTERMICE.
" And all the silent swirl
Of bats that seem to follow in the air
Some grand circumference of a shadowy dome
To which we are blind." E. B. BROWNING.
How like you, reader, these silent swirlers of the sum-
mer night flittermice, as they are called by the kindly
simple folk of some parts of England ? Are they pleasant
to you, or repulsive ? Harbingers of good or ill ? My own
feelings are of a somewhat mixed character. These quaint
aside-thoughts of nature's have for me varied and contra-
dictory associations. Shall I confess that, in the days gone
by and in certain moods, bats have seemed to me like un-
canny messengers from the mysterious under-world of
goblins and ghouls ? Yes : and I confess that even now
bats can be for me unconquerably uncanny smile who will
at the confession. And oddly enough, such is the power
of the association of ideas, whenever I think of the little
harpies in this connection there always rises before my
mind's eye a vision of the incantation scene in Der
Freischutz when Caspar casts the magic bullets. The
dim light, the flashing gleams of red fire, the weird un-
earthly music, and the general sense of breathless and ex-
pectant dread, cluster round, and are in a sense symbolized
K 2
132 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
by the great bats which now and again emerged from the
dark recesses of the cavern.
Nor is it only in this way that bats were for me, in
those earlier days of trustful acceptance of all things
printed, objects of not wholly unpleasant horror. I had
somehow and somewhere come across Captain Sted man's
account of the huge and terrible vampire of South
America. It was with a strange thrill that I more lately
renewed my acquaintance with the story in the pleasant
pages of the Rev. Dr. Bingley's Animal Biography-
Thus it runs : " I cannot here forbear relating," says the
Captain, " a singular circumstance. On waking about four
o'clock one morning in my hammock, I was extremely
alarmed at finding myself weltering " (how I dwelt breath-
lessly on that word weltering !) " in congealed blood, and
without feeling " (mark how the mystery deepens !) " any
pain whatever. I started up, and rung for the surgeon,
with a fire-brand in one hand, and all over besmeared with
gore ; to which, if added, my face pale, short hair, and
tattered apparel, he might well ask the question :
<c ' Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs of heav'n, or blasts from hell ? '
The mystery, however, was that I had been bitten by the
Vampire, or Spectre of Guiana. This is no other than a
bat of monstrous size, that sucks the blood from men and
cattle when they are fast asleep, even sometimes till they
die" (oh, cruel death!), "and as the manner in which
they proceed is truly wonderful, I shall endeavour to give
a distinct account of it. Knowing, by instinct, that the
person they intend to attack is in a sound slumber, they
generally alight near the feet, where, while the creature
continues fanning with its enormous wings " (oh, diabolical
instinct !) a he bites a piece out of the tip of the great
x. FLITTERMICE. 133
toe" (on the furthest confines, mark you, of the soul's
dominions), " so very small indeed, that the head of a pin
could scarcely be received into the wound, which is conse-
quently not painful, yet, through this orifice " (the little
rift within the lute that by and by will make the music
mute), "he continues to suck the blood, until he is obliged
to disgorge. He then begins again, and thus continues
sucking and disgorging" (oh, fiendish animated pump!)
"till he is scarcely able to fly; and the sufferer has often
been known to sleep from time into eternity."
It is pleasant to turn from such scenes of blood and
maybe death, to less painful associations connected with
our little leathern-winged haunters of the summer twi-
light hours. For there are, for me at least, flittermouse
associations which are wholly pleasant. In this connec-
tion they suggest delightful evening strolls across scented
fields, when the latest songsters make the summer air
thrill with their joyous melody, and the soft-winged night-
jar chur-r-r-r-r-rs his strange note from yonder lean pine.
In this connection again they call to mind the return from
some pleasant picnic when the boat drops slowly down the
long reaches of the silver Thames, and the. silence is only
broken by the ripple of the wavelets on the stem, the dis-
tant plash of oars, or the plop of some sleek water-rat
diving from the bank. Or yet again they recall my pretty
cottage at the Cape, with its cool verandah clad with con-
volvulous and honeysuckle, the blossomed pear-trees and the
bright plumbago-hedge, and, above, the stern buttresses of
Table Mountain fading through the rapid twilight into the
star-bespangled night. I thank thee, gentle flittermouse,
for these so pleasant memories.
Have you ever caught and examined a flittermouse ? In
doing so, I warn you, beware of his teeth. He may not
suck the life-blood from you ; but he may give you an
134 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
unpleasantly sharp nip. " Fierce little warmints is bats,"
said my father's gardener when, in the days gone by, he
somewhat reluctantly aided me in capturing one in the
greenhouse. I kept the little fellow for two or three days
in a box in the loft over the stable, hoping to make a pet
of him. But my efforts were ineffectual. I could not
get him to eat though I presented him with the most
tempting flies, beetles, slugs, worms, and spiders. He
drank water pretty freely from a cainel's-hair brush ; but
always seemed in a state of prodigious excitement, his
long ears and india-rubber-like wing-membranes being all
a-tremble with nervousness or indignation, whenever I took
him out. He shuffled along the floor with a curiously
awkward jerky hand-over-hand motion, the fore part of
the body being somewhat raised from the ground. What
became of him I know not. On the fourth morning I
found his box overturned and my bat missing. I blamed
a great grey and yellow barn owl ; but perhaps unjustly.
I well remember my disappointment at not being able
to tame my little friend for bats may be tamed. Mr. Bell
in his British Quadrupeds describes how one kept by
Mr. Sowerby, when set at liberty in the parlour, would fly
to the hand of any of the young people who held up a fly
towards it, and pitching on the hand, would take the fly
without hesitation. If the insect was held between the
lips, the bat would settle on its young patron's cheek and
take the fly with the utmost gentleness; and when a
humming noise was made in imitation of an insect, the
gentle creature would eagerly search about the lips for the
promised dainty.
Mrs. S. C. Hall, who made a pet of a poor little flitter-
mouse a great ungainly boy was illtreating (more in
ignorance than in malice, let us hope), says that the
little trembling thing became as tame as a mouse, grew
x. FLITTERM1CE. 135
to know her well, devoured any form of animal food, and
lapped milk from her finger. She used to allow it to fly
out at dusk and hawk for insects ; and it never failed to
return at the expiration of a couple of hours or so, hang-
ing to the window-sill or the sash until its mistress gave it
admission.
Another observer of bat life, quoted by Professor Burt
Wilder, says that having caught a lively long-eared bat, he
placed the little fellow in a wire-gauze cage, and inserted
a few large flies. The captive was soon attracted by their
buzz, and pricking up his ears (just as a donkey does 1 ), he
pounced upon his prey. But instead of taking it directly
into his mouth, he covered it with his body, and beat it
by the aid of his wings into a bag or pocket with which
the creature is provided. This bag or pocket is formed by
the membrane (called the interfemoral membrane) which
stretches between the hind legs and includes the tail.
Having thus bagged his prey, he tucked his head under
his body, withdrew the poor fly from the pouch, and
devoured it at leisure.
It is possible that insects are secured in this way when
the bat is on the wing, for the same writer, although he
had no opportunity of observing the action when the
creature was in full flight, states that when an insect
was caught a few inches from the side of the cage, the
method of capture was the same. During flight the
interfemoral membrane is not extended to a flat surface
(and appears incapable of being so stretched), but always
preserves a more or less concave form, highly calculated to
serve the purposes of an efficient skim-net, wherewith to
capture insects on the wing. The membrane of the
pouch would seem, moreover, to be highly sensitive
Occasionally, says the same observer, when the bat was
1 This little uncalled-for-insult is the observer's not mine.
136 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
sleepy, sitting at the bottom of his cage, nodding his
head, a poor, silly blue-bottle fly (no doubt of tender age
and not versed in the natural history of the Vesper-
tilionidse) would walk with innocent confidence under
and over the bat, passing nose, ears, and eyes without
danger. But the moment he touched the sensitive mem-
brane of the bag, it closed upon him. And thence there
was no retreat. The cruel, sharp teeth of the bat soon
substituted for imprisonment, rapid death.
Dear old Gilbert White of Selborne, has in his eleventh
letter some observations which I cannot refrain from
quoting. " I was much entertained," he writes, " last
summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a
person's hand. If you gave it anything to eat, it brought
its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its
head in the manner of birds of prey when they feed.
The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of flies,
which were always rejected, was worthy of observation,
and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most accept-
able, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered ; so
that the notion that bats go down chimneys and gnaw
men's bacon, seems no improbable story. While I amused
myself with this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several
times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down
upon a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by
rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed,
with more dispatch than I was aware of ; but in a most
ridiculous and grotesque manner."
I dare say some of my readers will remember ^Esop's
fable of the battle between the beasts and the birds. As
Mr. Dallas reminds us, the moral of the fable is tacked on
to the conduct of the bat. Availing himself of the com-
bination of wings and a furry mouse body, that astute ani-
mal hovered ovdr the field of carnage, and joined by turns
x. FLITTERMICE. 137
the ranks of those on whom the god of battles happened
to smile, determined in any case magnanimously to throw
in his lot with the victors. But as Mr. Dallas remarks,
this finesse was unsuccessful ; the traitor was scouted by
both parties, and has ever since been compelled to make
his appearance in public only at night.
Of those who read the fable there may perhaps be still
some who remain in doubt to which party the astute bat
was traitor, and perchance a few who with Sir Walter Scott x
class them among " birds of evil presage." In any case it
may be worth while to point out one or two characters by
which the bat is shown to be an unmistakable though
strangely modified beast. He is no transitional link be-
tween the mammals and the birds, but belongs indubitably
to the former group of animals. This is shown by his
furry body (though the Collared bat of Malacca has but
little to boast of in this respect), by his sharp teeth (though
birds of old were not toothless), by the fact that the young
are born and suckled, not hatched, (though the Duck-bill
among mammals lays eggs) and by the unanimous testi-
mony of the whole internal anatomy. Skull and brain,
breast-bone and hip, vertebral column and tail, lungs and
digestive apparatus, all indicate that the bat is an utter
though undeniably lowly beast. I use this word of course
in its natural-history sense, and with no hint of the dis-
paragement implied by the schoolboy who, on being asked
to describe zoologically the cat, replied pithily, " A cat is
an animal : our cat is a beast."
The wing, moreover, of the bat is quite different from
the wing of any bird. It is a noteworthy fact, and
wonderfully indicative of the resources of Nature, that
within the back-boned class the problem of flight has been
solved in three distinct ways : nay, four, if we may include
1 Quentin Durward, Chapter XX VIII,
138 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
the flight of fishes. But do flying fishes veritably fly ? or
do they merely sail, borne along on outstretched fins by
the powerful impetus with which they flash out of the blue
water ? Often and often in the tropics have I leaned from
the bows of an ocean steamer and watched these creatures,
frightened by the heavy plunging of the huge steam
leviathan, dart from the water and, now and again just
grazing the summit of a wave, sail in long curves for the
space of thrice the vessel's length. For long I was un-
decided whether theirs was true flight or not ; nor am I
quite convinced to this day. But I lean to the view that
the apparent fluttering of the wings, which is very obvious
when the fish skims and touches a wave crest, is an
accompaniment of the vigorous tail-strokes which often
leave their mark on the smooth surface of the water,
and that the flickering of the wing-fins as they sail is a
mechanical result of the rapid passage through the air.
I am inclined therefore reluctantly to abandon my old
belief in the flight of fishes, and to place it in the same
category as the graceful sweep of the flying squirrel,
the Ariel of Australia and the Colugo of the Indian
Archipelago.
Of the flight of reptiles not of the effete reptiles of
to-day, but of dragons in the hey-day of their youth
there can be no doubt. In the secondary ages of geo-
logical history, when these strange forms were lords of
sea and land, and when birds and mammals had not
begun to dream of asserting their supremacy, the realms
of air also were tenanted by numerous leathern-winged
reptiles. These strange creatures throve and grew arid
multiplied, and were no doubt the terror of the smaller
denizens of the land and sea over which they hovered.
Some had long jaws armed with cruel teeth ; others in
America would seem to have been toothless, and may
FLITTERMICE.
139
have had their jaws ensheathed in horny beaks. The
skull of one species is not less than a yard in length,
and fragments of yet larger crania have been discovered.
From twenty to twenty-five feet may have fallen within the
wing-spread of these veritable "dragons of the prime."
The curious point about the wing, however, and the
140 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
feature in which it differs from that of the bat, is that the
wing-membrane was spread from the tip of the fourth
ringer (the length of this " little " finger sometimes equal-
ling that of the whole body) to the ankle and thence to
the tail-tip ; whereas in the bat the wing-membrane is
spread on the four fingers of the hand, all of which are
greatly elongated. As in the winged reptile, so too in the
bat, the membrane swept backward to the ankle and
thence to the tip of the tail, a long spur from the ankle
WING BONES OF DUCK AND BAT.
aiding in the support of the posterior interfemoral mem-
brane before alluded to.
Quite different again is the wing of the bird. Here, as
I need not stay to describe, the arm and shrunken hand
bear those exquisite structures, the feathers, which are
characteristic of birds, and of birds alone. Indeed the only
obvious point of similarity between the membraned-hand
of the bat and the feathered-hand of the bird is the compara-
tive insignificance in each of the thumb. In the bird the
thumb is very small, and carries a tuft of feathers called
the bastard wing. In the bat the thumb is similar to the
x. FLITTERMICE. 141
toes of the feet, and like them bears a sharp curved claw
by which on occasion the creature can suspend itself, and
which comes into use when it is shuffling along the
ground.
There is a curious inverted position of the hind-limb,
observable when the bat is thus shuffling along, which I
will very briefly describe and then have done with these
(I hope not wearisome) structural details. Unlike the
monkey and the vast majority of the mammalian class in
which the knee is directed forwards, the bat has its leg
screwed round in such a way that the bend of the knee is
in just the opposite direction. Our little flittermouse has
its thigh so twisted upwards and backwards as to bring the
hind-limb into the position exemplified by that of a grass-
hopper. It is this, in part, which gives the bat so curious
and ungainly a gait ; and it is seldom that these creatures
are accurately drawn with the hind-leg in this seemingly
awkward but to them natural position ; a position which
results to a large extent no doubt from the fact that the
hind-limb is implicated in the organ of flight. And it is
one of the great structural advantages of birds over bats
and flying reptiles that the complete setting apart of the
wings for flight has left the legs free to become admirable
organs of progression on land. The position of the bat's
leg may be, however, to some extent a result of the
creature's habit of suspending itself by the claws of the
feet, since it prevents his continually knocking his knees
against the rock or stone surface on which he hangs sus-
pended in this way head-downwards. Most of us I suppose
have disturbed, in caves or old church towers, the poor
little flittermice in their winter sleep. At such times
breathing is almost suspended, the pulsations of the heart
fall from two hundred beats in a minute to thirty, the
blood is in a dark venous state, and the temperature of the
142 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
body may fall to 40 Fahr., but slightly above that of the
surrounding air. Here then is another point of difference
between birds and bats. Birds who feel too acutely our
winter climate, or who are pinched by a scarcity of insect
food, take wing to more favoured climes. Bats do not
migrate, but fall into the winter sleep of hibernation.
I well remember, now some fifteen years ago, starting
at 7 A.M. in the cold crisp air of a January morning to
drive in what they were pleased to call the " stage " from
Cave City to the famous Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.
As an evolutionist I was forced to regard that " stage " as
a somewhat degenerate descendant of a bathing-machine
that had taken to terrestrial life. The roads were not
good ; and I could scarcely have believed, had I not myself
undergone the painful experience, that a piece of apparatus
so solemn and ponderous could have behaved in a manner
so lively. Bruised and bewildered, we reached the Cave
Hotel, and after some necessary rest and refreshment fol-
lowed a good-humoured mulatto guide to the mouth of the
great cavern. A drapery of icicles hung glittering in the
bright cold sunshine before the entrance. Through the
narrow passage by which we entered the main cave a
strong current blew inwards, so that it was difficult to keep
our lamps alight. The interior of the cavern safely gained,
we looked around us. The walls of the great chamber
were festooned with innumerable bats which are wont to
hibernate in the comparatively warm and equable climate
of the cave.
Those who may not have visited bats in their winter
haunts, but who 'may have visited the monkey-house at
the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, will not have
failed to observe the large fruit-eating bats hanging
pendant, wrapped in the ample folds of their wings, behind
their green curtain. It is not difficult to induce one to
x. FLITTERMICE. 143
scramble down for a date or piece of fig, which he will
carry up with him and devour, hanging by one leg and
holding the fruit between the claws and opposable thumb
of the other. These " flying-foxes " are larger than their
insect-eating relatives, attaining a length of nearly a foot
with an expanse of wings exceeding three feet. I have
never had an opportunity of visiting the flying-fox in his
native haunts Southern Asia and the neighbouring
islands. But those who have seen Pteropus at home do
not seem to give him the highest character for amiability
or respectability. Sir J. Emerson Tennent, in his " Natural
History of Ceylon," says that when they return from their
morning excursions they are constantly wrangling and
contending angrily for the most shady and comfortable
places in which to hang for the rest of the day. In the
evening, too, as they return from the feeding-grounds they
wrangle again over the food they have collected, biting
each other snappishly, and tearing one another with their
sharp curved claws, especially the long hook>like claw of
the thumb with which they strike out viciously. Nor is
this all. Strict vegetarians though they be, or pretend to
be, these frugivorous bats are, according to Mr. Francis
Day, exceedingly intemperate and disgracefully dissipated.
They often, he assures us, and he is not the only witness
against them, pass the night drinking the toddy from the
chatties of the cocoa-nut trees, which results either in their
returning home in the early morning in a state of extreme
and riotous intoxication, or in being found the next day at
the foot of the trees sleeping off the effects of their mid-
night carouse.
Let us return from these sad revellers of the night to
the better-behaved flittermice of our more temperate
latitudes.
There are several species of British bats, some twenty
144 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
in all, I believe, including occasional visitants. First we
may place the long-eared bat, the great ears of which are
fully three-quarters of the length of the head and body,
while the earlet, representing the little rounded lobe in
front of the orifice of the human ear, is nearly one-fourth
of the creature's length. The barbastelle has ears of more
moderate size, but so arranged that they almost surround
the little bead-like eyes. His short, blunt muzzle gives
him the aspect of a most determined little bat. Perhaps
the commonest spe.cies is the pipistrelle, in which the
outer margin of the ear instead of curving round the eye
PIPISTRELLE.
weeps round so as nearly to meet the outer margin of the
mouth. Another species, the noctule, is quite a little giant
among our flittermice, its head and body measuring nearly
three inches in length ! and the spread of its wings
(which are long and narrow, for the noctule is a high-flyer
and a swallow among bats) reaching to some fourteen
inches. The head is broad ; the eyes far apart. A female
noctule caught by Mr. Daniel gave birth to a little, hairless,
blind batlet, which she received into the cup-like cavity
of the interfemoral membrane, and tended with the utmost
care, wrapping it in the mantle of her wings.
x. FLITTERMICE. 145
If these vespertilione bats are scarcely to be called
beautiful in face and feature, the horseshoe bats must be
regarded as positively ugly. The face carries a curious
nasal appendage or nose-leaf. This consists of a horse-
shoe-shaped membranous expansion which sweeps round
and includes the nostrils. From the ends of the horse-
shoe there passes on to the forehead a tapering lance-
shaped frontal leaf. In the middle is a central leaf, some-
what flattened from side to side, and projecting forwards.
The whole gives to the face a most terrific and uncanny
aspect, which is intensified in certain foreign species, such
HORSE-SHOE BAT, LONG-EARED BAT.
as the mourning horse-shoe bat of the East, and the trident
bat of Persia.
The occurrence of these membranous expansions of nose
and ear is particularly interesting. For it would seem
that the peculiar modification of the integument necessary
to produce a wing-membrane has carried with it a tendency
for the skin in other parts of the body to vary and to run
into membranous expansions.
These membranous expansions wings, ears, and nose-
leaves are peculiarly sensitive to touch. For it would
seem to be partly by this sense, and partly, according to
I,
146 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
M. de Jurine, by the sense of hearing, that bats are able
to thread their way through underground passages where
scarcely a ray of light can enter. The Abbe Spallanzani's
convincing but cruel experiments showed that bats arti-
ficially blinded (for the proverbial expression " as blind as
a bat " involves a piece of gratuitous calumny) were able to
fly freely and fearlessly in and out among various obstacles
to their progress without striking against the walls of the
room, or so much as touching with their wings the objects
it contained. Nay more, they seemed to be anxious to
give the paw of a cat or the hand of a man a wider berth
than to any mere inanimate piece of furniture. And when
one was allowed to fly down an underground passage in
which there was a sharp bend, not only did it sweep round
the curve without hesitation, but it detected a small cavity
in the roof, and changed its course in order to hide itself in
this retreat. It is said, moreover, that those species which
bear nose-leaves show greater acuteness of perception than
those which are not so adorned, and that many of them
are known to frequent the darkest places of retreat, and
to fly later than some of their less endowed fellows.
Professor Flower has shown that the nose-leaves are
developed in part from the integument round the nostrils
and in part from the sensory region of the upper lip.
' The dreaded Vampire of South America is one of these
nose-leaved bats. It is a cruel-looking fellow, with long,
sharp canine teeth. The length of the head and body is
about six inches, and the spread of its wings nearly two
feet and a half. Cruel as it looks, however, it is in all
probability innocent of the blood of man or of four-footed
beast. Its food would seem to consist of insects and
vegetable products. The maws of those examined by Mr.
Bates contained only a pulp of fruits and seeds with a few
remains of insects.
x. FLITTERMICE. . 147
The true blood-sucker is a smaller bat, about four inches
long and about fifteen inches in expanse of wing. Its
teeth are curiously modified in relation to its mode of life.
In the adult animal there are in the upper jaw two large
prominent triangular incisor teeth, wonderfully sharp and
trenchant. On either side of these the canines are also
sharp and of a somewhat similar form. Behind these
again are two sharp-edged premolars. Molar teeth there
are none. It is with the sharp incisors that the bat makes
its minute puncture of a wound. Some years ago when I
was in Brazil I was shown, at Juiz da Fora, one of these
Desmodonts which had been caught in the act of sucking
the blood from the shoulder of a mule. The wound is,
however, not generally a very serious one.
Once more let me return for just one moment to our
harmless little English flittermice. The inebriate Flying
Fox of the East and the wicked blood-sucking Desmodus of
the West are but distant relations of our fitfully flitting
friend of the long summer evenings. We must not hold
our little insect-eating Leather-wings guilty of the unpar-
donable excesses of the one or the blood-thirsty savagery
of the other. To insects they may appear, and not unjustly,
cruel ogres ; but let us rather regard them as part of the
glad symbolism which accompanies Nature's beautiful
awakening from the long sleep of winter.
L 2
CHAPTER XL
MASTER IMPERTINENCE.
" 0, matter and impertinency mix'd." SHAKESPEARE.
"Hit wuz wunner deze yer uppity little Jack Sparrers, I speck."
UNCLE REMUS.
I CONFESS I have some regard for, indeed I may say
some admiration of, that chirping morsel of Passerine
anatomy whom I have ventured to dub Master Im-
pertinence, but whom the prosaic call the sparrow, and
urchins not less impertinent than himself mention slight-
ingly as a spadger. I keep these views a secret, however,
from my agricultural and horticultural friends and acquaint-
ances, for whom the bare mention of his name is an oc-
casion for vigorous and unguarded language. I wink at
his garrulous depredations among the half-dozen crocuses
of my few square yards of garden, which a score of well-
grown hungry aphid s last year stripped nearly bare
not only of flowers but of foliage. These I do regard
with such detestation as I can summon against anything
which shares with me the breath of life. They thrive
in a mean, underhand way, donning a disguise of green
which deceives even a lady-bird's grub. You never hear
them chirp as they steal your treasures, Now about
Master Impertinence" there is nothing furtive or stealthy
CHAP. xi. MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 149
except for an etymologist. He alights at your very feet,
cocks his eye at you, takes what he wants under your very
nose, flies off a few yards and boasts of what he has done
in a clear and audible voice. What cares he if you do use
bad language ?
He respects neither man nor beast. He will claim his
share of the elephant's rice at the Zoo, and assist the lion
to pick the shoulder-blade of a horse. I cannot con-
scientiously say I have seen him do it, but I am convinced
he will, on occasion, enter the reptile house, and perch on a
somnolent crocodile's snout to take a drink. He will steal
his grain from under the peacock's very beak, though all
the eyes in that conceited bird's tail gleam o'er him green
with jealousy of his neat and becoming attire ; and he will
scold the blinking eagle roundly if that falcon king be not
careful to leave him some succulent shreds of meat. He
will sit on the other end of a parrot's perch, shake out his
feathers and freely criticize the outlandish taste in dress of
the uncivilized dwellers in South American forests, remark-
ing that the green is after all inferior in brilliancy to that
of a St. John's Wood 'bus. There is positively no limit to
his impertinence.
Impertinence ! Yes, one could forgive his impertinence.
But look at the harm he does to the country. Well, well,
I'm not going to argue the question. But, in truth, I'm no
great believer in the harm. Was it not Buffon who said
that a pair of sparrows in the breeding season destroy
four thousand caterpillars a week ? Or was it forty
thousand ? I am bad at remembering figures, but it struck
me, as a boy, that it represented a prodigious number of
grubs. This is what the forester of the City of Boston
says : " The introduction of the sparrow was immediately
attended with benefit almost beyond calculation. The
trees on the Common were infested with a nasty yellow
150 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
caterpillar which destroyed the leaves and buds of the elms
and others ; and at the south end the elm trees were eaten
every June by swarms of canker-worms. Both these pests
have been pretty nearly exterminated. But for the
sparrow, however, they would return. I believe the wages
of all my men would not compensate Boston for the loss of
the sparrow." This, it must be observed, is the sparrow in
America. In England we are told he is incorrigibly
harmful as well as impertinent. For myself I take the harm
with a sprinkling of salt ; and being myself a cockney born,
I revel in his impertinence.
A neat well-set-up dapper little fellow too, this graduated
master of the art of impudence. What ? How say you ?
Dull and uniform brown ! Not a bit of it. You'll be saying
next that the cock starling is dressed in simple sombre
black ! Or, perhaps, you are acquainted only with London
sparrows, who in compliment to city clerks and lawyers
have rather a snuffy appearance. Come with me to the
country and look at that cheeky cock-sparrow in the farm-
yard who has been bullying the great dull-witted cart-
horse, and now tells him, chirpily, that he'll overlook it this
once, but that such stupidity is exceedingly annoying. Do
you call his dress dull uniform brown ? Nay, but look at
his cap of ashen grey, his rich brown coat streaked with
black or deeper brown, his chestnut throat and breast, his
whitish grey cheeks and waistcoat, his wings barred with
white, his perky tail. Of course I do not claim for Master
Impertinence a foremost place for beauty in the cousinhood
of finches. But I do think a well-groomed little cock-
sparrow, if he have not been bathing himself too assiduously
in the cream-coloured dust of a limestone road, makes a
very presentable appearance to an eye that is contented
with delicate combinations and pencillings of black and
grey, chestnut and brown.
MASTER IMPERTINENCE.
151
Talking of dress, have you ever seen a naked bird, one
stripped, I mean, of its feathered garments ? No doubt you
have seen a plucked fowl. Was ever such a change ? All
the characteristic symmetry and grace of form has
vanished. The neck is scraggy, the wings hang limp and
apologetic; the tail is a ridiculous little fat upturned
protuberance. Those gentle and pleasing curves of the
living feather-clad bird have given place to a mere
awkward corpse, fit only to be dressed in another sense
and to appeal to other senses. This we all must have
noticed. But I daresay we may not all have noticed
FEATHER TRACTS.
that the scars left by the removal of the feathers are
not scattered broad-cast over the body, but are arranged
in definite tracts with featherless spaces between them.
This is, perhaps, even better seen in a fledgeling sparrow
or blackbird or rook. Such a fledgeling rook lies before
me, an ugly little = monster, though I daresay the Rev. Mr.
Rook and his good wife were very proud of him, and saw
all sorts of beauties and mysterious family resemblances.
His mouth is enormous, with broad yellow flanges at the
sides ; I suppose to prevent the worms wriggling out. His
eye, now closed in death, is a little slit above the flanges of
152 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
the mouth. Further back is a large hole which is the ex-
ternal orifice of the ear. On his poor bald head, and here
and there on his stout little body, are clusters of long down,
looking more like fine hair than feathers. The true
feathers are only just beginning to sprout, and their
arrangement can very readily be traced. From the neck
to the root of the tail, where it spreads out, is the spinal
tract of the back. On the lower surface two tracts start
from the throat and diverge like the limbs of a V. At the
sides and in the fork of the V there are featherless
spaces. Other tracts are seen on the thighs and on the
shoulders.
The great quill-feathers of the wing are sprouting
famously. One can imagine how Mother Book cawed
happily over them and rubbed them with her beak, taking
that interest in them which a human mother takes in her
baby's teeth. On the outer division of the wing, which
answers to our hand, there are nine sprouts (with a tenth
small sprout near the tip) which will develop into the
large primary feathers. And in the next division of the
limb, running from the wrist-joint to the elbow-joint,
there are also nine sprouts which will become the secondary
quills. The so-called tertiaries, between the elbow and
the shoulder, are still very small. These budding feathers
are to be the main factors of the wing regarded as an
organ of flight. No wonder then that Mrs. Rook watches
their growth with such interest, or rather would watch
their growth with interest if there were reason and under-
standing associated with the workings of that corvine
brain of hers. She is, however, too simply intelligent to
bother her head about the mere beginnings of things.
Above the primary and secondary sprouts are the
budding feathers of the wing-coverts, which will overlap
the bases of the wing-quills. And along the posterior
XL MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 153
edge of the tail are arranged a row of twelve sprouts
which will develop into the tail-quills. The tail-coverts,
like the under wing-coverts, are at present very small.
But just in front of the bend of the wrist there are two
or three well-marked feather-sprouts. These will con-
stitute the winglet or bastard wing which is developed on
the bird's thumb. You can easily see the thumb of a bird
the next time you pick the wing of a fowl. It forms a
little projection in front of the wrist. The " hand " of the
bird is very narrow and long, and has only two digits, of
which that answering to your first finger is the only one
which is well developed, the palm bones of the two digits
being fused together at their ends. The whole limb has
been modified to subserve the purposes of flight. Only
in the earliest known bird which sought the yet earlier
worm in the secondary epoch of the age of reptiles are the
three digits separate. And in this bird they all three
bear claws (as does the thumb in some existing birds), a
legacy from reptilian ancestors.
How admirable is the flight of birds ! The other day I
stood on the jetty at Brixham, near the spot where Dutch
William landed from the vessel which had borne him over
seas. The waters of Torbay were crisped with a fresh
spring breeze, and taking advantage of this a score or so
of gulls were alternately sailing up and dropping down
the wind, within a dozen yards of where we stood. Their
bright eyes were eagerly on the watch for any chance
morsel good to eat, from a gull's point of view, that might
be floating on the waves. The ease with which they floated
along, merely setting their wings to the breeze and adjust-
ing them with consummate though instinctive skill, was
so fascinating that I could hardly tear myself away from
the spot. I rejoiced at their perfect fearlessness, though
the sailor-lads were standing in groups on the jetty within
154 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CSAJ>.
easy pistol shot. They were evidently quite unmolested,
and one shuddered to think how easily two or three silly
cockneys, bent on mere gunning, might succeed in scaring
them away, and spoiling as pretty a sight as one could
wish to see. Hard by a cormorant sat in the lap of the
waves, and now and again dived for fish ; not unsuccess-
fully, as we had an opportunity of observing. Then
temporarily satiated, so far as it is possible to satiate a
cormorant, it painfully struggled from the water, beating
the air excitedly with its short narrow wings, its neck
stretched out in front. The contrast between the easy
sailing and effectual wing-strokes of the kittiwake and
the shag's hurried thrashing of the air was very striking.
For there is flight and flight ; and there are wings and
wings. Our self-satisfied little friend the sparrow has
wings and the power of flight. And I've no doubt that in
his conceit, he imagines himself peculiarly graceful on the
wing. Perhaps he may even lay claim to conspicuous
excellence because his wing-strokes are so rapid, reaching,
it is said, 780 beats a minute. As if number was every-
thing. An author might just as well claim literary
excellence for his work (and, indeed, I have known them
do it) on the score of the numbers of copies sold in the
first month. The real question in either case is, Will it
last? Now whereas the sparrow buzzes along for fifty
yards or so and then, squatting on a wall, nearly bursts his
little bosom with boasting, yon swift has been wheeling
through the summer air all day loDg with scarce a pause,
shrilly screaming with the pure joy of life and motion, and
swooping down upon almost invisible insects at a rate of
100 miles an hour. And yet you never hear him boast,
any more than Shakespeare boasted of the plays he had
written. It is of our laboured work that we boast, not of
that which comes natural, as we phrase it.
XI.
MASTER IMPERTINENCE.
155
Now compare the wing of the sparrow with the wing of
the swift. The former is short, broad, blunt and concave,
while the pinion of the swift is long, narrow, pointed and
relatively flat. Pluck the wings and there is not so much
to choose between them ; the difference is due to the
feathers. The great extension of the swift's wing is pro-
duced by the lengthening of the primary feathers that grow
on the man us or hand. An almost equally perfect wing,
but broader at the base and sharper at the point, is seen
in the swift's companions in the summer air, the martin
and the swallow. These you might well suppose to be
first cousins of the swift. But external resemblances may
often be deceptive, and are so in this case. If you look at
their feet you will see that in this matter these birds are
very different. The four short toes of the swift are all
turned forward and bear thick but sharp claws. The toes
of the swallow are longer and more slender, and have more
delicate claws. The arrangement is similar to that in the
sparrow, the first toe projecting backwards while the other
156 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
three spread out in front. Then again the arrangement of
the feather-tracts and featherless spaces is different in the
swift from that which is found in the swallow and our
impudent subject the sparrow. In the breast-bone, the
wind-pipe and organ of voice, the digestive organs ; in the
number of tail-feathers (ten in the swift, twelve in the
swallow or martin) ; in the muscles of the wing ; in all
these there are well-marked differences. And in all or
most of these points the swift shows his relationship not to
the swallow but to the humming-bird. His resemblance
to the swallow is superficial, like the resemblance of a
porpoise to a fish ; his affinities with the humming-bird
are deep-seated and inconspicuous.
There are few of us, I presume, who have not seen a
stuffed humming-bird, perhaps stuck in a lady's bonnet
poor thing. (My pity is for the lady not the bird.) But to
see them living, daintily picking the insects from tropical
flowers, glancing in the sunshine ! These aerial gems
sapphire and ruby and emerald have, like the swift,
long-pointed wings, due to the lengthening of the primary
feathers, the arm and forearm being very shorthand the
secondary feathers between the elbow and the wrist few in
number. So rapid is the stroke (a rapid stroke goes with
a short arm) that, as the humming-bird hovers by a flower,
with its body held nearly vertical, you can only see a hazy
blur where the wings, thrown well upward and forward,
are trembling to and fro. I dare not trust myself to speak
of the breathless beauty of these incarnate sunbeams as
they dart and hover and flash through the air.
I could talk to you for hours about the wings of birds.
But if I could induce you to observe for yourselves the
flight of the aerial companions of your summer holiday,
and the organs by which this flight is accomplished, that
would be far better. Note the slow wing-strokes of the
XT. MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 157
heron, the splash of your oars has disturbed, as he curves
back his neck, stretches out his legs behind, and settles
down steadily to his work. His wing is ample, broad,
round-ended, both arm and forearm being lengthened for
that steady sweep. Observe, if you get a chance, the
silent, stealthy flight of the owl, whose ample wing is
blunt rather than rounded, its under surface softly lined
with thick down. Hark ! there is the night-jar chur-r-r-ring
in the gloaming ; if we disturb him he will wheel round
us, alighting now and again. Listen to the knacking of
his wings as they strike together. You must often have
heard the pigeon thus clap his wings. Beneath all that
thick plumage of the fern-owl, and at the root of that
splendid tail of his, there is after all quite a little body,
which his long, broad-based, pointed wing carries swiftly
and surely, as he captures the evening insects in that
deeply-cleft, bristle-fringed mouth.
Or does your holiday take you to the seaside ? Then
note the sailing flight of the sea-gulls with their narrowish,
pointed wings, and the skurry of the cormorant as he
pounds along just above the water's surface. He tries to
do two things with those narrow little wings, to fly and to
dive, and he suffers the consequences which await those
who are not content to do one thing really well. Perhaps
you may see a tern, the swallow of the sea, with its long,
sharp-pointed sickle wing, and its forked tail ; or a gannet
with its narrow, ribbon-like pinion, of the albatross type.
And you will not fail to observe that nature can effect the
same ends by different means. This long gannet- wing is
produced in a different way from that of the swift, by the
great lengthening of the arm and forearm, parts which
are exceedingly short in the long-feathered wing of the
swift. The primaries are not so exceedingly elongated, but
there are a score or more of secondaries, a number which is
158
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
increased to a couple of score in the albatross. These long,
narrow wings are characteristic of birds of a strong-sus-
tained flight. It has been shown that when a bird is cleaving
rapidly through the air a narrow pinion is as effectual as,
or even more effectual than, a wing with more ample
surface. But the possessors of such narrow wing-blades
find it difficult to start. The swallows and swifts generally
plunge from a height which enables them to drop through
the air, and thus at once acquire a sufficient velocity. But
the frigate-bird, which has perhaps the longest wings for
the bulk of its body of all birds, has great difficulty in
rising from the surface of the sea. A short, broad wing is
better for a rapid start. The frightened pheasant or
partridge whirrs off at a moment's notice ; but it cannot
sustain a long flight.
XL MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 159
To different modes of life different forms of wing are
adapted. The albatross or the swallow-winged tern may
smile as they sail or skim over the penguin squatting bolt
upright on his stiff-feathered tail. Come, leave the rocks,
and fly with us if you would rank as a true bird, they
seem to say. Poor old penguin, he can do nothing of the
sort. He has not a genuine quill-feather wherewith to
bless himself. His fore-limb is not a wing but a flipper
covered with short feathers, which from a little distance
look like scales, but are genuine feathers for all that. But
though it is of no use as a wing it is admirable as a fin ;
and awkward as he seems on land he is an excellent diver,
finding no difficulty in capturing sufficient fish to prevent
that fine white waistcoat of his from hanging unduly
loose. Miss Penguin prefers him as a suitor to that
supercilious, lanky- winged albatross. Plenty of food, a
wife, and not too much to think about. What more could
penguin desire ?
Let us then leave him in his enviable contentment and
turn again to nobler and more ambitious birds, whose
empire is the air. The hurtling flight of the merlin,
fastest of our noble falcons, is effected by wings which
combine a broad base, an elongated acute point, and
considerable convexity. How beautiful it is to watch a
kestrel hovering with head to wind, fanned tail, eager
neck and piercing eye, and quivering pinions high up
over the back ! If there is a good breeze, and especially
in the upward current produced by a cliff, he will hang
without visible motion of the wings. Very different is his
flight from that of the ignoble sparrow-hawk, with his
comparatively short rounded wing, as he slinks along the
hedgerows and pounces on his prey by stealth. You will
not see the finches and other small fry mobbing the
kestrel as they mob and chaff the sparrow-hawk.
160 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
There has been much scientific discussion of the me-
chanical principles involved in the soaring or sailing flight
of the highest graduates among birds in the art of aero-
nautics. Doctors argue about it and differ ; meanwhile the
bird sails on. And people are apt to say or to think that
the albatross with its instinct solves the problem which
baffles the reason of the physicist. But the albatross
rather sets the problem than solves it. Many of us can
set problems which we cannot solve. Still the instinctive
adjustment of the sea-bird's pinions to the variable air-
current in which he floats so masterly, is worthy of
admiration however we regard it. And instinct is akin to
genius. Both are innate, and in some degree incompre-
hensible even to their exponent. The bird sails, he knows
not why or how ; it is the outcome of his nature. And
Raphael paints and Shelley sings; each must indeed
attain mastery of his materials ; but the inner spirit and
fire is inborn ; it is the outcome of their nature. Standing
below we watch their soaring flight, call it " an infinite
capacity for taking pains," or what not. Meanwhile genius
sails on.
The whole question of the mechanics of flight is a
difficult one. No doubt instantaneous photography will
aid us in reaching a satisfactory solution. For one of the
difficulties of the problem is that the rapidity of motion
is such that the eye cannot follow the wings in all the
stages of their stroke. The European artist reprsents
the flying bird with wings elevated, the Japanese with
wings either raised or lowered. But instantaneous pho-
tography catches them in these and all intermediate
positions. In this way animal locomotion has been
studied with great ingenuity and skill by M. Marey in
France, and Mr. Muybridge in America. The pace of
the horse has been photographed in all its phases when
XT. MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 161
the animal is at full gallop. And very strange attitudes
do the legs assume, attitudes never seen, and never to be
seen by the eye of men in the living animal ; for the eye
is not quick enough to catch them ; and therefore attitudes
to be sedulously shunned by the artist who knows his
business. When a gig is going fast the wheel-spokes
become a mere blur, and the artist who wishes to paint a
gig in motion must thus represent them. Instantaneous
photography, catching the spokes in a small fraction of a
second of time, prints them sharp and well defined. But
this is not how they are seen. So photography catches
the legs of the galloping horse, or the wings of the flying
pigeon, in an isolated instant of sequent time, and prints
them thus arrested. No eye has seen them thus, and no
brush with brain behind it should so represent them.
The artist should study these interesting and valuable
photographs, but not copy them.
In the instantaneous photographs of birds in rapid
flight the great sweep of the wings, and the way they are
carried forward, with the manus or hand and its primaries
bent inward, at the end of the stroke come out clearly.
This forward and inward stroke is certainly a point of
great importance. Another interesting point is the turn-
ing of the quill-feathers of the wing during the upward
movement or recovery so that they cut the air. They
literally " feather " like the oar of an experienced rower.
For the down-stroke they flatten to the wing-surface, and
are pressed by the impact of the air each against its
neighbours so as to form a continuous, firmly-resisting
surface, from which, however, markedly in some eagles, the
points of the primaries project separately.
No matter how or where you take it, habit or structure,
external contour or internal anatomy, the bird is brimful
of interest. Look, for example, at the foot with which
M
162
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
Master Impertinence is scratching his grey poll in
garrulous astonishment that we should have so long-
neglected him for mere country folk and seaside acquaint-
ances. The conceited little cockney, posing, as usual, as
the acme and exemplar of civilization ! But look, I say,
at his foot. Its deeply-cleft fingers, its backward-pointing
thumb convert it into a hand for grasping. This is the
typical form of perching foot; and there is an exquisite
anatomical disposition of muscles and tendons by which
whenever the leg is bent upon the thigh the toes are
SPARROW. KINGFISHER. GREBE. WOODPECKER. LARK.
flexed so as to firmly grasp ; and thus the roosting bird is
held fast upon his perch by the mere weight of his own
body. Of the bird's foot there are many modifications.
In that angler, the kingfisher, who sits sedately on a tree-
stump longing for a bite, the foot is not nearly so deeply
cleft, the outer and middle toes being coherent together.
In the wood-pecker, clad in forester's green, or boldly
speckled in country attire, the outer toe turns backward
like the " thumb," so that tfyere are two toes turned
forward and two turned backward, as in the outlandish
XT. MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 163
parrot whom Master Impertinence so freely criticized.
The owl and the hawk, of whom we sparrows will say
nothing disparaging, lest they take advantage of us some
fine day or summer eve when we are out of town, have
great powerful feet, with large, cruel, curved talons. In
the hawk the lower part of the leg is scale-covered, and
the hinder toe is long ; but in the brown owl this toe is
shorter, and the leg and foot are feathered to the insertion
of the claws.
The domestic fowl (whom the sparrow regards with
some contempt for having surrendered his freedom to
man instead of merely tolerating and taking advantage
of him) shows us not a hand but a foot, a terrestrial
organ modified for the subsidiary purpose of scratching.
This use of the foot for running rather than perching has
carried with it a reduction in length of the hind toe. In
the fowl and the pheasant this has not been carried very
far. But in the daintily-feathered foot of the ptarmigan,
feathered not only above but below, the claw of the hind
toe is only just visible amid the hair-like covering. And
this suppression of the great toe has been carried so far in
the golden plover (first cousin to the lapwing or peewit,
familiar, I suppose, even to those who are least observant
of bird life), that it has disappeared altogether, leaving
but three toes to the foot ; as is also the case with the
sanderling and other waders. The heron, though a wader,
has the hind toe well developed ; but this is on account of
his partly arboreal habit. Like others among the waders
he has partially webbed feet. But it is in the water-fowl
that the palmate or webbed foot, specialized for pro-
pulsion in swimming, is best seen. Look at the foot of a
duck or a goose, and you will see the three toes, between
the ample spread of which the membrane or web is
stretched. The hind toe is small and separate. In the
M 2
164 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
gulls this hind toe is fast disappearing. In the kittiwake
it has well-nigh gone. Almost suppressed in the black
foot of the guillemot, it has quite gone from the dainty
orange feet with sharp, black, curved claws of the puffin.
In other swimmers, however, the hind toe is of fair size,
and a membrane joins it with the next toe so that the foot
is completely webbed, as in the green-toed, dusky-webbed
foot of the gannet, the long, black paddle of the cormorant,
or the foot of the pelican which you may see in the Zoo.
Lastly, in those excellent swimmers and divers the grebes,
of which our little dab-chick is an example, instead of the
foot being webbed in the ordinary orthodox fashion, each
toe is flattened out by lateral extension of the scales
which cover it. Even the claws or nails are beautifully
flattened, and the little hind toe has a similar form.
When the propelling stroke of the foot is given the toes
spread out and give a broad, three-lobed surface; but
when the foot is drawn forward in recovery for a fresh
stroke, the toes fold together flatly and overlap one behind
another in such a way as to cut through the water like a
knife. Nothing can be more admirable than their exquisite
mechanism for feathering. The foot of the bald-headed
coot, which (with his more abundant cousin the moor-hen,
nodding its head and flicking its tail to show the white
under-coverts) we all know on our rivers and lakes, is
lobed in a somewhat analogous way, but not with so
perfect a finish as in the grebe. Indeed the grebe is an
ideal swimmer and diver. His sharp little head, his
smooth neck, his oval or spindle-shaped body, with only
a lame apology for a tail, and his admirable propelling
feet thrown as far back as possible all bespeak a bird in
which habit and structure are in most excellent coadapta-
tion.
It is through their knowledge of these coadaptations of
xi. MASTER IMPERTINENCE. 165
structure that skilled anatomists are able from a fragment
a tooth, a bone, a beak, a foot to reconstruct the
extinct animal of which they formed a part. That foot of
the grebe would at once suggest a bird of the swimming
type ; so, too, the powerful notched beak of an eagle would
tell of a bird which hunted living prey, of keen eyesight,
of powerful night, of deeply-keeled breast bone, of cruel
talons. No doubt anatomists may make mistakes, but the
greater the insight the fewer their number.
And now I must bring to a close these somewhat
desultory remarks on birds, perhaps not unfitly introduced
by the impertinent sparrow. It has been my aim not so
much to impart information as to act the part of showman,
standing at the door and bidding you " walk up " and, enter-
ing Nature's magnificent show-rooms, question her your-
selves concerning her living treasures of the air. At most
I have lifted a corner of the curtain by the entrance that
you might catch a glimpse of the beautiful forms within.
There is much of the life of birds of which I have said
nothing. Go forth into the woods and through the fields,
by the streams and along the shore, and watch, and listen,
and cherish a thankful heart. I have spoken of the
visible charm of the flight of birds ; I have been silent
about the melting richness of their song.
' ' Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge
That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture."
But even Browning cannot do more than suggest, would
not attempt to describe, the song of the thrush. The
notes must be heard to be appreciated. They cannot be
166 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xi.
represented at second hand. And so with regard to other
matters concerning birds of which I have said somewhat.
Do not be content with them at second hand. See them
for yourselves, dear readers, see them for yourselves as
you must hear for yourselves the liquid notes of the night-
ingale. What ? Master Impertinence ! would you have
had me for nightingale write sparrow ? Well, as I began
so will I end. And I will confess that for me the chirping
of sparrows is a music that I could ill spare. Indeed, I
know of nothing pleasanter in the summer morning's
prime, than to hear a chorus of sparrows welcoming the
rising sun outside my window, and to feel that I have two
or three good hours more ere I need get up to face the
duties of the day.
CHAPTER XII
THE OSTRICH.
" I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a
great pin, ere thou and I part." SHAKESPEARE.
OF all living birds the ostrich is perhaps the most
unconventional. He claims to be a bird, and a bird he
most certainly is. But he takes every opportunity of
departing in figure, dress, and habits from the standards
of ordinary respectable birds. Look at his feathers !
Very beautiful, I admit, is the plumage of the cock
ostrich as he struts in nuptial attire of well-contrasted
black and white ; but quite unconventional. How
different is the careless but not untasteful disorder of his
dress from the smug respectability of the Rev. Mr. Rook's
attire, or the soft smooth grace of the Hon. Mrs. Pheasant's
feathers, or even the neat and homely dress of Widow
Wren. And if we look at a single feather we find, instead
of the close firm web which every bird of mature age who
likes to keep up the traditions of his race whether he be
an eagle or a goose will show you with pride, a loose, soft
wavy plume, of rare beauty indeed, but not what is usual
in the best avian society.
Have you ever examined a bird's feather ? On either
side of the central shaft are the flattened barbs which
168
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP. XII.
form the broad vane of the feather. You will find that
the barbs adhere together so that they cannot be separ-
ated without the application of some gentle force, upon
which they suddenl}- tear asunder. When the continuity
of the vane has thus been broken, simple pressing of the
separated barbs together will not mend it ; but if the
lower part of the broken vane be raised and hitched over
the part nearer the feather-tip the barbs will adhere
-IWiroad barbuU)
ad.l>
DETAILS OF BIRD'S WING.
together, and the broken vane will be mended. Why is
this ? If you look at a piece of a feather under a micro-
scope you will see why. Each barb is fringed on either
side with smaller barbs or barbules, and those nearer the
feather-tip have minute hooks which cling to the little
barbules of the adjoining barb. When we mend a broken
vane in the way I have described, we hitch these invisible
hooks over a series of invisible bars. In the feathers of
the ostrich, however, the barbules are long and loose, and
i
CHAP. xii. THE OSTRICH. 171
remain separate, not hooking on to their neighbours.
Hence their unconventional character. They also hang
equally on either side of the central vane. Wherefore the
wise Egyptians chose the ostrich feather as emblematical
of even-handed justice, and set it on the head of Thmei,
the goddess of truth.
Look again at the ostrich's quite unconventional wings.
It is clear that a bird that cannot fly must be content to
accept that lowly, out-of-the-world position among well-
bred social birds that people who keep no carriage occupy
in human society. " Poor fellow, he has to walk every-
where," one can imagine Prince Condor saying as he
wheels above the South American ostrich ; and perhaps
adding sententiously, " I wonder whether life's worth living
if one has to walk." Probably the ostrich, like the human
pedestrian, would have no doubt at all about the matter.
Certain it is that though unable to fly, the ostrich makes
admirable use of his legs. It is said that he can outstrip
the fleetest horse ; and when going at full pace he covers
twenty-four feet of ground at a single stride. And then,
like other unconventional folk, he is particularly fond of
dancing in the open air. I once saw, on an ostrich farm in
South Africa, some six or eight of these camel-birds, as
the ancients called them, waltzing together in full swing.
They began by treading the ground with their feet and
moving along sideways ; then they began to revolve, at
first slowly, gently beating time with their wings, but soon
quicker and quicker, until at length they were twirling
round at a bewildering rate, threading their way in and
out among each other, sweeping round and round with
breathless rapidity. I was astonished and pleased ; for I
was once informed as a youth that I danced like an ostrich.
I did not realize at the time that this was intended as a
compliment.
172 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAI>
If we look at the foot of an ordinary conventional bird,
such as a hen or a pigeon, we shall see that there are three
toes spread out in front and a hind toe projecting (or should
one say retrojecting ? ) backwards. In none of the ostrich
tribe is this hinder toe, which we may see in the foot of
the hen or the pigeon, well developed. In the American
ostrich or rhea, and the cassowaries and emus, it is absent,
and only in the New Zealand kiwi or apteryx is there a small
apology for a hinder toe. All these cousins of the ostrich
have, however, the three front toes. But here again the
African ostrich affects extreme peculiarity, for he has
only two toes on each foot, one of which, the inner, is
twice as long and as strong as the other. This is one of
the points of resemblance to the dromedary which gained
for the ostrich the name of the camel-bird. Both camel-
bird and camel-beast have, too, a hard, pad-like covering
to the breast-bone; and their modes of getting up and
lying down are somewhat similar. Studied at ease at
the Zoo, they may not appear very much alike, but in
their native haunts the resemblance has often been
noticed. " When we saw them far ahead," says Mr.
Palgrave, " running in a long line one after the other,
we almost took them for a string of scared camels."
And the Rev. A. C. Smith writes : " When seen at a
distance moving over the desert, the camels struck me
as resembling in a most remarkable degree their desert
companion the ostrich."
The manner of feeding of the ostrich is more than un-
conventional ; it is vulgar. His powers of digestion are
proverbial. He seizes everything he conies across, and
simply bolts it, taking it in the tip of his beak and
throwing it down his throat with a jerk of his head. Few
vegetable substances come amiss to him, leaves, fruit,
berries, or seeds; and among animal foods he will snap
xii. THE OSTRICH. 173
up almost anything he can get, from a snake or a lizard
to a snail or a beetle. He lays the mineral kingdom also
under contribution, swallowing stones in abundance, with
nails and odd bits of metal. I was told by a young African
farmer that he found his favourite pocket-knife in the
maw of a dead ostrich ; and one which died at the Zoo
had ninepence halfpenny in copper money stowed away
inside him. It is said that during the first day or two of
their lives newly-hatched ostriches eat nothing but small
hard, round, carefully-selected pebbles !
Why does the ostrich eat stones and pebbles ? Is this
part of his affected singularity ? No. In this he is not
so very singular ; for all grain- eating birds swallow small
stones, and this because they have no teeth, and therefore
cannot grind the food in the mouth. The gizzard is lined
with a hard, dense animal substance, and is exceedingly
muscular ; here it is that the grain and other nutritious
substances which the bird swallows are ground and
bruised to a pulp. The stones are therefore taken in to play
the part of mill-stones. And it is supposed that the little
ostrich swallows the pebbles to prepare its gizzard for its
special work.
Exceedingly pretty little fellows are young ostriches.
They have little bristles all over them mixed with the
down, and are likened by Mr. Hillier to giant young-
partridges. I have seen the young birds in all stages in
South Africa, where they are largely reared on ostrich
farms, the eggs being now generally artificially hatched in
incubators. They require some care at first, and are
housed at night in a warm room. They dance instinc-
tively at a somewhat tender age, and it is a pleasing
sight to see the young birds waltzing in the sunshine.
"There are not," says Mrs. Martin in her charming
book Home Life on an Ostrich Farm, " there are not
174 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
many young animals prettier than a little ostrich chick
during the first few weeks of life. It has such a sweet,
innocent baby-face, such large eyes, and such a plump,
round little body. All its movements are comical, and
there is an air of conceit and independence about the tiny
creature which is most amusing. Instead of feathers, it
has a little rough coat which seems all made up of narrow
strips of material of as many shades of brown and grey as
there are in a. tailor's pattern-book, mixed with shreds of
black ; while the head and neck are apparently covered
with the softest plush, striped anft coloured just like a
tiger's skin on a small scale. On the whole, the little
fellow, on his first appearance in the world, is not unlike
a hedgehog on two legs with a long neck.
" One would like these delightful little creatures to re-
main babies much longer than they do ; but they grow
quickly, and with their growth they soon lose all their
prettiness and roundness ; their bodies become angular and
ill-proportioned, a crop of coarse, wiry feathers sprouts
from the parti-coloured strips which formed their baby-
clothes, and they enter on an ugly ' hobbledehoy * stage, in
which they remain for two or three years."
Yes ! what a pity it is that some animals ever grow up.
A kitten, for example ; or perhaps still more decidedly a
pigling. A pigling is the dearest little fellow. One could
nurse him, play with him, toy with his soft silken ears,
assist him to curl his captivating tail. But who would
care to be on terms of similar intimacy with his excellent
mamma? This is not a universal rule. Not all young
creatures are thus engaging in their infancy. A fledgeling
rook is about as ugly a little monster as one could wish
not to see. To which class do we humans belong ? Are
we rooks or ostriches ? Into the question of the beauty
of babies, however, 1 will not 'enter. I am on debatable
xii. THE OSTRICH. 175
ground and had better return to the ostrich, which as a
baby is decidedly pretty, not only in the eyes of Mrs. 0.
but of mere outsiders also. It passes through the usual
angular hobbledehoy stage, when the bones seem to have
grown too rapidly for their fleshy garments, and becomes
mature at about five years. The plumage of the male is
then a gloridus glossy black, while that of the female is a
quiet grey. Both have white wings and tails; but the
tail feathers are very different from and altogether inferior
to those of the wing, which has a series of twenty-four
beautiful white plumes. The thighs are bare and the
skin is of a slatey-blue colour. Head and neck have a few
bristles and scanty tufts of down. In the breeding season
the bill of the male bird, and the large scales on the legs,
are tinged of a deep rose colour, "looking just as if they
were made of the finest pink coral." The North African
or Barbary ostrich is a handsomer fellow than his southern
cousin, the thighs, head, and neck being of a bright red.
On South African ostrich farms the birds are plucked
once a year or oftener. Mrs. Martin thus graphically de-
scribes the operation : " The first sight of a plucking
interested me especially. All comes back to me now with
the clearness of a photograph the bright, cloudless
metallic-looking South African sky above us ; and for a
background the long range of rocky mountains, each stain
on their rugged sides, each aloe or spekboom plant growing
on them, sharply defined in that clear atmosphere as if
seen through the large end of an opera-glass. In the fore-
ground a forest of long necks, and a crowd of foolish,
frightened faces, gaping beaks, and throats all puffed out
with air the latter ludicrous grimace, accompanied some-
times by a short, hollow sound, half grunt, half cough,
being the ostrich's mode of expressing deepest disgust and
dejection. There is a constant heavy stamping of power-
176 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
ful two-toed feet ; an occasional difference of opinion be-
tween two quarrelsome birds eager to fight, craning their
snake-like necks, hissing savagely, and ' lifting up them-
selves on high/ but unable, owing to the closeness with
which they are packed, to do each other any injury.
" And through it all, T , Mr. B , and our Kaffirs
are calmly going in and out among the struggling throng ;
all hard at work, the two former steadily and methodically
operating with their shears on each bird as in its turn it
is tugged along, like a victim to the sacrifice, by three
men two holding its wings, and the third dragging at its
long neck till one fears that with all its kicks, tumbles, and
sudden wild leaps into the air, its flat brainless little head,
will be pulled off. One extra-refractory bird, when finally
subdued, and helpless in the hands of the pluckers, avenges
his wrongs upon the ostrich standing nearest to him in the
crowd ; and for every feather pulled from his own tail,
gives a savage nip to the head of his unoffending neigh-
bour, a mild bird, who does not retaliate, but looks puzzled,
his own turn not yet having come. It is amusing to watch
the rapid retreat of each poor denuded creature when set
free from his tormentors. He goes out at the gate looking
crestfallen indeed, but apparently much relieved to find
himself still alive.
" To prevent their tips being spoilt the wing-plumes are
always cut before the quills are ripe. The stumps are
allowed to remain some two or three months longer, until
they are so ripe that they can be pulled out generally by
the teeth of the Kaffirs without hurting the bird. It is
necessary to pull them; the feathers, which by their
weight would have caused the stumps to fall out naturally
at the right time, being gone. Some farmers, anxious to
bring on the next crop of feathers, are cruel enough to
draw the stumps before they are ripe ; but nature, as
XII.
THE OSTRICH. 177
usual, resents the interference with her laws, and the
feathers of birds which have been thus treated soon de-
teriorate. It is best to pluck only once a year. The tails,
and the glossy black feathers on the bodies of the birds,
having small quills, are not cut, but pulled out ; this, every
one says, does not hurt the birds, but there is an un-
pleasant tearing sound about the operation, and I think it
must make their eyes water."
Thus are obtained the ostrich feathers which are familiar
to us all.
Every one knows too what ostrich eggs are like ; but it
is less generally known that eggs from North Africa are
smooth and ivory-like in surface, while those from South
Africa have a rough and punctured surface. They are
excellent eating ; and though I have never eaten one raw
or boiled, a kind friend at the Cape used often to send us
cakes prepared with ostrich egg, and very good they
were. Each egg is equivalent to about twenty-four hen's
eggs. A Dutch farmer once told me that he had eaten
two and a half ostrich eggs when he was out in the veldt
(open country). He cooked them in the embers of the
lire, opening one end and stirring till the contents had a
thick, treacly consistency. He said they were excellent
when cooked in this way; but he could not finish the
third egg. It was like sitting down to a meal of six
dozen hen's eggs, but finding himself unable to grapple
with the last dozen !
The nest is scooped out in the sand, and two or three
hen-birds may combine to lay their eggs in it, to the
number of about twenty. It is said, and that by several
observers, that besides the eggs laid in the nest each hen
lays several in the neighbourhood, and that these are
broken when the young are hatched and the contents are
given them as food. But I am inclined to regard these
N
178 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
statements with some suspicion. The hens take turns in
sitting during the day, never leaving them long in the
scorching heat of the South African sun. But at sun-
down the cock-bird takes charge of the eggs and sits
throughout the night. He is not going to be bound by any
conventional rules as to the proper division of labour
between the sexes.
A very careful observer, Mrs. Barber, has drawn attention
to the fact that the indistinct grey colours of the hen
ostrich are wonderfully adapted for purposes of conceal-
ment. These birds while upon their nests do not erect
their necks but place them at full length in front of them
upon the ground ; and the grey-brown body might, Mrs.
Barber says, be easily mistaken for some other object such
as, for instance, an ant-hill, so common on the plains of
South Africa, That so large a bird should be incon-
spicuous may seem surprising; but another observer, Mr.
W. Larden, tells us of his experience with the rhea, or
South American ostrich, which seems quite to bear this
out. " One day," he says, " I came across a rhea in a nest
that it had made in the dry weeds and grass. Its wings
and feathers were loosely arranged, and looked not unlike
a heap of dried grass ; at any rate the bird did not attract
my attention until I was close on him. The long neck
was stretched out close along the ground, the crest feathers
were flattened, and an appalling hiss greeted my approach.
It was a pardonable mistake if for a moment I thought I
had come across a huge snake, and sprang back hastily
under this impression."
The male ostrich with his splendid black and white
feathers would not be thus inconspicuous by day. But he
sits at night and his strength and pugnacity would induce
most other creatures, prowling around in the half light,
to let him alone. Mrs. Barber describes the careful and
cunning manner in which the female bird approaches the
xii. THE OSTRICH. 179
nest in the morning when her turn for incubation has
come. In wide circles, and apparently in the most
unconcerned manner, she will feed round the nest, never
once looking towards it, but gradually approaching nearer
and nearer to it, by diminishing each circle as she walks
round, until at length her perambulations have brought
her to within a yard or so of the nest, when the birds will
rapidly change places, the male walking swiftly away and
not remaining in the vicinity of the nest during the day.
The wonderful rapidity with which the change is effected
is perfectly astonishing, and it is impossible to see the
exact manner in which it is done, so swiftly do they
change places.
The young of the ostrich, Mrs. Barber tells us, have
similar habits to those of the pheasant and partridge in
that on the approach of an enemy they scatter and hide
in the long grasses, where they are left by the parent
birds until such time as the danger is over. The rounded
form and mottled coat of the young ostrich, as it lies
hidden and motionless in the grass, is a capital imitation
of the small black ant heaps, which are by no means
uncommon in the grassy localities, or on the plains where
these birds have their nests.
The little ones, we are told by another observer, some-
times come into the world under a certain amount of risk,
for the cock-bird often becomes impatient towards the end
of the period of incubation, which lasts about six weeks
and has been observed to lean with his chest upon an egg,
crack it, and then take up with his beak the membrane
inside the egg, and shake it violently until the young bird
dropped out, when he would swallow the membrane, and
repeat the operation on another. This is not the usual mode
among birds of bringing their chicks into the world, but
the ostrich does not pretend to conform to ordinary rules.
As I have before hinted, the African ostrich does not
N 2
180 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
stand alone in some at least of his peculiarities. He
belongs to a group of birds, all of them unconventional in
form, all of them incapable of flight, all of them powerful
in leg and thigh, called the struthious birds, or sometimes,
from the raft-like shape of the breast-bone, the ratite
birds. If you have ever picked the breast of a fowl or a
pigeon, you must have noticed that the breast-bone has
what is called a keel, a plate of bone coming down in the
middle and dividing the breast into two halves. From the
possession of this keel (Lat. carina) the ordinary conven-
tional birds the songsters, gulls, climbers, waders, fowls,
birds of prey, and the rest are called carinate birds. The
struthious birds, however, have no keel to the breast-
bone. And since it is to this keel that the great wing
muscles, through which flight is rendered possible, are
attached, one can quite understand why the struthious
birds those unconventional walkers and runners who
despise the use of wings should have this keel
undeveloped.
You may generally see at the Zoo not only the ostrich,
but the other members of his clan, the rhea, the cassowaries,
the emus, and the strange little New Zealand kiwi.
Perhaps you might expect that the members of this small
and peculiar clan of birds would all be found in the same
part of the earth's surface. But that is not so. They are
widely scattered, though the Australian region has by far
the greater number of species, and each region of the
world which they inhabit has its own special member of
the group. Africa has the two-toed ostrich, which also
ranged to India in pre-historic times ; South America has
the rhea or three-toed ostrich, smaller and more sober-
hued than his African cousin ; the emus are Australian ;
the apparently wingless kiwis are from New Zealand ; and
the cassowaries where, think you, do they come from ?
No, pardon me, they do not come from North Africa,
XII.
THE OSTRICH 181
though I thought you would say so. You have been
misled by a hymn is it one of Dr. Watts'a ? which
speaks of a missionary on the plains of Timbuctoo who
met a cassowary of a fierce and hungry nature. I assure
you the learned doctor was incorrect in his geographical
distribution of animals ; for the cassowaries are found only
in the Molluccas, New Guinea, and the neighbouring
islands, and North Australia. Thus the distribution of the
existing forms of these strange birds is world-wide. And
when one remembers their large size and their incapacity
for flight, this becomes the more remarkable, and shows
that they are an ancient race, which has seen many
geographical revolutions. Moreover, when we come to
take into consideration also the extinct forms, the remains
of which have been found in recent geological deposits, we
find that the clan was once more numerous and even wider
spread than it is to-day. In North America (New
Mexico), in France, and in our own England there were
large ostrich-like birds. In South America there were
fossil rheas ; in Australia fossil emus ; Madagascar had a
large form, and New Zealand one as large. In New
Zealand, in fact, the present home of the kiwi, there were
no less than twenty-four different kinds or species of
struthious birds.
These range in size from, a height of thirty-six inches to
a height of over ten feet. Some were tall and slender
and probably swift of foot like the ostrich ; others were
powerful and heavy-limbed, and of one Professor Owen
says that the frame-work of the leg is the most massive of
any in the class of birds, the toe-bones almost rivalling
those of the elephant. Some of these great birds are
probably but recently extinct, and were certainly known
to man, for charred bones and egg-shells have been found
among the long extinct embers of native fires. Doubtless
the primitive Maories, when first they took possession of
182 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xn.
the Islands, found several of the large struthious birds in
possession of the country. And they had no quadrupeds
to contend with, for New Zealand has not a single
indigenous mammal. Many a feast did they have on the
flesh of the heavy, simple-minded birds ; and so these
strange avian forms of life were gradually exterminated,
like the great awk of the Northern Atlantic, and the quaint
old dodo of Mauritius. Thus only the swift-footed kiwi
remained of all the struthious birds in New Zealand.
Not inferior in size to the quaint moas of New Zealand
was the huge sepiornis of Madagascar. If we may judge
from the size of the egg, and of such bones as have been
found, he must have been a monster indeed. Fancy an
egg measuring two feet six inches round, and capable of
containing somewhat more than two gallons of liquid, in
bulk somewhere about eight times that of the ostrich !
Such was the egg of the Madagascar sepiornis.
In all these birds the wings were exceedingly rudimen-
tary, and in some cases perhaps, as in the great moa,
altogether wanting ; in all the breast-bone had the raft-like
form devoid of keel, though there may in some cases be
hints of its former existence in the ancestors of these
birds ; in all the feathers were probably loose and plu-
mose, or long, narrow, and hair-like, as in the kiwi of New
Zealand.
Oh, that some unusually intelligent ostrich could seize
a pen and write for us the history of his race there
have been unconventional folk in the ranks of writers ere
now, what a strange tale he would unfold ; of their
development from more ordinary carinate birds of flight,
of their dispersal throughout the wide world, and of
the geological and geographical changes they had wit-
nessed. Unfortunately the beasts and birds cannot tell us
their own tale, and it is left for the naturalist to piece
it together as best he may.
CHAPTER XIII.
SNAKES.
" These are the only serpents he can write." DRYDEN.
I TAKE a middle position as regards snakes. I neither
yearn for them as pets, nor shrink from them in horror.
For the exceptional few the living snake may be a desir-
able pocket companion, a graceful armlet, and a sleek and
slippery friend. For the average majority of human folk,
on the other hand, the snake may be positively repellent,
a glittering foe, the sign arid symbol of the evil one. But
for myself, though I do not care much for handling them,
yet in their proper place in nature snakes and all their
serpentine allies exercise a subtle and not un pleasing
fascination. I well remember how, one bright and sunny
afternoon, on the basal slopes of Table Mountain, above
Wynberg, in the Cape Peninsula, I came upon a cobra.
He was gliding slowly arid silently over a large flat slab of
rock on which rested a great granite boulder. Evidently
unaware of my presence, he took life easily, and I watched
him for a while in silence. Then stooping softly I picked
up a small stone and pitched it on to the granite slab just
beyond the cobra. Instantly the creature was on the
alert. The head was raised a foot or more from the
ground, the hood was expanded, the gliding motion,
184 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
before so slow, was quickened. Turning in its course it
perceived me standing near. For a moment the head was
yet further raised and thrown well back, while the hood
was again fully expanded; and then he glided swiftly
beneath the granite boulder and I saw him no more. I
had never before seen a snake to such advantage. The
setting of the scene was congruous. In the distance
beyond the granite boulder lay False Bay, steeped in sun-
shine and backed by the clear-cut outline of the
mountains of the mainland ; around stood glistening silver
trees and sweet-flowered sugar bushes; above were the
stern bastions of Table Mountain. But my attention was
riveted by the glittering fascination of the cobra. Ad-
miration, not horror, held me. Even the killing instinct
forsook me, and I felt no desire to slay the timid but
terrible creature.
My first experience of South African death-dealing
snakes was somewhat different. One of my pupils
brought me down in a large cigar-box a " ring-hals slang,"
a deadly and courageous snake not uncommon at the Cape,
and turned him out on the stoep (verandah) for our
delectation. He was a spiteful little fellow, with an
ominous hood, dark glossy skin, and glistening brown eye.
He struck viciously at the cigar-box held up before him,
indenting the wood and moistening it with venom and
saliva. I was particularly anxious to dissect out the
poison-gland and examine the poison-fang of this snake,
so my friend kindly presented it to me, replacing it in the
cigar-box, which he tied securely. After examining the
fastenings, I placed the box on the window-sill of my
bedroom, which looked out into the stoep, and left it there
for the night. Next morning I procured a large washing
pan, big enough to drown a small python, placed the cigar-
box therein, loaded it with a couple of bricks, and poured
XIIT. SNAKES. 185
in water to the brim. I gave the ring-hals three good
hours to get thoroughly drowned, removed the bricks,
took out the box, gently cut the string, lifted the lid and
found that I had been drowning with the utmost care an
empty cigar-box. It had been securely tied ; and how a
creature more than thrice the girth of my thumb had
managed to escape was, and still is, a mystery to me.
I leave the reader to imagine the detailed search of
every cranny of our bedroom, on which my wife insisted.
For several days every boot had to be hammered with a
stick before it was put on ; I stood on a chair and shook
every pair of trousers, and other analogous garments,
lest they should be already occupied. But no ring-hals
was forthcoming. And I suppose it must have been a
week or so afterwards that I was summoned to the
kitchen to expel an unwelcome intruder the black cook
being, so far as her skin permitted, pale with terror
which proved to be none other than the missing ring-hals.
I despatched him promptly, but not by drowning.
Both this snake and the cobra are often spoken of by the
Dutch colonists of the Cape, as thespuug slang, or spitting
snake, from their reported power of forcibly ejecting poison
to a distance. This power is often questioned ; but my friend
the late H. W. Oakley, a careful naturalist and one who
devoted much attention to snakes, assured me that he had
himself seen this power exercised. He was digging out a
ring-hals from a hole into which it had glided, and having
unearthed him, secured the creature by holding him down
with the spade about two or three inches from the end of
his tail. Quickly he reared himself up, spread his hood
widely and struck viciously at his captor, ejecting with
great precision and with a smothered hiss some liquid
which glistened in the bright sunshine like crystal. Mr.
Oakley saw the fluid coming and threw his head backward ;
186 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
but some of it reached his chin and some fell on his coat.
The fluid, he thinks, must have been ejected at least three
feet.
My informant, who handled snakes fearlessly, demon-
strated to my complete satisfaction that the poison will
exude in viscid drops from the fangs of a puff-adder. He
held the snake by the neck, and we could see the fangs
erected and lowered. We saw, too, the gummy poison
exuding from the opening of the poison canal. I subse-
quently made a similar observation on the ring-hals. We
may therefore legitimately infer that some poison at least
was mixed with the saliva the snake ejected. It used to
be stated, however, that the venom is without effect unless
it be introduced directly into the blood-circulation. But
Sir Joseph Fayrer distinctly states, as the outcome of care-
ful experiment, that the poison is capable of absorption
through delicate mucous membranes. When the poison
of the cobra was introduced into the eyes of dogs, the
symptoms of poisoning were rapidly and strongly, though not
in all cases fatally, developed. I am therefore inclined to
believe the statement of a worthy Dutch Boer (though at
the time I confess I received it with scepticism), that a
Kaffir on his farm had been blinded of one eye by the
envenomed saliva of a large cobra which spitefully spat in
his face.
Even after the death of a venomous snake the poison
may exercise its fatal effect. One of the engineers of the
railway which was then being laid through the beautiful
Hex River valley, told me of a case in point. As not
unfrequently happens, a puff-adder had been killed on the
line. The creature had probably come to bask in the sun
on the warm rail and the train had passed over it. My
friend had noticed its mangled body as he rapidly
descended the valley in a trolley. Next morning a bare-
xiii. SNAKES. 187
footed Kaffir, who was pushing a trolley up the valley,
chanced to step on the head of the dead snake. The
venom-fang pierced his foot, and he died in a few
hours. Here the creature had been not long dead. But
Sir J. Fayrer states that the poison may be kept for months
and years, dried between slips of glass, and still retain its
virulence. And the Bushmen are said to have mixed snake-
venom with euphorbia juice and other matters for the
poison with which they anointed their arrow-heads.
It is stated that the blood of an animal bitten by a
venomous snake assumes poisonous properties. Frank
Buckland on one occasion having seen a rat bitten and
killed by a cobra, dissected off the skin to examine the
wound. Having discovered the two minute punctures
made by the poison-fangs, he scraped away with his finger-
nail the flesh on the inner side of the skin which he had
removed. Unfortunately he had shortly before been
cleaning his nail with a penknife, and had slightly sepa-
rated the nail from the skin beneath. When he had
completed his rapid examination of the rat, he walked
away, characteristically stuffing the skin into his pocket
(what strange things, alive and dead, did those pockets
often contain ! ). He had not walked a hundred yards before,
all of a sudden, he felt just as if somebody had come
behind him and struck him a severe blow on the head,
and at the same time experienced a most acute pain and
sense of oppression at the chest " as though a hot iron
had been run in, and a hundredweight put on the top of
it." He knew instantly from what he had read that he
was poisoned. Luckily he obtained ammonia and brandy,
but was ill for some days. "How virulent therefore," he
says, " must the poison of a cobra be ! It already had
been circulated in the body of the rat, from which I
had imbibed it at second-hand." From the account that
188 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
he gives, however, it seems at least possible, if not
probable, that some of the poison was hanging about the
wound unabsorbed, and had thus entered his system
directly, and not, as he believed, indirectly.
After all that has been said and done in the matter we
do not know very much concerning the venom of snakes.
Its active principle has never been chemically isolated ;
nor is it by any means certain whether there is one poison
or many. There seems, indeed, to be some difference
between the physiological effects of the venom of vipers
and of cobras ; and since they belong to distinct groups
some such difference might be expected. But Dr.
Stradling goes so far as to say that there are many kinds
of distinct virus, a view that cannot be accepted without
further evidence and confirmation. The effects on the
system are in all cases exceedingly rapid, causing intense
pain and swelling of the part affected, and in a short time
giving rise to paralysis of the nerve centres, and general
exhaustion and collapse. Nor does there seem to be any
specific and infallible antidote to the virus, though
ammonia and permanganate of potash have been
successfully applied in some cases. Dr. Stradling has
tried on himself the system of inoculation, and he
believes successfully ; and quite recently Dr. Mueller
writes from Victoria to say that he finds that a solution of
nitrate of strychnine in 240 parts of water, mixed with a
little glycerine, is almost invariably successful as an anti-
dote. The strychnine poison is thoroughly antagonistic to
that of the snake's venom, and may, Dr. Mueller says, be
safely injected, twenty drops at a time, every ten or twenty
minutes, until slight muscular spasms indicate that the
new poison introduced into the system has vanquished
the venom and is beginning to assert its independent
influence.
XIIL SNAKES. 189
Stimulants, such as ammonia-water and alcohol, are
given, not as specifics against the virus, but to excite the
action of the heart, to counteract mental depression, and
to prevent utter collapse ; and it is probably to the stimu-
lating effects of such herbs as Aristolochia indica that we
must ascribe such value as they possess in cases of snake-
bite. So-called " snake-stones " of charred horn and other
porous materials act merely as absorbents. In case
of snake-bite, therefore, the only practical thing to do is
to stop the spread of the poison ; not to trust to the
subsequent administration of antidotes Bind the limb
atfected above the bitten part, and tighten the bandage
to the utmost ; burn, cauterize, or excise the wound ;
administer stimulants to avert collapse, and subsequently
diuretics to encourage elimination by the kidneys.
Even in England we are not quite free from danger
from snake-bites, for, as is well known, the adder is a
venomous snake. Some five years ago the son of a friend
of mine was walking near a river in Surrey, and saw a
snake in the grass. Under the impression that it was the
harmless water-snake, he stooped to catch it, and was bitten
on the forefinger. There being no ammonia in the house
close by, he walked a mile to the chemist's nearly faint-
ing with the pain, numbness, and giddiness. Here he
obtained some ammonia, and then fell down in a faint.
Brandy was administered at intervals ; he was got into a
fly, and driven home, reaching the house " looking like
death, with his extremities cold, and circulation nearly
stopping." His arm was enormously swollen and he
was in violent pain. This, however, after some hours
abated, and the swelling began to go down, but had not
entirely subsided for a week or more. Nor was it for
some time that the patient fully regained his health and
strength.
190 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CJHAL-.
It is hardly necessary to state nowadays that the sting
of a snake is neither in its tail nor its tongue. There are
indeed some people so ignorant of natural history, that
they could scarcely distinguish, without the assistance of
a label, between a puff-adder and a bumble-bee. And by a
natural confusion of ideas they fancy that the " venomed
worm " has its sting in the tail. There are a greater num-
ber, however, who believe that the sting is in the tongue.
And this with more show of reason ; for the forked arid
quivering tongue of the snake is constantly playing in
and out of the mouth in an ominous and uncanny fashion.
It is however, a tender, delicate, and quite harmless organ,
which can be retracted into a sheath in the lower part of
the mouth, and which is highly sensitive as an organ of
touch. It is probably not an organ of taste. Indeed,
snakes would seem to be very deficient in this sense.
A large boa in the Zoo, partially blind owing to her
approaching change of skin, struck at a rabbit, and
seized her blanket instead. She seemed, however, quite
satisfied that she had secured her prey, constricted it, and
very contentedly proceeded to swallow the dainty morsel.
It was with difficulty that she was forced to disgorge the
long flannel-sausage, which was scarcely recognizable from
the abundant coating of slimy mucus from the salivary
glands. The old writers thought that this mucous secre-
tion was supplied by the tongue ; and Bingley quotes an
old observer, who states that a boa-constrictor, having
caught and constricted a buffalo, was then " seen to lick
the whole body over, and thus cover it with a mucil-
aginous substance to make it slip down the throat more
easily," thus giving the boa credit for performing an
operation which Mrs. Hopley aptly likens to whitewashing
a ceiling with a camel's hair paint-brush. The tongue is
neither a sting nor a lubricator, but a delicate organ of
xiii. SNAKES. 191
touch, and perhaps something more ; for I cannot believe
that the constant quivering of the tongue in and out of
the mouth is purposeless though what the purpose may
be, unless it has some fascinating or mesmeric effect upon
a timid victim, I cannot say.
I may here mention, in passing, the remarkable effect
which nicotine, or some essential oil condensed from
tobacco smoke, has on snakes. If a drop of the oil from
a foul pipe be placed in the mouth of a snake the action
is almost instantaneous. The muscles become set in knotted
lumps, and the creature becomes rigid. If much is given,
the snake dies ; but, if a small amount only is placed in
the mouth, the snake may be restored. This, as Mr.
Oakley has suggested, may explain the stories of Indian
snake-charmers being able to turn a snake into a stick.
This feat is performed by spitting into the snake's moutli,
and then placing the hand on its head until the reptile
becomes stiffened. The effect may be produced by opium
or some other narcotic introduced with the saliva. They
then rub the snake between their hands, restoring it again
to its usual animation.
To return to the sting of snakes, it is neither in the tail
nor the tongue. The death-dealing organs are the great
poison-fangs. The fatal wound is a bite and not a sting.
And among all the special modifications of snake structure
none is more remarkable than the development of the poison-
fang. In the harmless snakes there is a longish bone on
each side of the upper jaw which may be armed with a
dozen teeth or more. But in the vipers this bone is
shortened to a wedge which bears only one great fang,
though behind it there may be two or three reserve
fangs, one of which will rapidly become attached to the
bone, should the poison-tooth in use be broken. In al
snakes the jaw-bones are but loosely attached to the brain
192
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
case. But in the vipers this fang-bearing bone is so
hinged to its neighbours that, when the creature is not
roused, the poison-tooth can be laid back in the mouth and
protected by a fold of skin. Should the creature, how-
ever, be enraged, and the niouth be opened widely, its
poison-fangs may be separately or simultaneously erected
so as to stand out at right angles to the jaw. In the less-
developed venomous snakes the curved fang is grooved
along its anterior margin; but in the cobras the groove
has sunk so deep into the fang that it only opens by a
narrow slit, while in the vipers and the ring-hals even
this slit has closed,
an d there is a com-
plete canal running
from the base of the
tooth to a slit-like
orifice near, but not
quite at the point.
Into this canal at
its lower end opens
the duct of the
poison-gland, a deadly modification of a harmless salivary
gland. In a fair-sized puff-adder I dissected, this was
about as large as a bean. About half a drachm of clear
gummy poison may be collected from a fresh and vigorous
cobra.
Scarcely less terrible than the venomed fang of the
poisonous snakes are the constricting coils of the pythons
and boas. We may not now see the snakes fed at our
London Zoo ; but the other day at the Antwerp Zoo I
watched the pythons at meal-time. It was a painful sight,
but most interesting. There were eight or ten snakes ;
and about as many pigeons, together with a couple of
young rabbits, were introduced. The poor things were
xin. SNAKES. 193
timid and fearful, but their fear did not seem to be
particularized. The pigeons perched on the gliding
reptiles and seemed surprised at this world's instability.
One little rabbit kept on nibbling at the skin of a sleepy
old python, making it twitch. As for the snakes, the way
in which they silently glided towards their prey was
cruel and relentless as fate. There was no hurry. They
always had a bend of the lithe muscular body to spare for
the final snap. The nose was brought close up to a pigeon,
and the mouth began slowly to open. Perhaps the pigeon
hopped away; no matter there was no need for hurry.
The victim might escape for a moment, but fate is relent-
less and inevitable. Again the nose is almost touching the
poor bird, the mouth again opens. Snap ! The pigeon is
in those cruel jaws, the python's head is rapidly thrown
back, and a coil of the supple muscular body is thrown
round the panting creature, the life of which is crushed
out of it. Again there is no hurry. The pigeon has been
dead some minutes, but the snake does not move.
Then the mouth opens and the teeth are disengaged from
the prey. The snake yawns half-a-dozen times and waits
for a quarter of an hour ; he is not pressed for time. Then,
beginning at the head, he slowly creeps outside his prey.
What a gape the creature has ! The skull of a cobra lies
before me. From the tip of the snout to the back of the
skull the length is an inch and a quarter ; but from the
tip of the snout to where the lower jaw is hinged the
length is more than an inch and three-quarters. The brain-
case is an ivory casket of great solidity ; but the jaw-
bones are loosely connected, and during life are capable of
a good deal of motion. The two side-pieces of the lower
jaw are, in the snake, only united in front by elastic tissue.
Behind, they do not hinge on the brain-case itself, but on
lung supporting bones which jut out at the back of the
O
194 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHA*.
skull, and these aie capable of motion outwards, so as to
widen the space between them. Not only are there teeth
on the lower jaw and along the outer edges of the upper
jaw in the python's skull, there are also extra rows of teeth
implanted in bones which lie one on each side in the
palate. The teeth are not for crushing, or tearing or
chewing. They all slope markedly backwards, and are for
holding the prey. Your finger will slip into the mouth of
a small python easily enough; but try and draw it out
again, that is a different matter. The curved teeth are
constructed to prevent that.
And so our python creeps little by little outside the
pigeon. Now the upper jaw, now the lower jaw ; now one
side, now the other, edges forward just a little an eighth
or a quarter of an inch. And every fraction of an inch
gained is so much to the good ; the recurved teeth make
sure of that. And, now the pigeon is halfway in, the
python's jaws being distended to the utmost. But how
does the creature breathe ? Kindly Nature, who is no
respecter of persons, and who has taken an infinity of
trouble over this despised snake, has provided for this
difficulty. The opening of the windpipe or glottis is not
far back in the throat as with us, but projects forward
into the mouth as a tube. And while a python is
swallowing its prey, the end of this tube may sometimes
be seen lolling out of one side of the mouth, and opening
and shutting as the snake breathes. In the python that
I am describing, I just caught sight of it as the pigeon
finally disappeared. When once through the mouth the
pigeon passed down the gullet pretty rapidly. The whole
process of swallowing occupied in this case thirty-four
minutes ; with an extra ten minutes of subsequent
yawning.
The last of the victims to find a living tomb at Antwerp
\
xm. SNAKES. 195
was one of the poor little rabbits. I watched a python
again and again bring his nose near the friendless little
rodent, but he skipped away a foot or so. Once the
unsuspecting creature nibbled at the nose of the python,
making it recoil in surprise. But at last there came the
cruel snap, and there was a general exclamation of " pauvre
lapinf" from the spectators. As I turned away from
a sight most interesting but most painful, I saw a python
rob another of a pigeon which it had partially swallowed.
Seizing the leg of the bird, he jerked it aw ay, drawing the
other snake after it, and managed to throw a coil round
the pigeon and the snake's head. The first python managed
to free his head from the coil, but the procedure seemed
to have taken away his appetite ; for he relinquished his
hold. It was not, however, until he had yawned his
widest several times that he succeeded in freeing his teeth
from the neck of the bird. Had it gone further, I doubt
if he could have done so.
Pages might be filled with the various means by which
the snake is adapted to its peculiar mode of life ; or
rather modes of life, for there are tree-snakes as well as
ground-snakes, sea-snakes as well as land-snakes. By
sea-snakes I do not mean sea-serpents. I only once saw
a sea-serpent, many years ago in Table Bay. Most
remarkable was its undulating movement through or over
the waves. But it incontinently resolved itself into a
long flight of sea-birds, just skimming the surface of the
water. There are however genuine sea-snakes, and very
venomous, though not very enormous, they are. They
may often, I am told, be seen in the clear waters of the
Bay of Bengal. In spite of their great resemblance in
the form of the head, colour, mode of life, and general
appearance, it has been recently suggested that the three
genera (Enliydris, Hydropliis, and Distira) have sprung
o 2
196 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
from three different terrestrial genera. Similar adaptations
to like conditions have produced the external resemblances.
If this be so we have in these sea-snakes another instance of
that convergence of superficial characters which is so well
seen in the swallows and the swifts.
For those who admire the delicacies of animal
mechanism the skeleton of a snake will exercise some-
thing of the fascination which is commonly attributed to the
living serpent. The vertebrae of the spinal column are
exquisitely fashioned and admirably hinged. Each is
articulated with its neighbour by a ball and socket joint
below, a wedge fitting into a cavity at the side, and above,
on each side, oblique shelves, the even surfaces of which
work smoothly on each other. Well may Professor Parker
say that in all respects the articulation of the serpent's
spine is so exquisitely perfect as to beggar all human
invention of joints and hinges, Only just a little motion
of joint on joint is allowed, each joint set to the other, so
that nothing can part them without crushing them entirely ;
and yet there is permitted a most perfect and delicate
motion of cup in ball, wedge in wedge and of the oblique
overlying facet on the oblique facet beneath it. All
these are, moreover, harmonized together, so as just to
allow a gentle bend of bone on bone, and a gentle rolling
of vertebra on vertebra. Multiply by four hundred this
limited motion, this arrested curve of a python's body, and
you get a motion such as would, in its sum total, be
sufficient to engirdle a luckless anatomist several times
over. To the sides of these vertebrae are hinged the
ribs. The next time you visit the Zoo, do not fail to
notice how the snake walks with his ribs. There is no
breast-bone in the snake, but the long and numerous ribs
are connected by muscular bands with the broad transverse
scales which characterize the belly of the serpent. These
XIII.
SNAKES.
197
scales form large scraper-like plates the edge projecting
backwards. Thus we have an admirable set of rib-levers
with the scraper-like plates at one end and the
vertebra? of the spine at the other. The scraper readily
slides over the ground forwards, but catches on being
drawn backwards. It bites on the roughened surface of
the ground, and by the movement of the rib-levers the
body is drawn forwards. Such is the mode of progression
CORAL SNAKE OF BRAZIL.
on a plain surface. Through the grass the snake
progresses by swimming, with a sinuous motion of the body
from side to side. Even on a plain surface the snake will
adopt this sinuous motion if frightened, and though it does
not much aid progression, it makes the creature difficult
to catch.
It is largely with the aid of its ribs, as I once had an
opportunity of observing, that the snake is enabled to
walk out of his skin when he wishes to change his coat.
198 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Once a year or oftener does he cast aside his o'ld dull
garment, and step forth radiant in his new finery. I shall
not readily forget the beauty of a coral snake I saw in
Brazil under these conditions. The old skin, which is
moist and pliant, folds back as the snake slips out of it, so
that, when we find the cast-off garment, it is turned inside
out. In the rattlesnake the hinder bones of the tail are
peculiarly shaped, and when the creature slips out of its
coat the skin which covers these bones is not shed, but
remains adherent at the end of the tail. Each successive
moult leaves an additional adherent tail-cap of dried skin
and these constitute the rattle. The purpose of the rattle
is not well understood. " Providence," Mr. Bingley says,
" has given to mankind a security against the rattlesnake's
bite ; for it generally warns the passenger of its vicinity
by the rattling of its tail." But we cannot to-day accept
this solution of the difficulty. Probably it is to warn
enemies that he is a dangerous customer. Possibly the
sound strikes terror into its victims, which are thus par-
tially paralyzed by fear. We do not know much about
the so-called fascination of snakes.
It is a curious fact that monkeys, who have an intense
instinctive dread of snakes, would seem from experiments
in Zoological gardens to be strangely attracted to them.
An American observer, Mr. A. E. Brown, coiled a dead
snake in a newspaper, so as to be easily capable of coming
loose, arid set it on the floor of a cage containing a great
variety of monkeys. It was instantly carried off by a
leading spirit ; but in a few seconds the paper became
unfolded and the snake was exposed. The monkey
instantly dropped it and went away, but with a constant
look behind. The other monkeys, perceiving the snake,
approached, step by step, and formed a circle round it six
or eight feet in diameter. None approached it except one
XIIT.
SNAKES.
199
Macaque, who cautiously made some snatches at the paper.
At this moment a string which had been attached to the
MONKEYS AND DRAB SNAKE.
snake's tail was gently pulled ; the monkeys fled precipi-
tately, with great chattering and screaming. Some time
after they gradually returned to their former position ; and
200 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
they continued this procedure for some hours, showing both
intolerable fear and a strange attraction. Mrs. Martin in
her Home Life on an Ostrich Farm tells of a baboon, Sarah,
to whom a paper package was presented in which, instead
of the usual sweet-stuff a dead night adder was wrapped
up. " When she unfolded the innermost paper, and the
snake slipped out with a horrid writhe across her hand,
Sarah quietly sank backwards and fainted away, her lips
turning perfectly white. By dint of throwing water over
her, chafing her hands, and bathing her lips with brandy,
she was revived from the swoon, though not without some
difficulty."
My allotted space is already fully occupied, and there are
many matters of interest concerning snakes which I must
leave unnoticed. Fiction and fancy have so long played
around the snake that it is often difficult to disentangle
fact therefrom. It is said, for example, that maternal
vipers, puff-adders, and rattlesnakes will, in the presence of
danger, open their mouths and allow their little ones to find
an asylum of safety in their gullets. What are we to say
about this ? It sounds strange and unnatural ; but it is so
strongly vouched for, even by competent observers, that one
hardly likes to repeat at one's leisure concerning these
people the somewhat sweeping accusation that David is
reported to have made in his haste.
I cannot discuss the matter here ; but I must add one
paragraph in conclusion concerning the strange egg-eating
snake of South Africa, the Eiger eter of the Dutch colonists.
This subsists mainly or entirely on eggs. And since the
ordinary toothed jaws would be an obvious disadvantage to
the species, since they would break the egg and much of
the contents would be spilled, the mouth is almost or quite
toothless. But in the throat sharp, hard-tipped spines
project into the gullet from the vertebrae of the spine in
xiii. SNAKES. 201
this region. Here the egg is broken, and there is no fear
of losing the contents. The shell is rejected through the
mouth. Concerning a species of this snake, Mr. Hammond
Tooke has recently drawn attention to a fact noticed by
Mr. Oakley. It mimics the berg-adder, a cousin of the
puff-adder. The head has the elongated form character-
istic of the harmless snakes. But, when irritated, the egg-
eater flattens it out till it has the usual viperine shape of
the "club" on a playing-card. It coils as if for a spring,
erects its head with every appearance of anger, hisses, and
darts forward as if to strike its fangs into its foe, in every
way closely simulating an irritated berg-adder. The snake
is, however, perfectly harmless and inoffensive. This is
only one of the wiles of that incarnate arch-deceiver, the
serpent.
CHAPTER XIV.
DWARF LIONS.
"The thin chameleon, fed with air, receives
The colour of the thing to which he cleaves." DRYDEN.
I AM going to tell you of the lions that I have myself
caught and tamed. Only you must not expect thrilling
adventures and hair -breadth escapes. The lions that I
speak of are little fellows ; and though, were you no bigger
than a fly, or at most a fair-sized cockroach, they would
lick you up and swallow you whole ; yet, being themselves
but dwarfs, they will only squint at you with one eye,
change colour a little, and perhaps open their mouths and
hiss. If that does not frighten you, I dare say you will be
able to capture them without further difficulty.
Of course if one wants to hunt lions one must go to
Africa. There are no lions now in England, though the
early inhabitants of our island which perhaps was not
then an island people who had not yet learnt the use of
metal and who chipped rude weapons of stone, knew them
well, perhaps too well. These, however, were the powerful
and terrible cat-lions, not the little ground-lions of which
I am writing. I do not know that they have ever been
found wild in England. But if you are not afraid, and will
come with me to the Cape, we will hunt these little lions
together; we will capture them, and study their habits.
CTTAP. xrv. DWARF LIONS. 203
Not far from Cape Town, over which Table Mountain
keeps stern guard, there is a stretch of low-lying country,
called the Cape Flats, which separates the Cape Peninsula
from the main mass of the African continent. This shall
be our hunting-ground. As we tramp across the sandy
plain, turning aside now and then to pluck a heath or an
orchid, or to turn over one of the great rounded ant-balls
as large as a giant's head, or to lift the leaves of the
prickly bear's-foot beneath which lurk beautifully marked
beetles of the weevil tribe, we may perhaps see a large
secretary bird stalking along with his pen behind his ear,
ready to record the number of snakes he has scotched.
But it is not for flowers or beetles, for snakes or for birds,
that we are in search. Nothing less than a lion, if it be
only a little ground-lion, will satisfy us. Ah ! I thought
this was a likely spot ! See, there he is !
Where ? Cannot you see him lurking in that bush, the
colour of which his own so closely resembles ? Look ! he
moves his swivel eye, slowly unclasps his gloved hand, and
very softly moves forward his thin fore-limb ; he uncoils
his slender tail, and there I have him ! Does not he
twist backwards and forwards ? Does not he hiss, and wrap
his tail round my finger ? See, he is already changing
colour. What ? Only a chameleon, do you say ? Well !
turn to your Greek Lexicon, or your Etymological Dic-
tionary, and see whether chameleon does not mean " lion
of the ground," with " dwarf" as a secondary meaning of
the first part of the word, when used in composition. Am
I not right therefore in calling him a little ground-lion ?
We will not quarrel about a name, however, but having
caught one or two more chameleons (if you will have it so),
let us take them home and keep them for a while as
pets.
As we near Sunnysidc, my little one-storied cottage (and
204
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
it is, if I may be allowed the play upon the word, the
pleasant story of a happy sojourn at the Cape among
CHAMELEON
many kind friends) ; before we pass through the gate, by
the plumbago hedge, and beneath the old pear-tree ; and
xiv. DWARF LIONS. 205
before \ve ascend the steps of the shady veraudah with its
convolvulus-clad trellis-work, we will pluck a fresh bough
for each of our little friends. These we will hang by a
string to the roof of the verandah ; and on them we will
leave our dwarf-lions, while we go within and refresh
ourselves after the chase. But first we will sprinkle the
boughs with water ; for chameleons are thirsty souls, and
love to suck the dew-like drops from the beaded leaves,
What strange creatures they are ! Now that we have
washed away the stains of travel, and recruited ourselves
after the labours of capture, we may sit awhile on the sun-
sheltered verandah (stoep we called it at the Cape) and
see what our lions are like. Was there ever so slow and
methodical a walker? Compared with the chameleon's
gait the movements of even the sleepy sloth seem rapid.
Like the sloth he is at home among the branches, but
awkward and uncomfortable if forced to walk along the
level ground. We will no longer, therefore, call him a
ground-lion, but will accept the secondary meaning of the
first part of his name and speak of him as our dwarf-lion.
For, unlike the sloth which is a strict vegetarian, our
chameleon is a beast of prey. Insects are its food. See !
a fly has settled on that bough, within six inches of our
largest lion. But what chance has the slow and sedate
chameleon, slowest and sleepiest of lizard-folk, what chance
has he of catching an active and wary fly ? His cone-
shaped swivel eyes are looking about aimlessly, each
seeming bent on some business of its own. Now one
glances lazily up while the other peers furtively down.
Now one is staring attentively backwards at its owner's
tail, while the other is ranging round the neighbourhood
of that wide-awake little fly, who is rubbing her front legs
together, or drawing her hind legs over her wings in utter
carelessness of the presence of so inanimate an enemy.
206 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
But make not too sure. One eye lias ceased its aimless
wandering and become earnestly interested in that fly.
The chameleon takes one solemn step forward. You are
all right for the present, Mrs. Fly ; but let me advise you
to be careful and circumspect. That one eye is fixed upon
you with an unchanging steady gaze, and the other seems
somehow to have lost its interest in its owner's tail, and is
beginning to find a new interest in your immediate neigh-
bourhood. If once that other eye becomes fixed upon you,
take my word for it, you're a doomed fly. Ah ! I thought
so. The other eye has come to rest, and holds you in its
steady gaze. The chameleon leans forward a little, his
mouth slowly opens, twitches once or twice, and quick as
thought, with unerring aim, a long worm-like tongue is
darted forth and returns to the mouth like a piece of
stretched india-rubber. Where is poor Mrs. Fly ? She
seems to have disappeared. And Mr. Chameleon is
leisurely munching at something which seems to give him
some sort of sedate satisfaction.
A wonderful organ, that tongue. It is about as long as
the body of its possessor, measured from the tip of his nose
to the root of his tail. It is said that in the villages of
Madagascar, a land where chameleons run large, the people
always place one on the church steeple to keep the village
clear of flies; but I think this must be an exaggeration.
Still in sober earnest it is a wonderful organ. It would
take me half an hour to explain to you (do not be afraid, I
am not going to do so) the muscular mechanism of the
chameleon's tongue. It is enough for us to know what
the flies know too well, only they soon forget it in death
that it is a long elastic organ the expanded tip of which is
covered with an exceedingly sticky substance ; that it is
fixed near the front of the mouth ; and that it can be jerked
forward with startling rapidity, returning at once into the
xiv. DWARF LIONS. 207
mouth, partly by its own elasticity. It is used with unerring
precision. I have often taken a chameleon on my finger and
shown him fly after fly in succession. He would never
strike until he had got both eyes to bear on his prey : and
very seldom did he miss, even when thus held on an un-
certain support at a somewhat variable distance of five
or six inches.
And then those eyes of his, how strange they are !
Some one has said that they have no more expression than
a boiled pea with an ink-spot on it. You must imagine
the boiled pea a little rolled out so as to acquire the shape
of a blunt cone. The broader base of the cone lies next
the head, and in the middle of the rounded apex is the
ink-spot and a wonderfully bright ink-spot it is. There
seem to be no eyelids. But in truth the skin that covers
nearly the whole eye-ball, and forms the green case of the
boiled pea, represents the eyelids, which are so fused
together as to leave only a small opening the ink-spot
through which the bright eye-ball may be seen. This
small opening may be diminished or enlarged at will. So
that the chameleon has a sort of additional pupil to its eye.
You have, I dare say, watched the pupil of your own eye
dilate and contract as you looked at it in the looking-glass
and varied the intensity of the light. The chameleon has
two such pupils to each eye one like yours within the
eye- ball ; the other, the ink-spot, formed from the eyelids.
Not only are the tongue and eyes of the chameleon
specially modified in relation to the creature's mode of life,
the feet are also specially modified and admirably adapted
for grasping the twigs of the plants on which it lives. In
the hand there are five fingers of about equal length. But
they are most curiously arranged. The first three thumb
and first two fingers are all bound together into a bundle
by the skin which reaches as far as the claws ; the other
208 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
two, the fourth and fifth fingers, are similarly bound
together. The two bundles are arranged in such a way
that the twig upon which the chameleon is climbing is
grasped between the bundle of three on the inner side,
and the bundle of two on the outer. In the hind-foot the
arrangement of the toes is similar ; only here it is the first
two digits, the great toe and its neighbour, that are bound
together on the inner side, the other three forming the
outer bundle. It is interesting to notice how, in that
remarkable climbing bird, the parrot, the feet are similarly
arranged for grasping. But the parrot has only four toes,
of which the two outer ones are directed backward and the
two inner ones forward.
If you watch a parrot climb you will see that he uses
his beak as a third claw. But the chameleon is better off
still. In addition to his four grasping feet he uses his
tail. You never saw such a careful little fellow as he is.
He never moves a foot unless he is quite sure that the
other three feet have got a good hold and that the tail is
wrapped securely round the twig. And he seems never
quite to like leaving go at all with his tail. If you try
and unwrap his tail he will hiss at you and swear at you
in a quite terrifying fashion as much as to say, "How
dare you meddle with a dwarf- lion's tail ? " No : he always
likes to have a good firm grasp with his tail ; and he
never thinks of moving a hand until he has carefully con-
sidered whether it and each separate bundle of toes on
the three other limbs are all quite secure. That's what
makes him so slow and methodical in his gait.
I have seen chameleons, however, wake up and become
preternaturally active. I had kept a chameleon for a long
time as the solitary occupant of a bough. Bringing home
a second, I placed him too on the same bough. The first
perhaps not unnaturally regarded him as an intruder.
xiv. DWARF LIONS. 209
He turned greener than ever in his anger and jealousy.
And they fought. You never saw such grotesquely
furious little lions. Their slow and methodical mode of
progression was altogether forgotten. There was no
method in the madness of their anger. They chased each
other up and down the bough, until one, either in-
tentionally or by accident, dropped to the ground, and
sidled off awkwardly and excitedly towards the bushes.
It was some little time before the victor quieted down
into a state of normal and sedate tranquillity. But in half
an hour or so he took up a convenient position and blew
himself out to twice his natural size with an air of content
and satisfaction. You could see that this dwarf-lion was
literally puffed up with pride. This puffing out of the
body is a curious habit of the chameleon. It gave rise to
the old notion that they lived on air. The lungs are of
large size. The anterior portion is much more compact
and spongy than the posterior ; and from the posterior or
hinder portion there grow out numerous hollow bladders
which can be inflated with air, and which extend in among
the viscera wherever there is room. This reminds one
somewhat of a bird's lung, communicating with which
there are generally nine air-spaces occupying a good deal
of space in the body. In your lungs and mine the whole
structure is spongy ; and the whole lung can be somewhat
distended and slightly collapsed during the processes
of inspiration and expiration. In the bird it is different.
The lungs are hardly at all distensible ; and the air does
not merely go into and out of them, but backwards and
forwards through them, into and out of the air-spaces.
The air-bladders of the chameleon seem to foreshadow the
air-spaces of birds, and they give the creature its strange
power of blowing itself out until the outer skin has quite a
transparent appearance. Then sometimes he will blow off
210 ANIMAL SKETCHES. 'CHAP.
steam and become thin and hungry-looking to a degree ;
and after a few minutes he will blow himself out again till
he is as hollow as a drum, so that when he swallows a fly
one feels inclined to listen, in the expectation of hearing it
buzzing about inside him.
But perhaps one of the most remarkable things about
this remarkable lizard if it be a lizard, and not, as has
been suggested, an almost solitary existing relic of a once
important group of reptiles, the Dinosaurs one of its
most remarkable powers, I say, is that of changing colour
in relation to its surroundings. Have you ever read James
Merrick's piece of verse in which he describes how two
travellers were arguing what was the colour of the
chameleon ; whether it was blue or green ? And how they
referred the question to a third who said that it was
neither one nor t'other ? " If you don't find him black, I'll
eat him," he exclaimed. I have often wondered whether he
did eat him, and if he was nice ! For when they turned the
creature out before them, to the surprise of all three he was
white ! Now with all his changes of colour the chameleon
cannot turn white or black. Yellow, blue, light green,
and dark brownish green, are the colours I have noted
in the common South African species. There is no doubt
that the change of colour is such as to make the creature
less conspicuous from its resemblance in tint to that of its
surroundings. I have often watched a chameleon walk
from shadow into sunlight and been struck by the rapid
change of colour. The influence of bright light makes him
darker. If the fore part of his body be in shadow and the
hind part in sunshine, the former will be lighter in tint
than the latter.
A very careful observer of South African animal life,
Mrs. Barber, believes that the small grey mottled chame-
leon turning light grey in the evening thereby becomes
xiv. DWARF LTONS. 211
conspicuous, and tempts night-flying insects to come and
examine him, in the hopes that he may be a flower.
Moreover, Mrs. Barber believes, though she is not prepared
to state it as a fact, that in this position the chameleon
opens its mouth, which is coloured light yellow, as a decoy
to insects that are passing by, for the purpose of tempting
them into a living tomb. Sly dwarf lion ! Mr. Poulton
describes an Asiatic lizard which has at each angle of the
mouth a fold of red-coloured skin, which is produced into
a flower-like shape exactly resembling a little red flower
which grows in the sand. Insects attracted by what they
believe to be genuine blossoms, approach the mouth of
the lizard, on which the hospitable reptile invites them
inside and will take no refusal. All this may be so ; but
I, for one, should like to have accurately recorded obser-
vations of insect capture by these means.
Notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject
I do not think that we yet quite understand how the
variations in colour in the chameleon are brought about.
We know, however, that beneath the skin there are
coloured grains, which change in shape under the in-
fluence of the light that falls upon the creature now
collecting into little rounded masses, and now spreading
out into diffused and branching forms. And the late M.
Paul Bert tells us that, under the influence of certain
nerves, these grains may also change their position, either
burying themselves deeper in the skin, or spreading out
to form a network nearer its surface. Thus by change of
form and change of position, these coloured grains modify
the prevailing yellowish colour.
The change of colour is very rapid and is certainly
under the influence of the emotions. I once held up
before one of my chameleons a ringhals slang a deadly
snake with an expanded head like that of a cobra which
p 2
212 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xiv.
I had just killed. The effect was magical. The puffed-
out body collapsed, the brightly tinted skin became as
dull as ditch-water, the muscles seemed to lose their
power. The chameleon dropped to the ground and slunk
off in abject terror. Never was seen a dwarf-lion more
utterly cowed, crestfallen, and dejected.
CHAPTER XV.
FROGGIES.
" Frog. A small animal with four feet, living both by land and water,
and placed by naturalists among mixed animals, as partaking of beast and
fish." JOHNSON.
" Amphibious. Adjective derived from two Greek words, Amphi a fish,
and bios a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be
compounded of a fish and a beast ; which therefore, like the hippopotamus,
can't live on the land, and dies in the water." KINGSLEY.
" WHAT can you have to tell us that is either interesting
or amusing, about frogs ? Nasty, cold, slimy reptiles ; I
can't understand how you can bring yourself to touch
them."
My dear young friend, a frog isn't a reptile ; he isn't
nasty (I've eaten him and ought to know !) ; and if I do
not succeed in making him interesting that is certainly
my fault (or yours), not his. As to his not being amusing,
I do not think we need quarrel with him on that score.
Not every one has the gift of being a clown or funny
fellow.
Have you ever made a friend of a frog ? You really
cannot find out how much good there may be in man or
beast until you enter into more or less friendly relations
with him. There are none so blind as those who won't
see. Have you ever made a friend of Froggie at any
214 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
rate so far as to watch his life-habits with sympathetic
interest? Of course if whenever you meet a frog you
call him a nasty slimy reptile, and poke at him with your
umbrella, you cannot expect him to tell you any of his
secrets. But if you will get over your prejudice against
his race, and try not to frighten him ; if you call him a
nice old frog, or perhaps mention him politely as an
Anurous Batrachian, or Mr. Rana Temporaria you will
find that he is not at all a bad sort of fellow ; that he is
at least quite harmless and good-tempered ; and that,
though he is not exactly what you can call clever, he can
do a thing or two exceedingly well. He can, for example,
leap or swim with the best of you.
The Rev. Dr. Bingley, an old writer on animal biography,
tells a story, which, he says, is well authenticated, of a
race between an Indian and a bull frog. Some Swedes
bet the Indian that, with two leaps' start, the bull frog
would beat him. I am sorry to say they burnt poor
Froggie's tail to make him go the quicker. And what
with his burnt tail and the sound of the Indian's rapid
strides behind him, he jumped on, three yards at a leap,
so speedily that he outstripped the Indian and was the
first to reach the pond, fixed as goal. How glad he must
have been to cool his poor tail in the clear cold water !
I hope that if ever you want to go in for frog-racing, you
won't burn the poor frog's tail, even if you can find that
appendage. In the first place it's a cruel thing to do, and
in the second place it spoils the race. How can we tell
that the Indian would not have won if they had only
burnt his tail too ?
I cannot profess to have any intimate acquaintance with
bull frogs, and know nothing of their leaping powers
except by hearsay. But we all know what an admirable
jumper our common English frog is. Think what leaps
FROGGIES.
215
you would be capable of, if you could only jump as well
in proportion to your size and weight as Froggie can in
proportion to his ! You would think nothing of jumping
over the house and alighting in the back garden. That's
216 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
one of the advantages Nature gives to her light weights.
Of course there must be muscular development as well.
And in this respect the frog has a hind limb to be proud
of. What a splendid thigh ! What an admirably rounded
calf! Note too the great length of the foot to give
additional leverage.
And then how beautifully the foot is webbed, enabling
the frog to swim as well as he can leap. Have you never
watched with pleasure the pleasure that always arises
from seeing a thing really well done a frog as he skims
along over the surface of a pond and then, ducking his
head, dives down with long and powerful strokes ? I can
understand a want of appreciation for a toad. I have
never seen a toad do anything really well. He can't
jump a bit well; when he walks it is an awkward
waddle; and he's a lazy and half-hearted swimmer. A
toad doesn't seem to take a real pride in anything. But
your frog leaps and swims like an athlete ; he does these
things well, and he seems to know it and to be proud of
it. And quite right too ! I don't believe in a fellow not
being proud of doing things well.
No ! I never could get really fond of a toad. It has a
splendid eye I'll admit. But this may in some cases be a
dangerous treasure to some people, toads among the num-
ber. A correspondent of Mr. Pennant's tells of a toad
which was made a pet of for thirty-six years. It always
came out of its hole of an evening when a candle was
brought, and looked up as if expecting to be carried into
the house. There it was fed on maggots. Even the
ladies overcame their horror and begged to see the toad
fed. At last the toad met its death at the hands, or
rather the beak, of a tame raven. Dear old Gilbert
White, of Selborne, says the raven pecked out the poor
creature's eyes. That is why I say that in some cases a
xv. FROGGIES. 217
melting eye may be a dangerous treasure to toads. We
are told in Romeo and Juliet,
" Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes."
I imagine this toad wished he had never made so un-
fortunate an exchange. Havens and jackdaws are pro-
verbially fond of trinkets, and the raven in this case
thought he had secured a jewel.
But though I cannot honestly say that I am fond of
toads, I do not like to hear them evil spoken of, or to
see them murdered wholesale as venomous creatures.
The skin does, indeed, give forth a very acrid and bitter
fluid, which will leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth.
But who wants to taste a toad ? I cannot see that we
have any right to object to this. It is simply Nature's
mode of protecting the poor animal from evil-minded
dogs and other bloodthirsty creatures. A frog has some
chance of escaping from Pincher's too pressing attentions
by a few of those vigorous leaps ; but the poor toad can't
jump much, so he makes himself as bitter as he can.
And if Pincher being young and inexperienced does
catch hold of him, the dog will shake his head and foam
at the mouth and make a great fuss and noise. But he
will not be anxious to repeat the experiment.
This it is, perhaps, that has given poor Bufo, the toad,
such a bad name. But to say that he poisons babies is
simply a libel. Babies ought to be taught not to suck
such things. The toad has no sort of ill-will to man nay
more, he returns good for evil and aids the gardener by
killing a great number of injurious insects. If only he
would conquer his taste for an occasional bee for supper,
his life would be one of uninterrupted good service to
man. I once knew a toad that had a hole close to some
bee-hives ; and I used often to see him sitting on the
218
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
look-out for tired bees. When they wearily settled on
the ground he would waddle up towards them, pause for
a moment, and then jerk out his long, white, sticky
tongue (which is fixed to the front of the lower jaw and
lies backward in the mouth) ; and the tongue would come
flop on to the poor bee, who stuck to it quite involuntarily,
and was thus slung back into the toad's mouth. I think
she sometimes stung the toad ; but that sedate creature
TOAD.
only winked a little, like a person who has taken a little
too much mustard or cayenne pepper.
Frogs and toads always have the air of being such
silent creatures, yet some kinds can make a great noise.
The bull frog emits a deep roar or bellowing which can be
heard to a great distance. Hence its popular name. The
European tree frogs make a shrill piping noise. And the
edible frogs in our English fenland croak so loud, and with
such sweetness withal, as to have won for themselves the
name of Cambridge nightingales. Still a frog always looks
a silent creature, perhaps from the habit of never opening
his mouth except when he wants to jerk out his tongue
at something good to eat.
xv. FROGGIES. 210
These animals are indeed obliged to keep their mouths
shut, for if they kept them open they would riot be able
to breathe. It is possible to suffocate a frog by holding
his mouth open. The way frogs breathe is curious and
may readily be watched. The floor of the mouth, the
part that covers the under jaw, is during life in constant
motion, continually rising and falling; and if you watch
carefully you will see that two little holes, the nostrils, one
on each side of the snout, are constantly opening and closing.
At the back of the mouth there is a slit-like opening,
which you may readily see in a dead frog, and which leads
into the tube that passes to the lungs. The mouth is
thus a sort of bellows. Air is sucked in through the
nostrils and forced downwards into the lungs by the
bellows-like action of the floor of the mouth. This is
quite different from the way in which you breathe. If
you put your hands to your chest, you will feel your ribs
rising and falling as you breathe. They are part of the
mechanism of that beautiful suction-pump by which you
draw air into your lungs. The frog has no ribs, its sides
are quite limp ; and he has to use his mouth as a bellows
or force-pump to drive or force the air into his lungs. If
you hold his mouth open his bellows won't work, and you
suffocate him. His lung too is quite different from yours,
being a hollow bag, the sides of which have a sort of
honeycomb lining ; whereas yours are composed cf a
multitude of little tubes, with tiny air bladders at the
ends, packed as close as ever they can be. The frog also
breathes a great deal through his skin, which so long as
the creature is healthy is always moist.
The skin has also the power of changing colour. If you
keep a frog in a dark place he will become quite pale and
sober coloured. But if you bring him out into the clear
sunlight, he will soon brighten up ; his spots and patches
220 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
of colour will be much more marked ; altogether he will
look a different creature. It is not good for frogs (or boys
and girls) to crouch all day in dark places when the sun
is shining bright and warm without.
The frog can, moreover, drink through his skin. I
remember a little green tree-frog I once knew, whom I
used to watch climbing up the glass sides of the little
moist fern paradise in which he dwelt. Every finger-end
had a little cupping-disc, enabling him to stick to the
smooth surface. Discontented with his lot he must needs
wander to seek his fortunes elsewhere. For long we
deemed him dead. At last he was found behind a cup-
board, dusty and parched, and shrivelled up a most
pitiable little tree-frog. He was not quite dead, however,
and we washed him tenderly and placed him in a saucer
of tepid water. I think he must have nearly doubled in
weight from the water he absorbed through his skin, and
soon we had the pleasure of seeing him once more sticking
to the glass sides of his pleasant and always moist fern
paradise. Hatched in the water, a fish during the child-
hood of his life, the frog is never happy when he is far
from the native element of his ancestors.
In March or April, there may be found in the ponds
masses of clear jelly-like substance, which, when it is
more closely examined, is seen to be made up of trans-
parent spheres, each of which incloses a dark round body.
These are frogs' eggs. Take some home and watch the
development of the little things in a basin or vase of clear
water, in which also place some pieces of water- weed. After
about fifteen days, the exact time depending upon the
warmth of the water, the egg is hatched and the minute
tadpole emerges. It is a strange-looking little thing,
shaped something like a blunt, overgrown comma. It
hangs on to the remains of the jelly-like spheres by
xv. FROGGIES. 221
means of chin-suckers. As it grows its body becomes
rounded and its tail more developed, and at the sides and
back of its head there are little tufted plumes or gills.
For a while its little mouth does not open into its little
stomach; rather an awkward state of things one would
think. But presently this defect in its constitution is
rectified, and it becomes a greedy little fellow, browsing
by means of horny jaws on decaying water-weeds and
other vegetable matter. He is not, however, a strict
vegetarian, and will eat with apparent relish a dead
comrade. Presently the plume-like gills disappear : but
other gills are formed, somewhat resembling those of
fishes, but hidden beneath flaps of skin. Water taken in
at the mouth passes over these gills and out at a hole on
the under surface and to the left side of the tadpole. And
so the creature breathes, taking up the life-giving oxygen
which is dissolved in the water. But presently the little
taddies will come to the surface and begin to breathe air
by means of their lungs.
Every one knows the appearance of these tadpoles with
their big heads and round bodies (not a bit of neck
between them) and thin, long, flat tails. Hind-legs may
be seen in various stages of growth in the older taddies.
But there seem to be no front-legs till the little creature
turns into a frog. The fact is that the fore-legs are there
all the time, being formed quite as early as the hind-legs,
only they are hidden beneath the skin where the neck
ought to be.
The last event in this wonderful series of changes is
the disappearance of the tail. People will tell you that
the tails drop off. But I am quite sure that you won't
find any of these lost tails. If you should find a stray
tail or two at the bottom of your vase, depend upon it
they belonged to some poor unfortunates whose juicy little
222 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xv.
bodies have been eaten up by their companions. No !
the tails do not drop off, but are absorbed into the body.
The very little frog has a ridiculous little pointed stump
of a tail. Even the fully-grown frog is not so tailless as
he seems. As he squats before you, you will notice a
hump on his back. All behind that point represents his
tail. In a frog's skeleton you will see that this part of the
backbone is converted into a curious rod of bone tipped
with gristle. As the tiny fellow into which the tadpole
has turned develops into a fully -grown frog, this rod of
bone grows longer and longer.
But though tadpoles when they turn into frogs do not
shed their tails, they do shed their skin. The eyes then
shine out clearly for the first time, and the fore-limbs are
freed from their prison ; the horny jaws are shed and the
small tadpole-mouth becomes the large frog-mouth, which
will, as the frog grows older and older, get relatively
larger and larger. Our little friend ceases to be a vege-
tarian, and eats insects and slugs for the rest of his life.
Sometimes you may see round the edges of ponds thou-
sands of little Froggies which have just emerged from
tadpole-hood. Poor little* things ! They have many ene-
mies. The mortality among them must be fearful. Ducks
come and gobble them up by dozens, other birds pick them
up as dainty morsels; the great crested water-newt swal-
lows them with a gulp, the grass-snake regards one as a
tit-bit, even pigs are said to enjoy an occasional mouthful
of them ; and lastly the angler baits his hook with them.
If you should ever become a fisherman and should use
poor Froggie on your hook, please remember the advice of
good old Isaak Walton, who, as the examinee observed,
was known as the Judicious Hooker, and place him there
"as if you loved him."
CHAPTER XVI.
THOKNIES AND TINKERS.
" A little fish called a sticklebay, without scales, hath his body fenced
with several prickles." LSAAK WALTON.
THE little fishes which, in the western part of England
where I write, are called Thornies, or, to give the name its
true ring, Tharnies, are known in other parts by other
names Tittlebats, Titlers, Jack Sharps, and so forth. A
writer in the Youth's Instructor (1834) terms them Prickle-
fish. Those who are beyond the reach of dialect know
them as Three-spined Stickle-backs. While the learned
honour them with the style and title G aster osteus aculcatus.
They are really charming little fellows. I scarcely know
a brighter and saucier object in the whole realm of animate
nature than a male Thornie who has donned his nuptial
attire. So self-satisfied does he look, that one wonders
how so much pride can become incarnate in but three
short inches of body. "And have I not just cause?" he
seems to say. " There are many bigger fishes than I (he
does not deem it necessary to add that, save his cousin, the
Tinker, there lives not in English fresh waters a smaller) ;
there may be some who are nearly as handsome. But
show me another," he says, boldly generalizing like other
little folk from his own somewhat limited experience,
224 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
"show me another besides my poor black brother the
Tinker, and he is clearly one of us though sadly degene-
rated who builds a nest in which his wife may lay her
eggs, or takes so much fatherly interest in his family. I
am handsome, a good architect, a kind and considerate
parent; and I should like to see the fish of double or
treble my size that dares come near my nest ! "
Desirous of making myself personally and practically
acquainted with the ways of these fishes, of whose nest-
building habits I had frequently read, I commissioned some
small urchins, disciples of good old Isaak Walton's, to
procure me some by the exercise of their gentle craft.
They therefore armed themselves with the necessary
apparatus, consisting of a perforated tin pot at the end of a
long stick, as the instrument of capture, and a large pickle-
jar, for the reception of the captured and ere long brought
me a dozen or more of Thornies, all alive oh !
When I had thus acquired my little friends, I had at
first much ado to get them housed. And when I had got
them safely housed, I had still more ado to get them to
agree among themselves. I began by putting into one of
my glass tanks, in which there grew sufficient healthy
weed to ensure the purity of the water, a male Thornie
and three females. The male was just beginning to
assume the bright colours (blue, and crimson, and creamy
white) of courtship. But the largest and stoutest of the
females bullied him so unmercifully reversing the usual
order of things among sticklebacks that in two days he was
utterly dejected and crest-fallen, and had completely lost
all sign of colour. I then put into the same tank another
male. Him, too, the irascible old lady bullied unmercifully,
pulling his fins and his tail in the most vulgar fashion,
until he leapt out of the water in his agony.
I felt that such conduct could not be allowed. It
xvi THORNIES AND TINKERS. 225
pained me to see my little friend treated worse than " the
Private Secretary," and that by a lady whom he would
fain have made his wife. I therefore removed the
offending party, and kept her in solitary confinement in
a separate tank, introducing in her stead one quieter and
less quarrelsome. This was at about ten o'clock in the
morning. But I shortly found that there was a new
element of difficulty in getting my finned family to dwell
together in peace and harmony. After some slight angry
skirmishing, the two little males began a regular downright
battle, using freely the strong spines which form the outer
rays of the ventral fins. Never were seen more infuriated
little monsters. It was, however, soon evident which was
master, for ere long the victor was chasing the vanquished
round and round the tank, seizing him at times by the
pectoral fin, holding on and shaking him like a young
bull-dog, the three females timidly looking on the while.
At about three o'clock the victor's angry passions began to
subside to some extent. He still had a suspicious mien ;
but with well-feigned nonchalance he began to carry about
somewhat aimlessly any little bits of stick or broken pieces
of alga he could find, as though he thus intended to
proclaim that now he was master of that tank, he was
going to settle down there and build his nest. He was,
however, evidently too perturbed in his mind, to do any
serious work, for he continually left off to go and give the
other fellow an additional bit of a drubbing ; so that at five
o'clock I took pity on the dejected little fish, and removed
him to another tank.
All next day the little victor, who had begun to put on
his nuptial attire of blue and red and creamy white, was
busily occupied in building his nest. The floor of his
tank was of fine gravel, and I had introduced a number
of pieces of horsehair, one or two inches long, which I
Q
226 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
thought he might find useful. He began by digging a
hole in the gravel, removing the little stones and sand in
his mouth, and carrying them away to some little distance.
Then he brought hair after hair, and poked them into the
shallow hole he had dug, sometimes adding a little stone,
and often rubbing his side over the part of his work
that was so far complete. When the lower part of the
nest was finished, he began to roof it in, bringing hair
after hair with indefatigable industry, and rubbing his gay
sides over it with evident gusto. And as it drew near to
completion, he occasionally dived through it, remaining
inside it some little time, and wriggling about, with his
dainty little tail sticking out at one end, and his saucy
little head, with its bright sapphire eye, appearing in the
most engaging fashion above the gravel at the other end.
Finally he fetched in his mouth a considerable quantity of
fine gravel, with which he covered up the roof of his little
nest, so that its position could only be recognized by the
larger opening at one end, the opening of the back-door
being either closed, or, at all events, inconspicuous.
The nest being complete, and my little friend returning
to it again and again presumably to put a few finishing
touches, and to assure himself that it was all right, it
struck me that the occasion was a good one for ascertain-
ing how far the Thornie, has a well-developed or ill-
developed bump of locality. I therefore during his
absence from the nest turned the tank, a round one,
through about a right angle. The result was that my
little friend went repeatedly to the usual place as indicated
by the way the light fell that is to the side of the tank
nearest the window, and not to its true place as indicated
by the relative position of the water-weeds, which had of
course undergone no change. Not finding his nest, he
appeared somewhat confused (I speak anthropomorphi-
xvi. THORNIES AND TINKERS. 227
ccilly) ; and eventually it was only, so it seemed, by chance
that he came upon the nest. To my surprise he then,
instead of rejoicing over the discovery, fell upon it and
tore it to pieces, with almost violent energy, and was not
satisfied until not a hair remained. It was as if he fancied
that he had stumbled upon a bit of some other fellow's
handiwork, and determined at once to demolish it without
asking or expecting permission. I do not say that it was
so ; but that is a human interpretation of his conduct. In
any case, he forthwith set to work and constructed a fresh
nest in quite a new place.
He was by this time in glorious colour, bright red all
over the gills and along the ventral region, light creamy
pink or blue on the back, his eye a very sapphire for
brightness and purity of blue. Yet would not his mates
be coaxed to the nest. Dress as he might, and air his
finery as he would, they remained obdurate, insensate,
and unmoved. Then would he show his not unnatural
pique and annoyance by running at them from a distance
and giving them most ungallant digs in the ribs. This
is, however, it should be stated in extenuation of his
conduct, a recognized part of the mysteries of stickleback
courtship. I therefore removed the females, placing them
in a tank close by, so that the little gentleman could
show off his bright attire in one tank, while the ladies
gazed at him admiringly from the other, without danger
of being pestered by his too urgent attentions.
After a while one of the females put on her wedding
finery, her sides becoming marked with bands of deeper
brown; and as she seemed anxious to join the merry
little monarch of the other tank, I transferred her thither.
He at once became much excited, and looked, if possible,
rosier and bluer-eyed than ever. He soon dashed off to
the nest to see that all was there in readiness, and passed
<t 2
228 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
through it, remaining inside half a minute or so. After
having thus prepared his nest for her reception, he re-
turned to the female, and swam slowly round and round
her, frequently passing in front of her. The gay rogue !
He knew she could not resist those rosy cheeks and that
bright-blue eye. Nevertheless he felt it his duty to dig
her several times in the ribs, and was clearly somewhat
annoyed that she delayed so long to come to his nest.
Unfortunately I was then called away from my room, so
that I did not on this occasion see her pass through the
nest and lay her eggs there. After she has spawned, the
female is often weakly for some time, and will die unless
carefully and frequently fed.
And here I may record a somewhat curious observation.
On one occasion I placed a large but somewhat sickly
female in the tank in which a bright little male but one
rather too much given to the rougher mode of courtship
had made his nest. The good lady ha.d for a couple of
days or so completely lost her appetite. Uncertain, there--
fore, whether this was her mortal illness or merely an
indisposition preparatory to spawning, I ventured to intro-
duce her to the little rosy-gilled Thornie who had prepared
for his future wife so snug a nest. Soon after this, I left
my room for the evening.
When I returned next morning I found, to my surprise,
that the male was quite sober-hued ; that he had indeed
lost all the bright metallic colour of the night before.
Looking into the tank I saw the female over the nest.
She was quite motionless. Her eye was white. I saw
that she was dead. Carefully removing her body, I gave
it decent burial in spirits. In ten minutes the male had
torn the nest to pieces. Towards afternoon he began to
build a fresh nest in a new place, and showed some signs
of returning colour. Next morning he had nearly, but
xvi. THORNIES AND TINKERS. 229
not quite, regained his full brilliance. I leave my readers
to put what anthropomorphic interpretation they like upon
these facts, which I prefer, without comment, simply to
relate as they occurred.
.Let me here describe one of my little friends. It is a
small, gracefully-lined fish. Two large moveable spines
occupy the mid-region of the back, and behind them is a
third, smaller spine, immediately followed by the posterior
dorsal fin which occupies the hinder part of the back.
Corresponding to this fin there is, on the under side but
beginning somewhat further back, the anal fin. The belly
is armed with a large bony plate, which gradually narrows
to a point directed backwards. From this bony stomacher
the genus derives its name Gasterosteus. On either side of
this ventral shield is the long, sharp, serrated spine which
constitutes so formidable a weapon of offence, enabling the
little fish to inflict a terrible wound on an antagonist. It
forms one of the two rays on which the very small mem-
brane of the ventral fin is spread, and can be either
projected at right angles to the body or folded up close to
the belly. The pectoral fins are in a line with or a little
in front of the first dorsal spine. The skin is not provided
with scales ; but with a magnifying glass it is seen to be
dotted over with minute pigment spots. If a small piece
of the skin be shaved off (from a recently killed or pre-
served specimen) and examined under the microscope, the
spots are seen to be irregularly star-shaped. These irregular
black or coloured stars, set in a background of closely
woven intersecting fibres, form an object of no little beauty.
While we are shaving off the piece of skin for microscopic
examination we may notice that the mid-segment of the
body is completely ensheathed in bony scutes, composed of
dorsal plates above, the belly shield below, and lateral
plates at the sides. Thus it is interesting to find that the
230 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Thornie is as well provided with defensive armour as it is
with offensive spears. A female which lies before me is
2f inches long and | of an inch in maximum depth, with
ventral spines J of an inch in length. But specimens have
been found 3J inches in length. The males are some-
what smaller.
The Thornie's first cousin, the ten-spine or Tinker,
differs from him considerably in external appearance. The
male in full colour is a deep velvety black. It is also a
smaller fish, a narrower and more slender. I have no spirit-
specimens at hand, and I do not care to put one of my
little friends to the inconvenience of being half-drowned
(in air) for the purpose of scientific measurement. I should
say the average length is from 1 J to If inches, the depth
being J of an inch. They too are armed with ventral
spines, while on the back there are ten, or more frequently
nine, closely-set spines. On minute inspection they may
be seen to be set in two rows, neither of which is quite in
the mid-line of the back. There are thus five on one side,
and four on the other. The appearance is as if the first,
third, fifth, seventh and ninth, had been pulled over just a
little to one side, while the intermediate spines had been
pulled over just a little to the other side.
The nest -building habits of this species differ consider-
ably from those of his three-spined cousin. For whereas
the three-spined invariably (I believe) builds on the ground,
the ten-spined as invariably (I believe) builds in the water-
weeds. He despises the adventitious aid of horse-hair,
and seems to prefer the fine threads of green alga?. The
nests my little friends have built have usually been about
as big round as the girth of a florin, and have a not quite
horizontal passage through them. The courting male is not
so rude as to dig his mate in the ribs with his nose ; such
a mode of courtship would ill accord with his aristocratic
TTTORNIES AND TINKERS.
231
suit of velvet black. In order to lure his lady to the nest,
he darts backwards and forwards with a short jerky motion,
not travelling more than twice or thrice his own length in
either direction. The more sober-suited dame then follows
him, looking up at him from beneath, and answering to his
movements by turning this way and that, as he frisks to
THE TINKER'S NEST.
and fro the bright little velvet-clad court page. This
sometimes continues for a considerable time before he
ventures to lead her to his nest. Gradually, however, he
gets nearer and nearer, until at last he induces her to
enter. Oh, the pride of that moment ! As long as she
remains inside, he hovers over her, fanning excitedly with
his fins. But alas ! she is not always willing ; and often
when she has poked her head and shoulders inside, she
232 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
either deems it scarcely suited to her estate, or coquettishly
refuses to complete his happiness by laying therein her
eggs. Then is he wont to show himself an irascible little
fish, and chases her to the furthest corner of the tank.
With the Thornie's other cousin, the marine fifteen-
spine stickleback, I cannot claim to be on intimate terms.
It is so long and thin as almost to deserve its trivial name
of sea-adder. Its small rnouth lies at the end of an elon-
gated snout ; and the colouring varies from reddish brown
to dark green. Like the Thornies, it is a nest-builder,
using for this purpose seaweed or coralline, which it binds
together with elastic silk-like threads. How these silken
threads are produced has long been a matter of uncertainty.
But quite recently Professor Mobius has shown that they
are secreted by the kidneys as a mucous material, which
hardens by exposure to the water.
But it is high time to return to my rosy-cheeked, blue-
eyed little Thornie whom we left awhile ago, and in whose
nest had been deposited a number of small yellow eggs.
Most carefully did he watch over the nest, continually
returning to it, and fanning with his pectoral fins a current
of water over the developing ova that these might not
perish for lack of vitalizing oxygen. In about three weeks
or somewhat longer he was rewarded for his assiduous care
and attention by becoming the proud father of a healthy
brood of minute transparent fishes. When I first noticed
them darting here and there about the tank, they must
have been hatched two or three days. The father did not
as a rule, seem to take very much notice of them. But
when I placed their mother in the tank, she at once showed
her maternal fondness by swallowing as many as she could
catch. The male, however, soon put a stop to this by
chasing her up to the surface ; nor would he allow her to
descend to the lower stratum of water in which the little
xvi. TffORNIES AND TINKERS. 233
fish disported themselves. In fact so much did he drive
and harass her, that I removed her out of the way of her
tempting progeny, and of a morose husband who would
not let her enjoy the children she had brought into the
world. After that he did not take much notice of his
little flock ; and I have never seen him bring back tenderly
in his mouth those that had strayed too far from home
a fact that is, however, vouched for by more than one
observer.
I have before me some of these minute Thornies, martyrs
to science, mounted in Canada balsam. I will choose one
about ten days old for description. Under low powers of
the microscope, and especially by reflected light with a
good binocular, the young stickleback is a very beautiful
object. The head is short and blunt, and the eye rela-
tively enormous, a central black spot, the pupil, being
surrounded by a ring of iridescent blue. A little behind
the eye may be seen two circular spots, delicately lined
with fine radial striations, where the bones of the gill-cover
are beginning to ossify. Further back is seen a large
hollow clear space within the body ; this is the swim-
bladder. The alimentary canal can be easily traced ; and
there is evidence in the individual before me of a recent
hearty meal of water-fleas. The dorsal and anal fins are
represented by a clear, straight fringe above and below the
body, in which, in stained specimens, the commencing fin-
rays have taken the colour a little more decidedly than
the rest.
But the most remarkable feature about this little'
Thornie is his tail, which, instead of resembling that of
his father and mother, looks more like that of a dog-fish.
In the full-grown stickleback the tail is symmetrical, like
that of a herring or cod-fish. But in the Thornie a few
days old it is not at all symmetrical. The upper portion
234 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xvi.
appears to be a direct continuation of the body, and has a
stout rod of gristle, continuous with the backbone, run-
ning along its upper margin. From this upper portion
there hangs the lower lobe of the tail, like a rounded cur-
tain, being supported on delicate fin-rays which fan out
from two plates near the base of the rod of gristle. The
tail is, in fact, as unsymmetrical as that of a little dog-fish.
And this is a most interesting fact. For the dog-fish is in
this matter on a lower level of fish-life than the stickle-
back, just as the tailed newt is on a lower level of
amphibian life than the tailless frog. And just as the
frog in its juvenile tadpole condition passes through a
tailed newt-like stage, so does the little stickleback pass
through a stage in which it so far resembles the less
differentiated dog-fish. Both are illustrations of the
biological law or fact, that individual development is a
more or less condensed epitome of race-development.
As the little stickleback increases in size its tail becomes
more and more symmetrical in shape, and the fish takes
on more completely the form of its parents. The lillipu-
tian Thornie that now has the sole possession of one of my
tanks, and is, as I write, engaged in darting after and
devouring with avidity minute water-fleas, is some of
an inch long, having attained that size in about two
months. His sides are silvery white, with dark vertical
bands. He is the sole-survivor of the brood which my
rosy-gilled Thornie, now quite sedate and sober-hucd, for
the courting season is over, hatched out in his horse-hair
nest.
CHAPTER XVII.
EELS AND ELVERS.
" The cockney put the eels i' the pasty alive." SHAKESPEARE.
IN many of the little streams which are tributary to our
mud-bordered rivers, there may be seen in the spring and
summer months (but especially when the tender green of
the fresh young leaves gladdens the eye, and the blue-bells
and the cowslips tell us that Nature is awakening out of
her winter sleep, when the swallows are wheeling and the
swifts shrilling in the air, when the bats are flitting in the
gloaming and the night jar churrs from the pine-tree
bough), great numbers of wriggling worm-like eels. All
are pursuing a steady course up-stream. Nothing seems
to stop them. A short time ago, by the side of a mill-
sluice on the Trym, a tributary of the Bristol Avon, I saw
some thousands of these little eels elvers they are called
by the country folk wriggling and squirming up a dark-
green vertical wall, not less than four feet high, over which
the water by the side of the sluice was gently trickling.
The dark green of the lowly vegetation on the vertical
surface of the wall was almost hidden by the grey-brown
mass of diminutive fishes, in the midst of which would
flash out here and there the lighter grey of the under-
surface of some unusually energetic elver. With one
236 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAI>.
sweep of my small collecting net I secured some hundreds
of these little eels, some of which are now darting to and
fro in the patch of sunshine which illumines one side of
my aquarium tank. Every now and then one comes to
the surface and endeavours to climb the slippery sides of
the glass bowl ; no sooner, however, is his tail raised above
the water than he slips back again and resumes his rest-
less swimming to and fro. Others are lying among the
algae at the bottom of the tank with their heads slightly
raised, gulping in the sweet, fresh water which is richly
oxygenated by the gas-beads which dot the aquatic plants
under the influence of the life-giving sunlight.
Let us remove one of these semi-transparent fishlets and
examine him. One now lies before me in the lid of a
Fry's cocoa tin. He is just three inches long and no
stouter than a steel knitting needle. He could comfort-
ably squeeze through the large of this type. His head
is somewhat, but not very decidedly, pointed, and his jaws
are distinctly underhung. The black, bead-like eyes are
strongly marked, and behind them the outline of the
brain very fairly developed for a juvenile fish of his
inches can be traced within the skull. Between the
back of the skull and the delicate pectoral fins the body
is somewhat swollen, and pulsates with a fairly regular
beat ; and through the transparent walls of the pulsating
chambers on either side may be seen four red curved bars,
which move in and out with the pulsations, separating as
they move out and closing together as they are drawn in.
They are the gill-arches which bear the breathing appa-
ratus or gills, red with the life-blood which is here being
oxygenated and purified. Like all the ordinary fishes, the
eel breathes the oxygen dissolved in the water, which is
taken in at the mouth, passes through the slits between
the gill-arches, and so over the gills in which the blood is
xvn. EELX AND ELVEJtS. 237
coursing. Thus it passes into the pulsating chambers and
so out by small orifices at the back of the chambers, and
just below and in front of the pectoral fins. Most fishes
have two pairs of fins, the pectoral and the pelvic ; but
our little elver, like all the eels, has only one pair, the
pectoral, which are rounded, beautifully delicate and
transparent, and supported by thin, soft rays. These fins
are not, however, by any means the main organs of pro-
pulsion, progress through the water being mainly effected
by the waving, sinuous motion of the whole body, which is
flattened more and more as you approach the tail-tip.
A little more than half an inch behind the head the back
begins to be fringed with a delicate, soft-rayed, median
fin, which, passing round the tail to the under-surface,
runs along that surface to a point about half an inch
further back than it started in the dorsal line.
Those who are wont to regard eels only as " nasty slimy
things " (when they have their skins on), or as exceeding
good eating (when stewed for supper), will hardly believe
that the motions of the eel in swimming are full of grace
and beauty. As they swim backwards and forwards in
my tank, in the patch of sunlight that seemed to quicken
them to renewed life and activity, I cannot but admire
again and again the consummate ease with which they
dart hither and thither, and especially the readiness with
which they turn in the shortest possible space, the head
being well on its way in a new direction before the tail
has deviated at all from the old. There are, however alas,
that it should be so ! some people so dead to the higher
cultus of Nature, that even the sinuous curves of the elver
as it cleaves the water awakens no feeling for the pas-
sionate poetry of motion. Such an one stood by my side
not an hour ago. He enquired, in hard, unmoved tones,
" What new worms I had there ? " And when I drew his
238 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
attention to their graceful movements, he replied, with
scarcely concealed indifference, " Oh, yes ! they do seem
to wriggle a lot." So closely allied is thought and its
expression, that the unpoetic nature spoke words which
jarred on the ear with a flippant tone of vulgarity.
Meanwhile the elver I have been describing has found
the lid of a cocoa-tin too limited a sphere for his
ambition. That brain of his, which one can see outlined
through the skull, bespeaks a nervous, restless energy, not
to be restricted within such narrow limits. Again and
again he wriggles his lithe body (even the most poetic
soul must descend sometimes to the language of mere prose)
over the edge of the tin. But he always keeps half an
inch of his tail still immersed, and finding the smooth
surface of my dissecting table too unpromising a substance
for even an ambitious elver, returns to the limited, but still
fluid, medium within the tin, and endeavours to bore his
way through its unyielding substance by ramming his
nose into the tail of the Y in Mr. Fry's name embossed on
the lid.
I must put him to a little more discomfort before I
return him to the tank, where he will dive amid the
greenery and hide awhile before he joins his comrades in
their evolutions in the patch of sunlight.
Emptying away nearly all the water, leaving only enough
to keep the bottom of the tin moist, I have an opportunity
of watching his mode of progression over a solid surface.
He throws his body into a sharp S-like curve, and then,
keeping the hinder end of the S motionless, straightens
out the head end, bringing up the tail after it with a little
jerk. Placed now on a piece of wet blotting-paper, one
sees that the head and tail ends are successively lifted
from the surface, and progression is effected by a series of
looping movements. We will not keep him long, however,
xvn. EELS AND ELVERS. 239
on so unpromising a substance, but place him for a minute
or two in a glass tube, that we may examine him with a
magnifying glass. Just behind the gill-chambers and, the
pectoral fins, the dark red heart may now be seen, beating
regularly and uniformly. This consists of two chambers,
the ventricle in front, and the auricle behind ; and it is
quite easy to see that the auricle, which is the receiver of
blood coming from the various parts of the body, beats a
little in advance of the ventricle, which is the force-pump
driving blood through the arteries to supply the various
organs with nutrient fluid. And as the ventricle contracts
it becomes pale, from the fact that the blood is all driven
out of it. One can trace, with a little care, the artery
which carries this blood forward to the 'base of the gill-
arches. It thus passes into the gills, where it is oxygenated
and purified, and collecting into vessels above them is
carried, some of it forward to the head, some of it backward
beneath the back-bone to supply the body.
Those who know something of their own hearts (I mean
from the anatomical point of view) may be surprised that
the elver should have only one auricle (or receiver) and one
ventricle (or force-pump) ; for the heart of man has two of
each. But we must remember that man's double heart
(again I speak anatomically ; it is the same with the guile-
less monkey) is closely associated with the possession of
lungs, the right ventricle forcing the blood into these
organs, the left auricle receiving the pure rich blood which
returns from them, handing it on to the left ventricle,
which forces it throughout the body to be re-collected in
the right auricle before proceeding again to the lungs. In
the fish there are no lungs, and the double-heart system is
wanting.
Behind the pulsating heart lies the pinkish liver. But
no doubt by this time the delicate reader thinks that I
240 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
have pried deeply enough into the inwards of this little
fish. There are disadvantages in too great transparency,
whether of mind or of body, in men and eels. But before
I return my little elver to comparative freedom in the
aquarium tank, I must just for one moment place his
transparent tail under the higher power of the compound
microscope. He does not approve of this treatment, and
struggles to be free. But there he is ; and we can take a
rapid glance while he is still. We see embedded in the
skin the star-shaped blackish pigment spots spreading
widely beneath the surface, and combining with the sur-
rounding white to give the grey tint to the elver. Deeper
down we see clearly marked out the vertebrae of the tail,
and above them the spinal marrow. We see, too, the
delicate soft rays which run out in and support the fringing
tail-fin. But what is that which makes the whole seem
a-dance with life ? It is the blood that is being pumped
through the tiny vessels by the heart, which we saw pul-
sating behind the gills. Beneath the end of the backbone
we see two vessels. In one the blood is running down-
wards towards the tail, and breaks up into little vessels
proceeding outwards in the fin parallel to its supporting
rays. In the other the blood is moving forwards on its
way back to the heart. It is supplied by little vessels also
running parallel to the rays in the fin ; and if we watch
carefully near the edge of the fin, we can see the blood-
discs hurried round from the outward-going to the inward-
coming vessels.
Under the influence of our treatment our poor little fish
has gone quite pale ; and the microscope shows that the
pigment stars are much more contracted, less spread out
than they were, so that the skin has a more dotted appear-
ance. We must not longer try his patience, his temper,
and his constitution. He has gulped a great globule of
xvii. EELS AND ELVERS. 241
air into each of his gill-chambers. Back to your native
element, my little friend ! He wriggles with a splash into
the water, dives to the bottom among the weeds, yawns
largely, and ejects the air from the gill-chambers, and,
panting, breathes with avidity the sweet fresh water. In
half an hour he will have recovered his tone and his colour,
and will be sporting with his fellows in the sunlit patch.
Let us return now to the streamlet from which I obtained
my little fish. Whence come these myriad elvers and
whither do they go ? There has been much uncertainty
with regard to the mode of propagation of eels. Of old
they were believed to arise by spontaneous generation in
the mud. And there can be little doubt that from the
mud they come. Mr. R. C. Couch in 1847 took a quantity
of rnud from a spot much frequented by eels, and after
carefully examining it was at last gratified by observing
the eels, small and transparent, lying on the surface almost
motionless. They rapidly grew, and in ten days acquired
strength and size to swim about. From the mud they
come ; but of the mud they are not formed. How and
when the mother eel deposits her spawn we do not certainly
know ; but we may rest satisfied that she does there deposit
the life germs which, when duly fertilized, shall swarm up
the streamlets as the myriad elvers.
These little fishes seem always to carry on their upward
migrations by day, and, as I have said, in countless numbers.
They are, I am told, in Bristol taken out in sieves, fried and
sold for a few pence the pound ; forming a very nutritious
and appetizing dish for those who have no Egyptian or
Scottish antipathy to eels as food. Their power of surmount-
ing obstacles to their onward progress is extraordinary. Mr.
Jesse says that in the neighbourhood of Bristol but where
I know not there is or was a large pond, immediately
adjoining which was a stream. On the bank between these
R
242 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
two waters grew a large tree, the branches of which dipped
beneath the surface of the pond. By means of these
branches the elvers were wont to climb up into the tree,
and from thence let themselves drop into the stream
below. I would gladly ascertain the whereabouts of that
tree, and walk a dozen miles to see the sight. For from
the feats which I have myself seen the elvers perform, I do
not doubt this story, which Mr. Jesse had from a personal
friend who saw the tree " quite alive with those little
animals."
The migration of these little elvers up stream is an
admirable instance of an instinctive impulse. At the mill-
sluice on the Trym before mentioned, when the water has
been coming down in quantity, I have seen the little
things squirming up the wall by the side of the fall where
the water merely trickled over the lowly greenery. When
they got near the top near the sluice-opening, some of
them tried now and again to make a dash upwards against
the force of the water. At once they were swept away
into the pool below the fall. Not one in a thousand was
successful. I placed one or two above the fall, and though
the stream was rapid, when once they managed to wriggle
into the weed, they were safe. A few elvers in the upper
stream above the fall showed that some were successful in
passing the barrier of the waterfall, perhaps when less
water was coming over. They, too, were busy making
their way up stream. Always on and up.
And yet, when one comes to think of it, what can they
know of whither their instinctive impulse is leading them ?
Hatched in the mud, never knowing a mother, so soon as
they have strength to swim away they start they know not
why or whither. The rush of the stream against their
noses is sufficient to call into play the upward and onward
impulse. No matter what barriers are met with, up they
EELS AND ELVERS 243
must go, unknowing but uncomplaining, in obedience to a
prompting which we in our ignorance call blind.
Similarly the wingless progeny of the South African
locust-swarms have no sooner obtained some strength of
leg than away they start " voet gangers," they are called
by the Boers northwards, always northwards, back to the
interior whence their progenitors came. "Nothing," says
Mrs. Barber, " will stay their progress northward. Mountain
ranges, forests, rivers may intercept ; all these difficulties
will the 'foot travellers' surmount in their impulse to
journey northwards." These cases of migratory instinct are
in some respects even more remarkable than the migrations
of birds, for there is no individual among them who
has ever migrated before, and no possibility of parental
instruction.
The elvers migrate up stream until they reach a pool or
pond or other congenial spot ; and this they make their
home. Some remain in the fresh water all their lives,
and these, it would seem, lay no eggs, and have no progeny.
But in the autumn some return to the brackish water of
the estuaries, and probably lay their eggs in the mud.
But nothing, or next to nothing, is known of the egg and
early development of the eel. It is curious that the down-
ward autumn migration of the larger eels seems always to
take place by night. The darker the night the better ;
moonlight checks them in their course ; but a murky air
and overcast sky tempt them onward and downward.
Then are the Thames eel-traps brought into play ; then do
the millers catch the eels by the hundredweight on iron
gratings below their sluices, such as I saw the other day
on the Hampshire Avon near Ringwood ; and then is there
rejoicing in the London eating-houses.
My acquaintance with elvers is of comparatively recent
date. But I have known the older eels for many a long
R 2
244 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAT-.
day. What boy has not set night-lines for this slimy fish,
and breathlessly visited them in the early morning ? Who
has not been angling contentedly on the bottom and seen
his float slowly sucked under by an eel ? And if the eel
be lively and playful they are mostly given that way
what a scene of confusion follows 1 That which was a line
and a float and a fish, has become a writhing knot near the
tip of the rod, covered with slime, hopelessly entangled, a
bit of the float projecting awkwardly from the midst, and
the eel, still bent upon mischief, untying himself a little
only to make the knot more complex and more hopelessly
inextricable. For downright malignity of purpose the eel
is unsurpassable.
One of my earliest anatomical and physiological obser-
vations had an eel for its subject. My parents were
staying for the summer holiday at Milford in Hampshire.
A little stream ran through the meadow near the cottage ;
and therein were eels, and roach, and flounders, and many
other things alive and swimming to delight my boyish
heart. My bath was converted into an aquarium in which
the strangest creatures lived, and, I fear, not unfrequently
died. I have subsequently been informed that my room
was in a chronic state of unutterable messiness. I had
forgotten this fact ; but I remember that I was supremely
happy. One evening I brought in three or four small
eels, and one of unusual size. My bath was full, I pre-
sume ; for these were destined to be eaten. I watched
the cook prepare them for the pot. She cut off their
heads, which gaped with muscular action. It was then
that I tried my physiological experiment. When the big
head was gaping its widest, I placed within its jaws that
of one of the smaller eels. It was swallowed, and mirabile
dictu, emerged from the neck ! From that moment I had
no misgivings about Baron Munchausen's horse, whose
XVII.
EELS AND ELVERS. 245
thirst was insatiable because the hind -quarters had been
cut off by the fall of the portcullis gates.
A more serious, but not more impressive piece of anato-
mical investigation, undertaken at a later date, was the
endeavour, not wholly unsuccessful, to verify for myself
the presence of an accessory heart near the tail of an eel.
This organ, which was described by Marshall Hall, and is
figured by Sir Richard Owen, is in connection with one of
the great veins near its point of origin in the tail. It
beats very rapidly and propels the blood onward towards
the heart, with which it has no further connection than
that it is a subsidiary organ of propulsion. I was not able
at that time to make out its connections with the neigh-
bouring vessels ; and have not examined one since.
The eel of which I have been speaking the sharp -
nosed eel must not be confounded with the conger eel
that is found in the sea around our coasts. For though
the former is found in the estuarine mud-flats bordering
the sea, where the creatures sometimes huddle together
in great numbers, being very sensitive to cold, and thus
fall a prey to the fisherman's spear, or are sometimes dug
out in a helpless torpid mass, it is not a thoroughly marine
fish like the conger. I well remember fishing for conger
one dark night about three miles off Lulworth, on the
coast of Dorsetshire. We could see our lines glowing with
phosphorescent light for some feet from the surface, as the
tide flowed past them. No congers came to our bait, and
I, growing tired of waiting, contented myself with angling
for the less ambitious whiting-pout. I had pulled up
several of these, when my brother complained that his line
was fast to the bottom. " No it isn't ! " he suddenly cried,
" or if it is, the bottom is moving slowly off toward Port-
land." It was a fine conger ; and I shall never forget the
sight of his ugly head as he came up out of the water.
246 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xvn.
Our dear old sailor friend, William Williams, was not a
little excited, and belaboured the great beast soundly, so
soon as we had got him into the boat. He called him
" Joey," for what reason I know not ; and jerked out
between the hearty thwacks, " I guess you're out of your
latitude now, Joey," " I'll give you a headache, Joey," and
other such remarks.
Satisfied with our sport, we pulled back across the
dancing waves to the pretty little rock-girt cove of
Lulworth. And as we plied the oars, Williams related a
legend of conger-fishing at Weymouth. Two young
fellows went out in a boat, on fishing keenly intent.
They remained out longer than they had proposed ; and
the coastguardsmen, looking out through their telescope,
saw the boat bobbing up and down, but to all appear-
ances empty. After a while, thinking that something was
amiss, they pulled out across the bay. And when they
reached the spot they found the two young fellows in the
water, hanging over the stern, and a forty-pound conger
in possession of the boat. The great eel had wriggled and
snapped and made himself so uncommonly unpleasant, that
the youths had jumped overboard and left him in posses-
sion. During the recital of this legend Williams gave our
conger an occasional dig or thwack, lest he too should
turn restive and endeavour to evict us also from the boat.
And certainly a large conger is a formidable fellow.
They are said to reach a length of ten feet and a weight
of over a hundred pounds. The wide mouth has several
rows of pointed close-set teeth, which form a cruel and
powerful dental apparatus. The bite is much dreaded by
sailors ; when the jaws once close they are not ready to
leave go, and the rapid rotary motion which the eel gives
to its body causes a lacerated and even a dangerous wound.
The openings of the gill-chambers are relatively larger
CHAP. xvn. EELS AND ELVERS. 249
than in the sharp-nosed eel ; and the skin is quite devoid
of scales, whereas the fully-grown freshwater eel has small
and rudimentary scales deeply embedded in the tough skin.
The poorer folk in England eat the flesh of the conger,
making it into soup, or drying and salting it for use when
other fish are scarce. But in Scotland this eel and its
smaller cousin are regarded as an abomination, and are
seemingly never used for food.
Popularly associated with the eels, but in reality be-
longing to a very different group of fishes, are the lampreys,
a favourite dish of Henry I., who is said to have fallen a
victim to his inordinate love of this somewhat indigestible
food. The corporation of the city of Gloucester, whether
to keep green the memory of this event or not I cannot
say, were wont, until about fifty years ago, to present
every year to the reigning sovereign a pie of lampreys.
King John is said to have sent a single fish as a present
to the Earl of Chester, and to have received a good palfrey
in. return.
The body of the lamprey is elongated and eel-like ; but
a very little examination shows that this fish is not a true
eel. There are no paired fins at all. In place of the gill-
slit there are seven small apertures behind the eye, each
of which opens into a separate gill-pouch. There is a
single nasal aperture in the mid-line. The mouth is very
peculiar, roundish, closing in from the sides, and furnished
with a kind of rim. Within the mouth are a number of
horny teeth, some of which are placed on a sort of tongue
which protrudes from the back of the buccal cavity. With
this mouth, which can be used as a sucker, the fish can
adhere so firmly to a rock or the bottom of a boat that in
some cases it is said to be impossible to pull them off by
the exercise of sheer strength. With this suctorial mouth
the lamprey adheres to such fishes as the salmon, mackerel,
250 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xvn.
cod, and haddock, and rasping away the flesh with the
horny teeth, feasts on the juices of its unwilling host.
The lamprey is the only fish which undergoes a sort of
metamorphosis, the young which is called a pride being
so different that it used to be regarded as a different genus.
The mouth has then no teeth ; but within it there are a
number of tentacles ; the eyes are but slightly developed,
and there are eight gill-openings. It is used by the
fishermen as a bait for pollack.
Closely allied to the lamprey is another eel-like fish,
which is known as the hag-fish or borer. Its habits are
very peculiar. It is able to pour out great quantities of
slime, for which reason it is regarded by the fishermen as
a great nuisance, since it damages their fisheries and
interferes with their trade. Mr. Couch states that a single
individual, which was placed in about three or four cubic
feet of water, poured out so enormous a quantity of slime,
that the whole could be lifted out with a stick in a single
sheet. But not only by its sliminess does it do harm to
the fisherman in his calling. Sometimes at Scarborough
a haddock may be drawn up on one of the long lines.
From the external view, that is to say, it is haddock,
but within it is all hag-fish. For these curious eel-like
creatures pass through the gills of recently dead or dying-
fishes, and devour the whole of the soft materials inside,
leaving nothing but bones and skin. They are the only
truly parasitic fishes that we know.
It must be remembered that these fishes, the lampreys
and the hags, eel-like as they are in form, have no true
affinities with our little friend the elver. They have no
true bones, and no true jaws, and no true limbs. From
their circular mouths they are called the cyclostome fishes,
and they form a distinct and zoologically exceedingly
interesting group.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HONEY BEE.
" Poor guilty drone before the bees." LOUD HOUGHTON.
FEOM a boy I have loved the bee with a love that even
the mild impertinences of Dr. Watts could not quench.
Scarce any sound in Nature is, to my ear, more soothing
than the " murmuring of innumerable bees," heard in an
hour of idleness beneath the fragrant limes. Scarce any
sight is more pleasant than the reiterated pilferings of my
choicest blossoms by these ever-welcome little pillagers.
Nor has my love been a sordid one. I have never been
a bee-keeper. I have never had occasion to rejoice over
a good take, nor suffered anxiety from foul brood. Not
that I despise the sweet product of the honey-bee's in-
dustry. But much as I have ever admired the products
of innate power or industrious application in man or bee,
articulate or inarticulate, I have always felt a keener
admiration an admiration touched with reverence for
the living and breathing producer. Thus my love for the
bee is a purely personal one. Of me, the untiring worker
can say, as of Lord Ronald, Lady Clare
" He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well."
252 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
It does not matter how you take a bee. She is full of
interest all over. In the head are eyes simple and com-
pound; feelers with great delicacy of touch and smell, and
a tongue, silent, indeed, which gallantry compels me to
regard as a defect, but otherwise well fitted for its special
task, to sip the sweets of life ; in the mid-region of the
body or thorax are four delicately veined and closely inter-
locking wings, and six legs adapted for progression on
surfaces rough or smooth, and as full of additional con-
trivances as is a schoolboy's pocket-knife ; in the abdomen
are wax organs, and that " centre of painful interest," the
sting. Nor are its habits less interesting than its structure.
Full of that concentrated unconscious wisdom which we
call instinct, she displays also, at times, mental powers of
a more plastic kind.
Some interesting experiments have recently been made
by Mr. Romanes to test the homing faculty of bees. The
house where he conducted his observations is situated
several hundred yards from the coast, with flower gardens
on each side and lawns between the house and the sea.
Bees, therefore, starting from the house, would find their
nectar on either side of it, while the lawns in front would
be rarely or never visited, being themselves barren of
honey-sweets and leading only to the sea. Such being the
geographical conditions, Mr. Romanes placed a hive in one
of the front rooms on the basement of the house, and made
suitable arrangements by which he could remove and
liberate at a distance a score or so of bees at a time and
observe how many returned to the hive. He found that
bees liberated at sea, on the sea-shore, or even on the lawns
in front of the house, failed to find their way home ; while
bees liberated in the gardens, amid the flowers they were
wont to frequent, returned to the hive within a few
moments of their liberation. From such observations
XTIIT. THE HOXEY BEE. 253
Mr. Romanes justly concludes that these bees were guided
by local signs by a special knowledge of the flower-
gardens and not by any general sense of direction,
instinctive and innate. It was long ago observed that the
queen-mother, ere she takes her wedding flight, makes a
short preliminary excursion, flying round, and seemingly
taking notes of the position of the hive and its surroundings.
The experience of American bee-finders confirms this.
Much has been written (and preached) upon the cell-
building instinct of bees, concerning which a curious cell-
myth has arisen. According to this myth, Maraldi is
said to have submitted the problem of cell-structure to
Kcenig, the mathematician, whose solution differed from
Maraldi's actual measurements by only the 30th part of a
degree. Not contented with an accuracy already exceed-
ing the possibilities of observation even with instrumental
appliances at that time undreamt of Maraldi begged the
mathematician to re-examine his calculations. The oblig-
ing Kcenig did so ; ami was thus enabled to correct a
printer's error in the mathematical table he had used.
His results and those obtained by actual measurements
were then, so runs the myth, in exact accord. Since
when, the bee has stood upon a pinnacle of perfection
fraught with danger. For human folk cannot permit per-
fection to go long unchallenged. No sooner is the eye of
man described as an optical apparatus without flaw, than
a Helmholtz comes forward to say that, were his instru-
ment-maker to provide him with no better work, he would
promptly return it for alteration and correction.
Recent measurements and observations have tended to
dissipate the cell-myth, and to show, not only that the
honey-comb is far from regular, but that such regularity
as it has is due to merely mechanical conditions. Mr.
Frank Cheshire tells us that careful measurements of the
254 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
finest pieces of comb, built with every advantage for
securing regularity, show that, so far from every cell being
geometrically accurate, it is difficult to find a hexagon
presenting errors of less than three or four degrees in its
angles. And Mr. Cowan in his admirable little volume on
The Honey Bee gives illustrations which bring the irregu-
larity home to the eye. In place of the notion that the
hexagonal cell-structure is due to a geometrical instinct,
there is nowadays a growing tendency to accept a modifi-
cation of Buffon's explanation of the origin of cell-structure.
Buffon attributed the regularity of the cells to mutual
pressure ; in illustration whereof he packed a closed vessel
with dried peas, and filled up the interstices with water.
The peas, which were thus caused to swell, assumed, under
the pressure which resulted, the form of more or less
accurate geometrical figures. Perhaps a still better illus-
tration of this principle of mutual interaction is seen in
soap-bubbles. If a little soapy water be placed in the
bottom of a tumbler and air be blown into the water
through a tube until the upper part of the glass is full of
bubbles, the hexagonal form which these bubbles assume
under mutual pressure, and the trilateral pyramids at
their bases, will be readily seen. Not that these geome-
trical figures are the same as those which the wax assumes,
but they illustrate the principle. For, at the temperature
of the hive, the wax, pared thin by the smooth-edged jaws
of the workers, has all the plasticity of a fluid membrane.
The bee has indeed to avoid the danger of paring away too
far, and thus making a hole through the wall. But even
here she may be aided by mechanical conditions. If we
take a thin piece of soap and pare away one face with the
blade of a pocket-knife, we shall soon form a transparent
patch where the soap is very thin. But if we continue to
pare, we do not cut through the soap at this point ; but
xviii. THE HONEY BEE. 255
for a time at least, we merely enlarge the area of the
transparent patch. The thin film of soap yields at this
point, and the stress of the blade falls on the thicker and
less-yielding edges. Some such mechanical yielding of the
wax may guide the bee in her work.
Do not suppose, kind reader, that I would hereby reduce
the whole function of cell-making to a matter of mere
blind mechanism. I have far too high an opinion of the
bee to cast such a slur on her intelligence. And the size
of the cells is in any case determined by no mere me-
chanical principles. Nor is the size invariable. For the
worker-brood, cells about one-fifth of an inch in diameter
with a considerable margin of -variation, are constructed ;
for the drones and for honey-storage, larger cells about
one-fourth of an inch in diameter are made ; where the
absence of mutual pressure prevents the establishment of
the hexagonal interference figure, rounded contours are
found ; between contiguous groups of these cells, transi-
tional cells of more or less irregular contour are inter-
polated ; while the royal cells for the future queen-mothers
are irregularly rounded in form and constructed with lavish
expenditure of costly wax.
For the wax of which these cells are made is a product
of the vital activity of the bee. It is no mere extraneous
substance which needs only to be collected for use ; it is
a bit of individual organic home-manufacture. If you
examine the under-surface of a cell-building worker, you
will find beneath the abdomen four pairs of white plates
projecting from as many pockets in the encasing rings of
this part of the body. These are the wax-plates, made
from the life-blood of the worker, who must be abundantly
supplied with honey or saccharine matter. Examine now
with a lens one of the hinder legs. You will find that
the stoutest joints are very square-shouldered at the hinge,
256 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
and that the hinge is well over to one side ; so that the
shoulders form a pair of jaws, which open when the limb
is bent, and close when it is straightened. The upper
jaw has a row of spines which bite on a plate on the
lower jaw. With this apparatus, piercing it with these
spines, the worker withdraws a wax-plate from its pocket,
transfers it to the front legs, and thence to the mouth,
where it is laboriously masticated with a salivary secre-
tion. Unless it undergoes this process, it lacks the duc-
tility requisite for cell-making.
Within the cells thus constructed of this costly material,
the queen-mother lays silvery eggs, from which will be
developed workers, drones, and queen-mothers, each in
their appropriate cells. And how comes it that, from eggs
apparently similar for each egg is a glistening bluish-
white oval embossed with delicately netted lines there
issue three different kinds of bee ? These three stand to
each other in the relation of males (drones), fertile females
(queen-mothers), and infertile females (workers). But
how comes it that the males are all developed in one set
of cells ; that the majority of eggs, those in the smaller
hexagonal cells, produce females that are infertile; and
that only the few, laid in royal cells, reach their full
sexual development ? It is well known that most of the
higher animals are developed from eggs in which a male
and a female element have entered into fertile union.
It is not so with drones. The queen-mother, after her
short marriage flight, carries with her, in a special storage
reservoir, that with which she can fertilize each egg as it
is laid. From eggs so fertilized female bees, perfect or
imperfect, are developed. But from eggs from which
drones are to spring, the queen-mother withholds the
fertilizing fluid. That drones are unfathered is one of
the strange results of modern zoological investigation.
THE HONEY BEE. 25?
The difference between queen-mothers, with fully de-
veloped egg-producing organs, and workers, in which the
egg-producing organs are present in an undeveloped
condition, would seem to be determined by diet. The
grubs which issue from the silvery eggs are fed by young
workers, hence termed nurses, with food elaborated in
their stomachs to which a glandular secretion is very
possibly added. This chyle-food elaborated by the young-
worker bees (the older workers giving up nursing and
taking to foraging), is termed royal-jelly, and resembles
in appearance water-arrowroot. Of the three forms of
bee-food, pollen, honey, and royal jelly, this is the richest
and the most concentrated. It seems to have a wonder-
fully stimulating effect on the reproductive organs. More
is supplied to drones than to workers ; most of all to the
queen-mother, who throughout life is provided with this
stimulating food by nurses who are ever ready to minister
to her wants. The worker larva is after three days, just
when the egg-producing organs are showing signs of de-
velopment, weaned, and is thenceforward fed with less
stimulating pap to which honey is added. The drone
larva is also weaned at about the same time, and is given
some pollen as well as the honey.
It is well known that the queen-bee can brook no rival,
and that when there are several royal nymphs in a hive
the first-born throws herself upon her unprotected sisters,
still sleeping their strange chrysalis sleep, and pierces
them with her sting. But what if the queen should
die, and the hive be thus left motherless ? The workers
then proceed to the cells in which are worker eggs newly
laid. They tear down the partition walls so as to throw
three cells into one. Two of the embryonic inhabitants
they sacrifice ; but the third, which must not have been
weaned, they feed right royally. And under the stimu-
s
258 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
lating effects of a liberal supply of royal-jelly she becomes
a queen-mother. Not only are her egg-producing organs
thus stimulated into full development, but this change is
accompanied by all those other differences which serve to
distinguish the queen-mother from her infertile but, in
most other respects, superior sister.
Thus the development of the worker and the queen-
mother is identical till the third day of larval existence
identical, that is to say, during the three days of egg-
development previous to the hatching of the grub, and
during the first three days of grub-life. Then, under the
influence of different nourishment, the " queen " and the
worker develop along different lines, the one to be the
fertile mother of thousands, the other to minister to the
queen-mother and her larval offspring. After about two
more days of larval life the little grubs cease feeding and
spin a cocoon of silk elaborated from glands in the mouth.
This process takes from one (queen-mother) to one and
a half days (worker), after which the larva remains
quiescent for one or two days before passing into the
chrysalis condition, from which the " queen " emerges
sooner than the worker ; the total period from the laying
of the egg to the emergence of the perfect bee extending
to fifteen days for the queen-mother, twenty-one days for
the worker, and twenty-four days for the drone.
Nothing in natural history is more wonderful than the
changes which are undergone by one of the higher insects
during the chrysalis sleep. When the bee-larva falls into
this momentous trance it is a white grub without legs or
feelers, with a dull grey head and two dark eye-spots.
Behind the head are a dozen rings or body-segments
differing but little from each other. In this condition
it is when it becomes a quiescent chrysalis. A few days
pass by during which its whole organic being is anew
xviii. THE HONEY BEE. 259
remodelled. And it steps forth a perfect bee, somewhat
pale and weak perhaps, but ready in twenty-four hours to
begin her work as a nurse. Wonderful, however, as are
these changes, different in almost every respect as is the
bee from the grub, we must remember that the trans-
formation involves no breach of vital continuity. The
series of events is part of a continuous development ; and
the insect grub no more dies that it may live again as a
butterfly or a bee, than a grain of corn perishes when it
is placed in the ground in preparation for the autumn
harvest.
It is during metamorphosis that the striking external
differences between the worker and the queen-mother
begin to disclose themselves. Some of us might be
tempted to suppose that the queen-mother is in every
respect as superior as the humble worker-bee, as the
worker is herself superior to the idle, ill-conditioned, good-
for-nothing, reprobate drone. This is, however, a mistake.
The brain of both queen-mother and drone is markedly
inferior in relative size to that of the worker. In powers
of flight, as judged by the relative areas of the wings, the
queen-mother is slightly inferior to the worker. For
though the wing-area of the worker is somewhat less (by
one-sixth) than that of her fertile sister, her body is
relatively smaller by a somewhat larger fraction. But in
this matter of flight it is the lazy drone that carries off
the palm, having a wing-area of nearly twice (once and
four-fifths) that of the worker. The tongue of the worker
is more highly developed than that of queen-mother or
drone. As we shall see directly, the sense-endowment of
the queen-mother is in many respects inferior to that of
the infertile female, while here again it is the drone that
is the most highly developed.
In the matter of sense-organs we are met by serious
s 2
260 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
difficulties of interpretation. As said the Danish naturalist,
Fabricius, nearly 100 years ago, " Nothing in natural his-
tory is more abstruse and difficult than an accurate de-
scription of the senses of animals." And this abstruseness
and difficulty is the more keenly felt in studying creatures
so widely different from ourselves as the bee. Such an
insect would seem at first sight to be about as susceptible
to the delicacies of touch as an ancient armour-sheathed
knight. Head, thorax, abdomen, limbs all are ensheathed
in chitinous l armour. The bee has his skeleton outside.
As an American gentleman once observed in my hearing,
the main difference between an insect and a vertebrate is
this : " One is composed of flesh and bone, the other is
composed of skin and squash." The question is, how can
delicate impressions of touch be transmitted through the
tough dense skin so as to affect the sensitive " squash "
within ? If you will examine one of the feelers of the bee,
you will see that the surface is richly supplied with hairs.
It is by means of such sense-hairs
that the bee experiences a sensation
of touch. Each touch-hair is hollow ;
and within it is a protoplasmic fila-
ment containing, it would seem,
the delicate terminal threadlet of a
nerve. But there may be two or
three modifications of the touch-
hairs.
That insects are possessed of a
sense of taste cannot be doubted.
Even if the caterpillars which refuse to eat all but
one or two special herbs, or the races of blood-suckers
which seem to have individual and special tastes, are
1 Chitin is the hard tough substance of which the external skeleton
of an insect is composed.
THE HONEY BEE. 261
guided by other senses, there is much evidence which
seems to admit of no alternative explanation. Moisten,
for example, the feeler of a cockroach with a solution of
Epsom salts and watch him suck it off; or repeat F. Will's
experiments on bees, tempting them with sugar, and then
perfidiously substituting pounded alum. The way these
little creatures splutter and spit suggests that, whatever
may be the psychological effect, the physiological effect
is analogous to that produced by an exceedingly nasty
taste. Lehmann, too, observed a fly begin to suck some
sugar that had been moistened with bitter decoction of
wormwood. Directly it tasted the medicine it politely
and discreetly withdrew to a contiguous vase and endea-
voured to reject the nauseous drug. On the proboscis of
the bee there are minute pits, each with a central papilla,
which have been regarded as organs of taste, while on the
soft palatal skin of the labrum or upper lip there are a
number of sensory pits or cups with small papillae, which
Dr. Wolff describes as organs of smell, but which, as
Sir John Lubbock thinks, are more likely to be organs
of taste.
Much has been written concerning the sense of smell in
insects. That they possess such a sense few will be dis-
posed to doubt. The classical observations of Huber seem
to show that bees are affected by the smell of honey, and
that the penetrating odour of fresh bee-poison will throw
a whole hive into a state of commotion. He was of
opinion that the impunity with which his assistant,
Francis Burnens, performed his various operations on
bees was due to the gentleness of all his movements, and
the habit of repressing his respiration, it being the odour
transmitted by the breath to which the bees objected.
Bevan mentions the case of M. de Hofer, who could
handle bees freely until struck down by fever, on his
262 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP,
recovery from which he was unable even to approach
them without exciting their anger. It is probable that
humble-bees seek their mates by the aid of smell.
The correct localization of the organ of smell has been
a matter of difficulty. Kirby and Spence localized it at
the extremity of the " nose/' between it and the upper
lip. That the nose, they naively remark, corresponds
with the so- named part in mammalia, both from its
situation and often from its form, must be evident to
every one who looks at an insect. Lehmann, Cuvier, and
others, misled by the fact that the organ of smell is in
us localized at the entrance of the air-track, supposed that
at or near the spiracles of insects were the organs of
smell. These spiracles constitute the breathing apertures
of insects, for the bee and the beetle and the butterfly,
and the caterpillars or grubs from which they develop, do
not breathe by the mouth but by openings in the sides of
the body. In the worker-bee there are two such spiracles
on each side of the mid-region of the body or thorax, and
and five on each side of the abdomen. The queen-mother
has the same number ; but the drone has an extra pair
on the abdomen. The spiracles form the external open-
ings of a system of tubes and cavities called the tracheal
system, by means of which the respiration of insects is
effected.
In all animals the life-giving oxygen must in some way
be brought to every cell and fibre of the organism. When
we breathe air into our lungs the oxygen it contains finds
its way into the myriads of little bags which form the
terminations of the branching air-tubes. Around these
bags the blood freely circulates. And in the blood there
are a number of red blood-discs, which are like minute
boats that can be laden with oxygen. Laden in this
way as they pass through the lungs, the blood-discs with
XVIIL THE HONEY BEE. 263
their freight of oxygen are carried by a great vein to the
heart and are thence pumped to all parts of the body, so
that every cell and fibre may have oxygen brought to it.
Thus by the blood-circulation the oxygen is distributed.
But in insects it is different. The blood-circulation (the
blood of the bee is quite colourless and has no such blood-
discs as are to be found in us) takes little or no part in
the distribution of oxygen. The tracheal tubes into which
the spiracles open, themselves ramify through all parts of
the " squash " and carry the oxygen directly to the tissues.
It is therefore of course extremely important that these
tubes should be kept open and prevented from collapsing ;
hence they are lined with a chitinous tube the walls of
which are spirally thickened. Between the spiral thicken-
ings the tube is very thin and delicate, and easily tears ;
so that if a tube is ruptured a little spiral thread projects
from the broken ends. It used to be thought that the
twirls of the spiral, the elements of its corkscrewity, were
naturally separate, like the iron wire which is placed in
indiarubber gas-tubing. But this has been shown to be a
mistake. It is a continuous tube with spiral thickenings.
As in all insects with well-developed powers of flight,
the air-tubes of the bee are in certain parts enlarged into
capacious air-sacs, a conspicuous pair of which occupy
much of the abdomen of the worker. These not only
form respiratory reservoirs, but enable the insect to alter
its specific gravity, as does the fish by means of its swim-
bladder. If you watch a tired bee when it alights after
prolonged flight you will see it panting. It is the abdo-
men, in which are the large air-sacs, that pulsates with
the rapid inspirations, the air entering and passing out
through the spiracles.
Now since in us the sense of smell is localized in the
nose at the entrance of the breathing system, it was not
264 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAI>.
unnatural to suppose that in insects the spiracles were
the seat of this sense. Modern research, however, tends
more and more clearly to localize the sense of smell, as
first suggested by Reaumur, in the feelers or antennae. If
the feelers of a cockroach be extirpated or coated with
paraffin, he no longer rushes to food, and takes little
notice of, and will sometimes even walk over, blotting-
paper saturated with turpentine or benzolene, which a
normal insect cannot approach without agitation. Carrion
flies whose antennae have been removed fail to discover
putrid flesh ; and E. Hasse has observed that male humble-
bees, whose antennae have been removed, cannot discover
the females. The sensory elements are cavities covered
over with a thin layer of chitin, which is marked with
oval thickenings. Within each cavity is a tapering nerve-
end cell. They are larger and further apart in the queen-
mother and the worker than in the drone, which is stated
to have nearly 20,000 such smell-hollows in each antenna ;
the male cockchafer having nearly twice as many !
The sense of smell is held by some observers to enable
ants and bees to recognize each other. Sir John Lub-
bock's experiments seem to establish the fact that the
recognition of ants is not personal and individual ; and
it occurred to Dr. McCook to test the olfactory hypo-
thesis by endeavouring to ascertain whether, in presence
of an overmastering scent, ants were unable to distinguish
friend from foe. Selecting for experiment some pavement-
ants who were engaged in a free fight, he introduced a
pellet of paper saturated with eau de Cologne. The effect
was instantaneous : the ants showed no sign of pain, dis-
pleasure, or intoxication, but in a very few seconds the
warriors had unclasped mandibles, relaxed their hold of
enemy's legs, antennae, and bodies, and, after a momentary
confusion, began to burrow galleries in the earth with the
xvin. THE HONEY BEE. 265
utmost harmony. On carpenter-ants eau de Cologne had
no pacific influence.
From smell we pass to hearing. We know more about
this sense in certain other insects than we do in the bee.
And here again observation points to the antenna as the
probable seat of the organ of hearing. To Kirby we owe
the following observation on a little moth : " I made," he
says, " a quiet, not loud, but distinct noise ; the antenna
nearest to me immediately moved towards me. I repeated
the noise at least a dozen times, and it was followed every
time by the same motion of that organ, till at length the
insect, being alarmed, became more agitated and violent
in its motions." Hicks wrote, in 1859, " Whoever has
observed a tranquilly proceeding Capricorn beetle which
is suddenly surprised by a loud sound, will have seen how
immovably outward it spreads its antennae, and holds
them porrect, as it were, with great attention, as long as
it listens." The same observer described certain highly
specialized organs in the antennae of the hymenoptera
(ants, bees, and wasps), which he thus describes : " They
consist," he says, " of a small pit leading into a delicate
tube, which, bending towards the base, dilates into an
elongated sac having its end inverted." Of these re-
markable organs, Sir John Lubbock says there are in the
ant about twelve in the terminal segment, and he has
suggested that they may serve as microscopic stetho-
scopes.
Mayer, experimenting with the feathered antenna of
the male mosquito, found that some of the hairs were
thrown into vigorous vibration when a note with 512
vibrations per second was sounded. And Sir John
Lubbock, who quotes this observation, adds, " It is
interesting that the hum of the female gnat corresponds
nearly to this note, and would consequently set the hairs
266 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
in vibration." The same writer continues, "Moreover,
those auditory hairs are most affected which are at right
angles to the direction from which the sound comes.
Hence, from the position of the antennae and the hairs, a
sound would act most intensely if it is directly in front of
the head. Suppose, then, a male gnat hears the hum of
a female at some distance. Perhaps the sound affects one
antenna more than the other. He turns his head until
the two antennae are equally affected, and is thus able to
direct his flight straight towards the female."
In other kinds of insects organs of hearing have been
found elsewhere than on the antennae, in
grasshoppers and ants on the front legs, in
locusts on the first segment of the abdomen,
in flies on the rudimentary hind wings or
'ty balancers, and so on.
In the bee itself Sir John Lubbock found
it difficult to awake any response to sounds.
LEG OF GRASS- It is scarcely probable, however, that bees
HOPPER. are deaf. Popular belief, at any rate, main-
membrane. C tains that they are not insensible to the
soft melody that may be evoked by a door-
key from a frying-pan; but here, as Sir John Lubbock
has suggested, the bees may hear acute overtones in-
audible to us. Mr. Cheshire is clear that bees can hear
such sounds as interest them, like the call of the queen-
mother. Dr. Hicks described in the antennae certain cups,
differing from the covered smell hollows, into each of
which projects a cone reduced at the apex to a fine hair-
like point. These he regarded as auditory.
When we turn from hearing to sight we find that the
difficulties take a new form, and concern, not the existence
nor the nature of the recipient organ, but its mode of
action. Sir John Lubbock has shown that bees are
xvm. THE HONEY BEE. 267
guided by a preference for certain colours ; while his
experiments on ants bring out the still more interesting
fact that these insects are sensitive to ultra-violet rays
quite invisible to us.
Any one who will take the trouble to examine with a
lens the head of a bee, will see on either side the large
rounded compound eye, and on the forehead or vertex
A. B.
EYES AND EYELETS OF BEE.
A Drone. B Worker.
three bright little simple eyes. The latter are, as their
name implies, comparatively simple in structure, each
with a single lens. But the compound eyes have a com-
plex structure. Externally the surface is seen to be
divided up into a great number of hexagonal areas, each
of which is called a facet, and forms a little lens. Of
these the worker has from 3,500 to 5,000, and the queen-
mother nearly as many, while in the drone they are larger
and yet more numerous. In the eye of the dragon-fly
there are 20 ; 000 of these facets. Between each facet
is a crystalline cone, a so-called nerve-rod, and other
structures, too complex to be here described, which pass
inwards towards the brain. The figure shows a section of
the eye of a fly with its facets and cones.
It will be seen then that the so-called compound eye
with its thousands of facets, its thousands of crystalline
cones, its tens of thousands of "retinulse" and other
elements, is a structure of no little complexity. The
268 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
question now arises, is it one structure or many ? Is it
an eye, or an aggregate of eyes ?
To this question the older naturalists answered con-
fidently an aggregate. And a simple experiment seems
to warrant this conclusion. Puget, quoted in Gold-
smith's Animated Nature, adapted the facets of the eye
of an insect cleaning away the soft parts behind the
EYE OF FLY.
Transverse section through head. (After Hickson.)
cornea and its lenses so as to see objects through it
under the microscope. "-A soldier who was thus seen,
appeared like an army of pigmies; for while it multi-
plied, it also diminished the object ; the a,rch of a bridge
exhibited a spectacle more magnificent than human skill
could perform ; and the flame of a candle seemed the illu-
mination of thousands of lamps." Although Mr. Cheshire,
in his book on the bee, adopts this view and supports it
by reference to a similar experiment, it numbers to-day
XV111.
THE HONEY BEE.
269
but few supporters. One is tempted to marvel at the
ability of the drone to co-ordinate 24,000 separate images
into a single distinct object. Picture the confusion of
images of one who had sipped too freely of the sweet but
delusive dregs of the punch-bowl ! Under similar circum-
stances human folk are reported to see double. Think of
the appalling condition of an inebriate drone !
Those who believe the faceted eye to be one organ
with many parts, contend that each facet and its under-
lying structures gives, not a complete image of the
external object as a whole, but the image of a single
DIAGRAM OF MOSAIC VISION.
point of that object. Thus there is formed, by the juxta-
position of continuous points, a stippled image or an image
in mosaic. Hence this view is known as Miiller's mosaic
hypothesis. How this is effected will be readily seen with
the aid of the diagram. At a I are a number of trans-
parent rods, separated by pigmented material absorbent
of light. They represent the crystalline cones. At c d is
an arrow placed in front of them : at e f is a screen
placed behind them. Rays of light start in all directions
from any point, c, of the arrow ; but of these only that
which passes straight down one of the transparent rods
reaches the screen. Those which pass obliquely into
270 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
other rods are absorbed by the pigmented material.
Similarly with rays starting from any other point of the
arrow. Only those which, in each case, pass straight
down one of the rods reach the screen. Thus there is
produced a small stippled image c' d', of the arrow.
Lowne has experimented with fine glass threads, arranged
like the cones and nerve-rods of the bee's eye, and finds
that (even when they are not surrounded by pigment, as
are the elements in an insect's eye) all oblique rays are
got rid of by numerous reflections and the interference
due to the different lengths of the rays. Some modifica-
tion of the mosaic hypothesis is now generally adopted, 1
and Dr. Hickson has recently worked out, with great care,
the structure of the optic tract which lies between the
crystalline cones and the brain.
Imperfect as our knowledge of the sensations of bees
may be and in a subject of such abstruseness and diffi-
culty we must expect imperfection we yet have no
reason to suppose that this is due to any imperfection
in their sensory endowments. There are three simple
eyes, useful, it is supposed, for near vision in the hive, and
a pair of large compound eyes for the ascertainment of
more distant space relations. These faceted eyes are
covered with delicate hairs which protect the facets from
extraneous particles, and from which such particles may
be removed by combs specially developed for that purpose
on one of the joints of the fore-leg. There are organs of
1 The just-published observations of Prof. Exner have finally established
the truth of the mosaic hypothesis. Mounting the eye of a fire-fly in such
a way that the outer surface was exposed to the air, and the inner parts
with the cones were immersed in a fluid of the same density as the blood
of the insect, he has obtained, in a camera attached to the microscope, a
photograph of the window of the room to which the eye was turned and
of a church spire seen through the window ; not, that is to say, a multi-
plicity of images, but a single image for the compound eye as a whole.
xvin. THE HONEY BEE. 271
taste in the mouth, and tactile organs in various parts of
the body. In the antennae we have sense-organs of
extreme delicacy which may perform other functions than
those of smell and touch, and of the actual use of which
we are almost completely ignorant. Here again, as in
the case of the eye, the bee is provided with a special
apparatus for cleansing its antennae. In the fore-leg, just
at the hinge between two joints, there is in the outer joint
a semi-circular notch into which the feeler neatly fits.
Attached to the inner of the two joints is a little cap
which, when the limb is bent, closes on to the antenna
and holds it in place in the semi-circular notch, wherein
are comb-like bristles that remove from the feeler, as
it is drawn through the notch, all extraneous particles.
More primitive insects, like the cockroach, suck their
antennae or clean them with their mouth-organs. But the
mouth-organs of the bee having been specially modified
to sip the nectar of flowers, a special antenna-comb has
been developed on the fore-limb. And the sensory import-
ance of the organ would seem fully to justify the care
which the bee bestows upon it. Huber's description of
the distracted condition of a queen whose antennae had
been cut off is quite heartrending.
I have not by any means exhausted the points of interest
which my little friend presents. I have said scarce any-
thing about the tongue with which she sips the nectar of
flowers ; nothing of the manner in which this nectar is
converted into honey; nothing of the beautiful petal-
mouthed honey-sac. I have scarcely alluded to the
delicate hooks which serve to connect the upper and
under wings in flight, and have not described the foot-
pads and booklets which enable a bee to cling to almost
any surface smooth or rough. I have left unnoticed the
pollen-baskets, and made no point of the sting. As to
272 ANIMAL SKETCH /<>'. CIIAI-. xvni.
the internal anatomy the organization of the " squash "
I have not had space to say aught of the delicate nerve-
chain, or the many-chambered heart. But perhaps I have
said enough to kindle (or re-kindle) an interest in the
honey-bee, and may now leave the reader, if so he will,
to seek fuller informations in the writings of Huber,
Be van, Lubbock, Cheshire, in the admirable and inexpen-
sive little volume which Mr. T. W. Cowan has recently
published ; or, better still, by a study at first hand with
the aid of Dr. Cowan's book, of the honey-bee itself.
CHAPTER XIX.
SPIDERS.
" The spider's touch how exquisitely fine ! " POPE.
HAVE you never gazed into the eyes of your favourite
dog those melting eyes which seem to bespeak such
deep devotion and trust, and wondered what might be the
nature of the thoughts which course each other through
the labyrinth of his mind ? Or looked into the broad and
mild face of some dear old placidly ruminating cow, and
tried to guess how this strange and beautiful world pre-
sents itself to her slow intelligence ? From a child I have
been wont to do so ; and I am not very much wiser now
than I was then, or, if wiser, chiefly in this, that I realize
more fully the depth and breadth of my ignorance, and
have less hope of resolving it into the grateful light of
knowledge. And if through the lustrous eyes of the dog,
the friend and companion of my race, I can see but a very
little way, and that dimly, into the hidden recesses of his
soul, how stands it with yon garden-spider which has
spread her silken web across the blackthorn hedge ?
What of her inmost soul can I hope to see through those
eight small shining beads, by means of which she looks
out on a world rendered interesting by flies ?
" Why bother about the matter at all ? " says my
T
274 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
excellent friend, Mr. Redtape. " Are there not thousands
of practical questions less silly and more profitable ? "
Even so, my clear-headed, common-sense friend. Go you
your way, and let ' me go mine. With you I have no
quarrel, and for you I am not writing. Each bead-like
eye of this little insignificant spider is a peep-hole through
which I would pry into the mystery of life. This it is
which renders for me every speck of pulsating living
matter, whether it form an atom in the brain of man or
exist for its own sake in the stagnant pool, a subject for
careful study and reverent meditation. I suppose it's just
the way I'm made, and the elements of my nature are
compounded ; which, of course is a pity, but somehow
can't be helped. Had I been cast in sterner mould, I
should be doing something more profitable than writing
about " ugly " spiders for certain young friends (if they
will allow me so to call them) whom I have never seen,
and am never likely to see in this topsy-turvy world,
where the good things are so scattered.
I dare say some of my readers are surprised at my
having a good word to say for such a ferocious little
monster as a spider. And no doubt, from the moral
standpoint of the fly, her conduct is hideously bloodthirsty.
But is your own conduct, dear friend, so very different as
viewed from the moral standpoint of the lambs which in
this spring-time are being born for you to devour ? Not
that I am a vegetarian : I accept the world as it stands,
being sincerely thankful that, in the great division into
those that eat and those that are eaten, I was fortunate
enough to be born into the former class ; though I am
inclined to doubt whether in the ceaseless struggle for life
either class has much advantage over the other. I admit
that in the matter of courtship Miss Spider's conduct is a
little strange, if not positively reprehensible. To en-
XTX. SPIDERS. 275
deavour to make a meal of your suitor, and often not
unsuccessfully, is carrying the great division above
mentioned just a little too far. May one venture to hope
that, just as the love-sick swain would rather have his
ears boxed by his Phyllis than remain unnoticed and
uncared-for, so the lovelorn young spider may say, " Better
by far to be eaten by her I love than to rouse in her no
spark of enthusiastic interest." We must not look into
these moral idiosyncrasies with too close and too human
an eye. In any case the females of civilised Spiderland
are not responsible for the murder of millions of innocent
butterflies that they may .decorate their bonnets with
pretty bits of wing. The fair young spider who had just
eaten her third suitor would, perhaps, contentedly thank
Providence that none of her race had sunk so low as that.
It must not, of course, be supposed that I really think
that a spider is capable of passing a moral judgment on
the thoughtless girl who passes by with a humming-bird
in her hat. The spider acts out her instinctive impulses,
but she has not, as I believe, the faculty of reflecting on
them and pronouncing them good or bad. In putting
pretty feathers in her hat, the girl too is acting out her
instinctive impulses ; but she can reflect on them ; she
can frame an ideal self which she would strive, as far as
possible, to realise in her actual life ; she can put before
herself the question, " Which shall I strive to be, a girl
with a hat made beautiful by the sacrifice of the joyous
life of a bird, or a girl who is content to renounce this
piece of self-gratification as a token and symbol that she
loves God's creatures ? " And so, little maiden, the great
difference between you and the spider is this, that while
you both have bad impulses, she to eat her lovers and you,
perhaps, to gratify your vanity, the poor spider has no
higher standard by which to judge and purify her actions.
T 2
276
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
Wherefore when you are inclined to give way to self-
gratification at the expense of others, pull yourself
together and say to yourself, Now don't be a spider.
I shall take it for granted that you already know some-
thing about spiders ; that they differ from insects in
having eight legs instead of six ; that they are provided
with cruel poisonous jaws ; that they spin their silken fibre
from the hinder end of the body and not from the mouth
like a silkworm ; and that many of them, like Epeira, the
common garden spider, form webs for the entrapment of
unwary insects. Not all spiders form webs like this ;
some of them hunt and stalk their prey. Often and often
have I watched the operations of one of these little hunt-
ing spiders. He looked for all the world like a small fly
and even rubbed his forelegs over his head after the
insect's innocent fashion. Thus partially disguised he
would steal up near his unsuspecting victim, and then
with a sudden spring would seize him and pierce him with
his poisoned jaws.
Of the web I think I must say a word or two more
because misleading and erroneous statements are often
made concerning it. The silk which is wonderfully elastic
and strong, is produced by a number of spinning glands in
the swollen hinder end of the body. In the Epeira there
are said to be five distinct kinds of glands. And in these
a clear viscid fluid is secreted, which, when it is drawn out
into the air, in most cases hardens into a silken thread
The fluid produced by one of the glands, however, does
not harden in this way, but remains viscid and sticky ;
and this is shed by the spinner on the spiral thread which
runs round and round from the centre to the circumference
of the web.
To distribute the threads there is beneath the spider's
abdomen, an apparatus of six little movable organs like
277
minute mobile fingers, and each of these is beset with
hairlike tubes from the openings of which the silk is drawn
from the glands with which the tubes communicate. Some
of the tubes are much larger than others, and from these
's WEB.
the strong radial lines of the web are spun. These lines
are double or sometimes quadruple, consisting of two or
four threads lying side by side ; but they do not consist,
as is sometimes stated, of hundreds or thousands of strands.
To connect these stout lines to the twigs or other objects
278 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
among which the web is stretched, the spider employs
finer and more delicate threads produced by different
glands.
Now when we consider the exquisite skill with which
the garden spider frames her web we are apt to exclaim,
How clever she is ! so aptly is the silken mesh work con-
structed with its radiating lines from centre to circumfer-
ence and its spiral thread beset with viscid globules. And
although Mr. Vernon Boys has shown that these viscid
globules are not set side by side through the cunning
workmanship of the spider but assume this arrangement
by an inexorable physical law, still this cannot be said to
detract seriously from the geometrical skill of the spider
architect. So too when we consider the stealthy way in
which the hunting spider stalks his prey, we cannot but
admire the intelligent nature of his proceedings. And
again when we hear that certain foreign spiders which are
brilliantly coloured, yellow, and crimson, and green,
frequently sit huddled up in the centre of open flowers
where their bright hues render them inconspicuous and
where they can seize upon the insects which unwarily
visit the flowers ; or when we see the gaily-coloured China
Spider of the Cape sitting in its golden web and itself
mimicking a flower, we give the spider credit for remark-
able cunning and artifice. But, without taking away
aught from the striking nature of the facts, we must re-
member that these activities are just the natural outcome
of different varieties of spider nature, and are in no sense
the result of any individual and special cleverness or
intelligence on the part of the performer. We do not say
of the butterfly, How wonderful that an insect should
make itself so beautiful ! Its beauty is part of its natural
dower. Nor should we say of the Epeira, How wonder-
xix. SPIDERS. 279
fill that a spider should make so exquisite a web ! The
web-making is part of its natural dower. The particular
wonder of insect beauty or spider artifice is but an indi-
vidual gleam of the universal wonder-radiance of Nature.
Both structural beauty and fitness and unerring instinctive
performance we now believe to have been alike evolved
through natural selection and, perhaps, other agencies.
Does this take away from the wonder with which we
regard them ? Oh, shallow thought ! It deepens it a
thousandfold.
As I have hinted above, it is difficult to get at the
mental faculties of creatures so far removed from our-
selves along a diverging branch of the tree of life, as are
the spiders. Somewhat may be done, however, by patient,
careful, and long-continued observation. And I propose
to give some account, largely in their own words, of the
valuable observations which have been made on certain
American spiders by George W. and Elizabeth G. Peckham. 1
The first experiments were directed towards ascertain-
ing whether spiders possess a sense of smell. When we
remember that it is through the organs of special sense
smell, touch, hearing, sight, &c., that a perceptual know-
ledge of the external world is acquired, it will be seen
how important it is to ascertain whether these faculties
of sense-perception exist in the lower animals. The plan
adopted to test the sense of smell in spiders, was to hold
a slender glass rod, eight inches long, in such a position
that one end closely approached the individual under
observation, noting what effect, if any, was produced, and
then to dip it into some strongly-scented oil or essence,
such as oil of cloves, oil of peppermint, oil of lavender, or
1 The observations are published in the American Journal of Morphology,
vol. i. No 2. Dec. 1887. (London Agent, Edward Arnold.)
280 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
eau de Cologne, hold it again in the same position, and
note the effect.
The first experiments were upon some tame Attidse
that had taken up their abode with the observers. They
are described as fearless little creatures, always ready to
jump upon a finger, to catch the gnats that were offered
them, or to drink from a spoon. When a clean rod was
held just in front of one of these little fellows, he promptly
leaped upon it, and after a moment's pause leaped again
to some other object, whence he was returned to the
table. But when the rod had been dipped in oil of
peppermint, the spider raised his forelegs and the palpi
which lie in front of them, and waved them in the air,
this being the usual position of threatening or defence.
After standing thus for two minutes, he turned away
slowly and walked to a little distance. Soon, however,
he returned and took up his former position in front of
the rod, but did not repeat the movements of the legs and
palpi. A second time he walked away and came back ;
but this time he came so close as to touch the oil, where-
upon he hurried away, evidently in distress, and was
found half-an-hour afterwards with his legs drawn in,
and looking very miserable.
Two hundred and twenty experiments were made on
spiders belonging to twenty-six species. Three species
did not respond to the test. In all the other cases the
scent was perceived by the spiders. This they showed in
different ways by various movements of the legs, palpi,
and abdomen, by shaking their webs, by running away,
by seizing the rod and binding it up with web as they
would an insect, and in the case of the Attidse, by ap-
proaching the rod with the first legs and palpi held erect ;
but whether in the way of attacking it, or, as it sometimes
MX. SPIDERS. 281
seemed, because the smell was pleasant to them, it was
impossible to say.
It should be noticed that the scents employed would in
all cases be strange and new to the experience of spiders.
It might be advisable to repeat the experiments by
smearing the rod with the tissues of insects, which form
the wonted prey of the spiders, and with the poison of
bees and wasps.
Experiments on hearing were made by using tuning-forks,
as had previously been done in England by Mr. Vernon Boys.
Mr. Boys found that on sounding an A fork and lightly
touching with it any leaf or other support of the web of a
garden spider, or any portion of the web itself, the spider,
if at the centre of the web, slewed round so as to face the
direction of the fork, feeling with its fore feet along which
radial thread the vibration travelled. Having become
satisfied on this point, it darted along that thread till it
reached either the fork itself, or the junction of two or
more threads, the right one of which it instantly deter-
mined as before. The fork seemed to exercise the same
charm as that afforded by the buzzing of a fly ; the spider
seized it and embraced it, and never seemed to learn by
experience that other things than flies may buz. If the
spider were not in the middle of its web, it could not tell
which way to go, and had to run to the centre to ascertain
which thread was vibrating being thus guided by its
sense of touch. Mr. Boys even made a spider eat a con-
siderable portion of a fly that had been drowned in
paraffin, by making it buz with his tuning-fork. If the
tuning-fork was brought near a spider that was waiting
in the centre of the web, she instantly dropped to some
distance, paying out a silken cord by which she hung
suspended.
282 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
In repeating and extending these interesting experi-
ments, the American observers found that spiders which
form a web gradually become callous to the sound of the
fork vibrating near them, letting themselves down to a
less distance when they fall, and after a varying number
of trials, ceasing to take any notice of the noise. On one
spider a series of trials were made on successive days.
After a fortnight's experience she ceased to take any
notice of the vibrating fork, but on one or two subsequent
occasions seemed seized with a renewal of nervousness,
and dropped two or three times. Other spiders than
those which weave webs, the leaping spiders for instance,
did not seem to take the slightest heed of the sound
produced by the vibrating tuning-fork. But Astia vittata,
one of the Attidse, jumped to one side when "'bang" was
shouted in a loud voice with the head turned away ; and
whe x n Mr. Peckham whistled, it stood on the tip of its
abdomen with the head held high, apparently in an
attitude of attention.
We have seen that some of the above experiments show
incidentally that the spider is sensitive to the vibrations
which reach her along the strands of her web. One of
the triangle spiders described by another American ob-
server, Professor Burt Wilder, weaves a triangular net of
four radii. At the apex there is a slack rope which she
draws tight by furling up some of the line between her
front and back legs. Then she remains motionless, like
a compact brown mass about the size of a raisin seed, and
much resembling the projections on the dried hemlock
twigs to which her nest is attached. No sooner did a fly
touch the net than the line was let go and the web, flying
forward, flapped from side to side, thus entangling the
insect. Subsequently the radii were cut and the web
SPIDERS. 283
wrapped round the victim, which was then rolled round
and round and further enveloped in a broad sheet of silk.
Whereupon the spider dined.
Some spiders, especially the wolf spiders, carry about a
bag of eggs which are enclosed in a silk cocoon. Mr.
Peckham stole one of these cocoons and substituted a pith
ball. This was refused by the spider, but on comparing
it with the cocoon it was found to be three times as large.
When its size was reduced and it was again offered to the
spider she took it between her jaws, tucked it under her
body and apparently derived as much satisfaction from
nursing it as from her own cocoon. Her sense of touch
was therefore not sufficiently delicate to enable her to
distinguish a pith ball from her own cocoon. On another
occasion the observers extracted the eggs from a cocoon
and substituted a shot. Even this, notwithstanding its
relatively enormous weight, was accepted ; and when it
fell she spent half an hour in again attaching it to her
abdomen. She did not seem therefore to have much
power of perceiving whether an object was heavy.
The eyes of spiders are minute bright beads, generally
eight in number but sometimes six, arranged in definite
patterns which are different in different genera. Most
people believe that spiders are very shortsighted. The
observations of the Peck hams seem to show that about
ten or twelve inches may be regarded as a good long dis-
tance for a spider to see that most attractive of all objects,
his mate. Other very interesting observations seem to
show that spiders have colour preferences By an arrange-
ment of compartments of coloured glass it was found that
the spiders much preferred the red compartment to either
yellow, blue, or green. In 213 experiments the red box
was selected 181 times.
284 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
Spiders when suddenly disturbed or frightened arc
believed by some people to feign death, tucking up their
legs and lying quite motionless. The Peckhams made
many experiments to test this faculty. The conclusion at
which they arrived, which seems to me exceedingly just, is
that there seem to be no reasonable grounds for thinking
that spiders have any idea of simulating death, since only
about once in fifty times is their attitude, when motionless
from alarm, like that which they assume when really
dead. I question, indeed, whether this argument is
quite valid, for if their stillness made their enemies think
they were dead the exact resemblance of their attitude to
that of dead spiders would not much signify. Still the
general conclusion seems correct. When another spider
runs to a place of safety, an Epeira drops to a place of
safety. Both then remain quiet unless disturbed, in which
case the first spider trusts to its power of running, while
the Epeira often, but not invariably, finds its best chance
of safety in keeping quiet unless it is actually and severely
hurt. The habit of keeping quiet also insures the spider's
safe return to its web when the danger is over, for if the
line connecting her with the web is broken, she experiences
considerable difficulty, poor short-sighted creature that she
is, in finding her way back to her home.
A question that is a good deal discussed among natural-
ists is whether in birds and insects and other animals the
female exercises any choice in the selection of her mate on
the score of his beauty, tuneful voice, or agility as a
dancer. Mr. and Mrs. Peckham are decidedly of opinion
that Miss Spider is guided in her selection by such con-
siderations. They give the following description of the love-
dance executed by an agile little fellow named Saitis :
He saw her as she stood perfectly still, twelve inches
xix. SPIDERS. 285
away; the glance seemed to excite him, and he at once
moved towards her ; when some four inches from her he
stood still, and then began the most remarkable perform-
ances that a love-lorn male could offer to an admiring
female. She eyed him eagerly, changing her position
from time to time, so that he might be always in view.
He, raising his whole body on one side by straightening
out the legs, and lowering it on the other by folding the
first two pairs of legs up and under, leaned so far over as
to be in danger of losing his balance, which he only main-
tained by sidling rapidly towards the lowered side. The
palpus, too, on this side was turned back to correspond
to the direction of the legs nearest it. He moved in a
semi-circle for about two inches, and then instantly
reversed the position of the legs, and circled in the oppo-
site direction, gradually approaching nearer and nearer to
the female. Now she dashes towards him, while he rais-
ing his first pair of legs, extends them upward and forward
as if feo hold her off, but withal slowly retreats. Again
and again he circles from side to side, she gazing towards
him in a softer mood, evidently admiring the grace of his
antics. This is repeated until we have counted a hundred
and eleven circles made by the ardent little male. Now
he approaches nearer and nearer, and when almost within
reach whirls madly around and around her, she joining
and whirling with him in a giddy maze.
Thus you see not all fair young spinsters (how appro-
priate this sounds) among spiders endeavour to eat their
swains. Some at least are pleased to join them in a waltz.
I have told you what American men of science have
taught us about spiders. Let me quote in conclusion
what an American poet (a genuine poet, though strange
withal in dress and diction) teaches through the noiseless
patient spider.
286 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xix.
A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER.
I marked where, on a little promontory, it stood isolated ;
Mark'd how to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself ;
Ever unreeling them ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, my soul, where you stand
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to con-
nect them ;
Till the bridge you will need be formed till the ductile anchor hold ;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, my soul."
WALT WHITMAN.
CHAPTER XX.
CRAYFISHES.
" Let me to crack live crawfish recommend." POPE.
THERE'S such a difference between merely reading about
animals and seeing them and observing them yourself. I
wonder whether I can induce any of my readers to obtain,
watch, and examine a crayfish ! 1 Perhaps it is too much
to expect. But if any one of a practical turn of mind
should care to do so, a few lines and one shilling and three-
pence in stamps, enclosed and forwarded to Mr. Bolton, 62,
Balsall Heath Road, Birmingham, will produce by return
of post, a miniature lobster, or freshwater crayfish, all
alive, sprawling his legs, nipping around with his pincer
claws, arid flapping his broad tail. Place him in a deep
basin of fresh sweet water, and leave him to rest and
recover himself after his journey. If you wish to keep
him for sometime alive, change the water every day. He
breathes, by means of the gills we shall presently examine,
the air dissolved in the water ; and fresh pure water is to
him what pure fresh air is to us. There can be nothing
1 The word crayfish is a corruption of the French ecrevisse, and has no
etymological connection with fish.
288
ANIMAL SKETCHES.
CHAP.
more cruel than to choke water-breathing organisms by
inches, through carelessness in not keeping the water
pure. And we must remember that water, like air, may
be quite clear and bright-looking, and yet be utterly unfit
to breathe. Of course, if you have green water- weeds
growing in a well-lit tank, these will serve to keep the
water sufficiently supplied with oxygen ; but failing this,
change the water often.
You will notice, as your crayfish moves about at ease in
the basin, that he walks on eight pairs of legs, of which
CRAYFISH.
the first two pairs bear small pincers at the tips, while the
others end in points. There is nothing like a flattened
foot. And the crayfish is so light under water that he
seems barely to touch the surface on which he walks. In
front of the legs are the great pincer claws with which he
can give you a pretty smart nip if you give him a chance.
These are generally carried, unless the animal is disturbed,
with their tips just resting on the bottom. Very con-
xx. CRA YFISHES. 289
spicuous in front are the long feelers, close to which are
the smaller feelerets. Near the middle line in front the
shell ends in a pointed projection, called the rostrum.
This is worth examining carefully, so beautifully is it
fashioned. On either side of it are two sharp flattened
plates, which are movable, and are connected with the
feelers. And just above them are the eyes, which are
carried on short movable stalks. It is a curious and
interesting fact that the crayfish in the Mammoth Cave
in Kentucky, where all is darker than darkest night, are
blind. Of what use would eyes be to them ? But they
still retain the stalk upon which the eyes are situated in
their more fortunate relations outside the cave.
I wonder whether you could find the crayfish's ears !
I expect not. They are to be found on the lowest and
largest joint of the feeleret, one on each side. In this
joint there is a little slit guarded with hairs, which leads
into the hollow of the ear. Organs of hearing are some-
times found in strange places. Thus, the grasshopper has
them in his legs ; and the brine-shrimp, mysis, a distant
relation of the crayfish, has them in his tail.
All the front part of the body, as far back as the hinder
pair of legs, is encased in a continuous piece of shell
armour, which protects the back and sides. It is this
shell-armour which gives to the group of organisms to
which the crayfish belongs the name of crustaceans. The
hinder part of the body, that which is popularly called the
tail, is encased in a series of overlapping plates of shell-
armour, so that this part is freely movable, and can be
either straightened out or bent in under the body. But it
cannot be moved from side to side. The crayfish can tuck
his tail under his legs when he is frightened, but cannot
wag it when he is pleased. The tail ends in a flattened
plate fringed with long hairs at the back, and on either
U
290 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP
side are two pairs of plates also fringed. These plates can
be spread out so as to form with the middle plate a broad
tail-flap. The tail is carried curved downwards when the
animal is at rest. But if you lift him out of the water,
holding him with your finger and thumb near the middle
pair of legs so that he may not reach your fingers with
his pincers, he will tuck his tail under his body, and
perhaps begin to flap vigorously. And when you restore
him to the water he will probably dart backwards across
the basin by vigorous flaps of his tail.
You will perhaps wonder how an animal with a close
covering of plate-armour can grow. And indeed the
crayfish is unable to grow with his armour on. He there-
fore once a year, or more frequently in early life, throws
off his suit of armour and makes for himself a new one.
It must be a dreadful business. I have never been
fortunate enough to see him do it. But I came upon one
once when he had just finished. There was his old suit of
armour empty by his side, with cracks down the back and
legs, but otherwise perfect. He was helplessly exhausted
and I thought he would die. He recovered however. But
next day he was dreadfully timid. Like Bob Acres he
somehow didn't feel so bold as he did before. The skin
was soft. Now is the opportunity for growth. In a day
or two the new armour will have been formed and will be
hard and dense. And then he must give up all idea of
growing till next year. He's bold enough in his new
armour. And I think he may be excused for being a
little timid when he has only just jumped out of his skin.
If you keep a crayfish for any length of time * you must
give him something to eat. Sopped bread will probably
tempt him, and he will perhaps take a worm or a piece of
1 It is best then to keep crayfishes in a pan with only about half an
inch of water in the bottom.
Xx. CRAYFISHES. . 291
fresh fish. I have just given one of mine, which I knew
must be hungry, a piece of fish, letting it down gently
into the water so that it touched one of his legs. He took
no notice for a minute or two and then his feelerets began
nicking up and down. These organs are the seat of a
sense of smell or taste, it is difficult to know which to call
it, which advises the crayfish of something eatable in the
water. Then he turned round and began poking about
with the long feelers till he found the piece of fish.
Having found out its whereabouts, he walked over it and
seized it in the pincers of the front pair of legs.
My bowl-shaped tank has glass sides and is so placed
that I can watch my crayfish from below. Looking up at
him thus through the glass I see him pulling about the
piece of fish with the four pairs of small pincers of the first
two pairs of legs. In front of the legs I now see a strong
pair of foot-jaws which work from side to side towards the
middle line and lie over the mouth. Between these,
which are strongly toothed, the food is crushed ; and be-
hind them I see other pairs of jaws working vigorously.
The piece of fish is thus being crushed and torn and
tucked into the mouth. And every now and then when
he has got well hold of a bit with his strong mandibles,
which lie just outside the mouth, he pushes the fish away
with his foot-jaws and tears off a morsel. You must notice
that these jaws and foot-jaws, which you can examine more
closely in the dead crayfish, all lie outside the mouth.
The crayfish seems to enjoy his food, but whether he has
organs of taste in or near the mouth is not certainly
known.
You will probably not be able to keep the crayfish long
in captivity as a pet. A basin of water is a poor substitute
for the dancing rippling stream in which he was wont to
live a free and active life, with many dangers, indeed, but
U 2
292 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAI>.
with the priceless gift of liberty. And as I wish to
examine him with you a little more fully and carefully
than we should find practicable while he still lives, we will
drop him into boiling water which will kill him quite
instantaneously and painlessly.
When we take him out of the water he is probably a
good deal redder than when he was alive. You know that
the blue-black lobster becomes when he is boiled bright red.
Some people fancy that lobsters are always red ; and I
remember a picture, I think in the Academy, where some
fisher-folk were taking from the lobster pots, dripping
from the sea, boiled lobsters ! The bright red made a very
pretty bit of colour in the picture. I wonder how many of
those who passed by, catalogue in hand, recognized this
unwarrantable touch of art. You would have detected it
at once, I am sure ; and I say this not from a desire to
flatter you, but because I wish to put you in a good
humour with me, and get you to read on to the end of this
paper, even if you do not think it worth while to spend
fifteen pence on a crayfish for yourself.
The crayfish is now cool enough to handle after his
fatal hot bath. Alternately bending and straightening the
tail we notice how beautifully its curved armour-plates
overlap, and how smoothly they work, one within the
other. Its lower surface we now see is much less perfectly
protected. There are only bars of hardened shell running
across the body and connected with the broad-plates
above. Between the bars there is tough flexible skin,
which is not easily pierced with a needle or the point of a
pen-knife. Attached to the outer edges of each bar
except the last, are small organs called swimmerets. You
may have noticed them in constant motion beneath the
tail when the crayfish was alive. If the crayfish be a male
the first two pairs are larger than the others, and curiously
xx. CRAYFISHES. 293
shaped; but if he be a female (excuse my mixed genders) t
she will have the first of these pairs smaller than the rest,
or even wanting altogether. Behind the hinder edge of
the hinder bar are the side plates of the tail flap. They,
like the swimmerets, are appendages of the body, but
they are large and flattened, and developed for the special
purpose of serving as a tail fin.
The legs are now seen to be many-jointed appendages.
Examine the joints, as you bend one of the legs, to see how
the various hinges work in different planes. Each is
capable of free movement backwards and forwards in one
direction, but, like your own elbow-joint, in this direction
only. The successive hinges are, however, nearly at right
angles to each other, and so the limb, as a whole, has
tolerably free play. Notice the large pincers of the claw.
If, when the crayfish was alive, he succeeded in giving you
a nip, you will doubtless wish to know how he did it. I
am not going to tell you ; but I will show you how to see
some part of the mechanism for yourself. Cut off the claw
at the end of the appendage, and observe the larger and
the smaller joint. With a strong pair of scissors remove
the shell from one side of the swollen part of the larger
joint. There are the white muscles which, by their
contraction, moved the smaller joint when the crayfish
was alive. If you open and shut this joint you will see
that the muscles are disturbed. And if you scrape away
some of the muscles, you will find embedded in them two
flat plates, which are connected with the small joint. Each
of these is attached to, and pulled by, a separate muscle,
in which it is embedded. The rest I leave you to find
out for yourself. Note how the small joint is hinged ; and
observe the effects of pulling first on one of the flat plates
and then on the other. If you doubt whether the white
muscles you have seen are large enough to close the
294 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
pincer-jaws with much force, put your little finger in
between the nippers of a living crayfish. This will
probably satisfy you. But don't blame me if it hurts.
I want you next to look at the carapace, as the shelly
armour, in front of what we have termed the tail, is
called. Looking at the back of the crayfish, we see that
it is a continuous unjointed sheet. But it is divided by a
well-marked curved groove into a front part and a hinder
part. And the hinder part is divided by shallower grooves
into a narrow middle portion and a broader portion
bending round on either side. Turning the crayfish over,
we find that these side pieces end off just above where
the legs join the body. We can lift up the edge (which
is fringed with hairs) and see a little way under it. But
we must now examine more openly what lies beneath it.
By inserting our scissors under the edge at the front end
of the well-marked groove, which we have noticed on the
carapace, and cutting along the groove till we meet the
shallower groove, and then following this to the hinder
edge of the carapace, we shall remove a large flap. We
shall not have cut into the inside of the body, but only
into a side chamber which contains the gills. We notice
that those which we see are attached to the base of the
legs, and when we move the legs we disturb the gill
attached to it. There are other gills attached to the
sides of the respiratory chamber. You should look at
them under water, and you will then see that they are
like delicate curved plumes. All the blood of the body
must pass through these gill-plumes on its way to the
heart. And over them a continuous current of fresh water
is drawn through the respiratory chamber by a long
flattened plate near its front end, which acts as a sort of
screw-paddle. By attentively watching a living crayfish,
you may see little specks of sediment in the water shot
xx. CU A YFISHES. 295
out on either side of the mouth. And as the water passes
over the gills, it gives up the oxygen dissolved in it to the
blood within the plumes.
You will now be able to see the position of the mouth
without much difficulty, and can, if you will, examine the
external jaws and foot-jaws. There are three pairs of foot-
jaws, two pairs of delicate leaf-like appendages called
maxillae, and just outside the mouth a pair of great, strong
crushing mandibles a very ample set of jaws.
To get at the inside of the crayfish you must now
but perhaps I had better leave its inside alone. There is
a certain suspicion of indelicacy, perhaps, in even hinting
at the fact that a crayfish has an inside. So I will say
nothing of the heart, nor the gastric apparatus into which
the food of the crayfish passes a part which has a crush-
ing-mill for further mastication of the food, and an
efficient strainer, nor the chain of nerves running along
the under side of the body. I will instead say something
of the baby crayfish, because English girls (Heaven
bless them for it, and grant that neither Greek accidence,
conic sections, science, nor philosophy, choke or dull this
pure and womanly trait ! ) English girls, I say, are
always fond of the young and tender whether of man or
beast.
I do not know that we can call the baby crayfish abso-
lutely pretty. In the case of human babies (which I
confess to my male eye are all more or less alike)
there seem to be three classes distinguishable by men,
indirectly through the exclamations the ladies make over
them. The first class, "oh, what a love" presumably
pretty. The second, " what a fine baby " ; size being here
the main feature. The third class " so very interesting."
Now the baby crayfish, I'm afraid, falls into the third
class. It is scarcely a love ; it certainly is not large, being
296 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
only one-third of an inch long. But it is interesting, at
least to a zoologist.
The eggs are laid in the autumn, and attached by a
viscid gluey substance to the swimmerets of the mother.
Not till the spring are the baby crayfish hatched. They
are curious, round-backed little fellows, which resemble
the adult in general appearance, but are somewhat differ-
ently proportioned. The tail, too, differs in having a
simple flap at the end, the broad lateral appendages not
having yet been set free from a wrappage of the outside
skin. The tips of the claws are curiously hooked ; and no
sooner is the little fellow hatched than he buries the
hooked points in the gluey substance by which the egg-
shell still remains attached to the swimmeret. When
once he has thus got a firm grip it is very difficult to
shake him off The reason for the development of this
curious habit is to prevent the helpless youngster being
carried away by the force of the current, and thus perhaps
out to sea to perish in the salt water.
To the zoologist one interesting point about the baby
crayfish is that it is hatched in such a highly developed
condition. In many of the marine allies of the crayfish
the young are set free to lead an independent existence
when they are exceedingly minute, and when they are so
different in appearance that no one but a naturalist would
dream that they were baby crustaceans. They, in fact,
undergo a metamorphosis analogous to and not less
wonderful than that which an insect passes through in its
life-stages, from the egg through the caterpillar and chrysalis
to the perfect butterfly, moth, or beetle. But if in the case
of the crayfish the young were hatched in their minute
free-swimming independent condition they would be swept
downward by the flow of the current. They would thus
come to maturity, live and die some miles further down
xx. CRA YFISHES. 297
stream than their parents. Their offspring would in turn
be swept yet further seawards ; and the constant continu-
ance of this process through a series of generations must
have resulted in the whole race of crayfishes being carried
out to sea and perishing. This fate has been avoided by
the crayfish through the late hatching of the young and
the habit they have, even when hatched, of clinging to the
swimmerets of the mother.
CHAPTER XXI.
OYSTERS.
" The best way to cook an oyster is to eat him raw." ANON.
THAT most charming naturalist and genial observer of
all things animate, Frank Buckland, used to say that
oysters, like horses, have their points. " The points of an
oyster are," he tells us, " first the shape, which to be
perfect should resemble very much the petal of a rose-leaf.
Next, the thickness of the shell ; a first-class thoroughbred
native should have a shell of the tenuity of thin china or a
Japanese tea-cup. It should also have an almost metallic
ring, and a peculiar opalescent lustre on the inner side ;
the hollow for the animal of the oyster should be as much
like an egg-cup as possible. Lastly, the flesh itself should
be white and firm, and nut-like in taste. It is by taking the
average proportion of meat to shell that oysters should be
critically judged. The oysters at the head of the list are
of course ' natives ; ' * the proportion of a well-fed native is
one-fourth meat. The nearest approach to natives, both in
beauty and fatness, are the oysters of Milford in South
Wales. The deep-sea oysters, such as the white-faced
things dredged up in the Channel between England and
1 " Natives" are oysters artificially reared, those found naturally being
termed "sea-oysters."
CHAP. xxi. OYSTERS. 299
France, are one-tenth meat ; while the very worst are some
Frenchmen, which are as thin and meagre as French pigs."
Such are some of the points of an oyster. But we
nineteenth-century mortals have but little time to observe
and consider all the points of even such things as lie very
near to our hearts (I speak anatomically, of course)
things fit for digestion. I have no doubt that by some,
perhaps many of my readers, the "petal of a rose-leaf"
and the " Japanese tea-cup " will be dismissed as mere
poetry, and that for them the philosophy of oysters may be
summed up in the one statement, " the flesh should be white
and firm and nut-like in taste ; " that is if nut-like expresses
with any due adequacy so pure and concentrated a relish.
It is perhaps well for us that we are able thus to seize
upon the points of real vital importance, and to eschew
those which do not immediately concern us. We smooth
our shirt-front as we dress for dinner, without concerning
ourselves with such questions as to how it came to be
woven and stitched together; we step into our cab, and
pity the poor devils we pass in the streets, but do not pause
to consider their all-too-painful points; we chuckle with
our host over the bargain he has driven, without deeming
it necessary to inquire what the cheapness of some of our
goods involves ; we murmur little prettinesses to our fair
partner as we cross the hall, without pretending to realize
their meaning, if indeed they have any ; and then we sit
down to dinner and swallow our oysters, without any idea
of how they came to be raised, and without realizing,
perhaps without knowing, that they are complex organized
creatures, instinct with life and motion.
Motion ? Yes, motion. As I write there lies before me,
tastefully disposed on its natural dish, an oyster in the form
in which it glads the sight of hungry mortals when grace
has been said, and they have taken their seats at table.
300 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
With fine scissors I snip off a delicate slice of the so-called
" beard " which constitutes the oyster's gills ; and this slice
I place on a glass slip, covering it with a thin glass disc,
and then transferring it to the stage of my microscope.
Would that you could see, my friend, the trembling,
quivering, glancing life that is thus disclosed. The field
of the microscope is occupied by the yellowish translucent
material of which the gill is constructed. Across it run a
number of closely-set parallel bars, and here and there
between the bars is an elongated slit. Each slit is the
centre of a little living whirlpool ; for the edges of the bars
that bound it carry a vast number of delicate microscopic
transparent hairs, which are waving to and fro in ceaseless
motion. The waves travel in one direction down one side
of the slit, and in the opposite direction up the other side of
the slit. Hence the appearance of an elongated living
whirlpool. In the eight or ten square inches of gill-surface
there must be tens of thousands of these trembling life-
whirlpools, all of which, my friend, you suddenly engulf,
with a gentle smothered smack of the lips.
" I suppose," says Professor Huxley, " that when the sapid
and slippery morsel which is and is gone, like a flash
of gustatory summer lightning glides along the palate,
few people imagine that they are swallowing a piece of
machinery (and going machinery too) greatly more com-
plicated than a watch."
In the paper from which I quote these words (Eng. III.
Mag., Oct. 1883), Professor Huxley describes in some
detail the anatomy of the oyster. Thither let the reader
repair, if so he will, for an account of the same. All that
I propose to do here is to say a few words, suitable for
those who do not like to be altogether ignorant of such
matters, but have neither the time nor the inclination to
be fully instructed, on the life-history of the oyster from
xxi. OYSTERS. 301
its birth to its descent into the eager and expectant
tomb.
I would that I could induce each one of my readers to
examine an oyster. There is really nothing like actually
seeing a thing. I don't mean to suggest that he should
pause in the deglutition of his half-dozen natives at Scott's,
or should waste threepence-halfpenny on the mere satis-
faction of his understanding. That would be too much to
expect. But I would ask him to expend a penny on a
second or third-rate fish (he needn't eat it), and devote a
few minutes to making out so much of its structure as may
without the smallest difficulty be seen. I am not asking
him to dissect it. All that is necessary is to turn over its
parts with a toothpick.
First let him notice, before the oyster is opened, how
tightly the two valves of the shell are closed. An oyster,
if the shell be not chipped or otherwise injured, may live for
two months or more out of water, especially if it be placed
with the hinge uppermost. The water withio the shell is
thus retained in the most favourable position for keeping
the gills moist. But if the shell be chipped, the water
drains away or evaporates, and the creature dies.
The opening of an oyster, like many another apparently
simple operations, requires some skill and is based upon
previous knowledge. The hollow between the valves of
the shell is occupied by the living mollusk. From valve
to valve there passes a powerful muscle, the scar of the
attachment of which is readily seen near the centre of the
inner face of an empty shell. It is by means of this muscle
that the oyster closes its valve with such a firm grip. To
open the oyster it is necessary to skilfully insert a strong
flat knife between the living mollusk and its shell, and to
cut the muscle close to its point of attachment. When
this is done, the shell gapes about half an inch through the
302 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAI>.
action of an elastic cushion near the hinge, which when the
shell is closed is in a state of compression, but which when
the oyster dies and the muscle relaxes, or when the muscle
is severed, serves by its elasticity to force the shell agape.
When the oyster has been opened and the valve of the
shell has been removed, then unless the force of habit
prove too strong and the molluskbe incontinently swallowed,
for even a penny oyster hath its charms and its tempta-
tions then, I say, the following points about its structure
may be readily made out, and all the more readily if it be
placed in a soup-plate of water. In the first place the
mollusk will perhaps not occupy the whole surface of the
shell. This is due to severe muscular spasms consequent
to the shock its system has recently undergone. But in
the living state, closely applied to the whole of the interior
of the two valves, are the two lobes of the mantle, which
are given off from the body as thin layers of fleshy sub-
stance, the edges of which are thickened and bear a coarse
reddish-brown or dusky fringe. In the contracted mollusk,
as it lies in the shell before us, the mantle-lobes may be
recognized by their fringed edges.
Our next task is to find out which is head and which is
tail in our oyster or rather, since it hath neither head nor
tail, its top and bottom, its front and rear. The hinge is
at the top, the valves of the shell on either side. The
oyster usually rests on its larger and more convex left
valve, so that, like a flounder, it lies on its side. The
hinder margin of the shell is usually somewhat straighter
than its anterior edge. This and the shape of the shell
will generally serve to distinguish right from left and front
from back. But the front of the contained mollusk itself
may readily be distinguished from its rear by the sickle-
shaped gills, four in number, which curve round in front of
the body, and lie between the mantle-lobes. The gills are
XXI.
OYSTERS.
303
often spoken of as the " beard." And in addition to this
fleshy beard there is also a kind of fleshy moustache, con-
OYSTER.
The right valve of the shell has been removed, and the right mantle-
lobe has been cut away along the dark lines which take their origin in the
neighbourhood of the confluence of the mantle-lobes (c.m.L), where the
two lobes are fused or united above the hinder edge of the gills (g.g.).
m.l.m. is the margin of the left lobe of the mantle. Below the hinge (h.)
the hood has been slit open, c.e.h. marking its cut edge folded back. The
mouth (ra.) with its "moustache," formed by the right (r.p.} and left (Lp.)
labial pulps, is thus displayed. The alimentary canal terminates at the
vent (v.) in the posterior chamber (p.ch.) (the supra-branchial chamber of
anatomists), which runs along the inner edge of the gills (g.g.}. The
arrow passes into the part of the chamber which has not been opened up.
ad.m. is the adductor muscle for closing the valves of the shell, ch.h. is
the chamber in which lies the heart, dimly visible through its semi-
transparent walls.
sisting of two flaps on each side arising from the corners
of the wide slit-like mouth, which must be sought in front,
304 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
beneath a sort of hood under the hinge. It lies in the
vestibule, a cavity which extends for some distance above
the body. The mouth leads into a coiled alimentary canal
which terminates just above the hinder end of the sickle-
shaped gills in another large chamber.
I am beginning to despair of the oyster's remaining so
long uneaten. But if it be still unswal lowed, the self-
denying observer will have no difficulty in recognizing the
curved gills with their delicate radiating striations, will
readily find the vestibule and mouth at their upper ends,
and may pass his toothpick into the large posterior chamber
which runs along the whole length of their inner edges,
communicating with the tubes of their somewhat spongy
substance, and opening widely beneath and behind the
body. (See figure.)
We have seen that on the sides of the gills and around
the microscopic slits by which they are pierced, there are
myriads of delicate, translucent hairs continually lashing
the water. Upon the activity of these hairs the oyster
depends for food, for oxygen, for very life. At first sight
the oyster would seem to be in bad case. It is fixed and
sedentary all its adult life. Its ancestors had indeed, like
most bivalve mollusks that now exist, a fleshy foot project-
ing between the inner gill-plates, by means of which
they could perform some sort of sluggish motion. But
through lazy and sedentary habits the oyster tribe has lost,
or well-nigh lost, this foot ; the oyster has literally one
foot, and that its only one, in the grave. This, however,
is no very great disadvantage, for though the cockle is able
to hop with some effect, the monopedal progression of
mollusks would give them but a lame chance of a liveli-
hood had they no other means of capturing their prey.
The food of the oyster consists of such microscopic organ-
isms and organic particles as float freely in the water. By
sxi. OYSTERS. 305
the lashing of the invisible gill-hairs a current of water is
set up which partly sweeps upwards along the gill-plates
to the vestibule, and partly passes in at the slit-like gill-
meshes, and thus through their spongy and tubular structure
into the posterior chamber. Thus through the edges of
the shell, and between the mouth margins, a constant
current passes inwards ; while an equally constant current
passes outwards through the posterior chamber. The
blood in the gills is thus aerated ; the ejecta from the
alimentary canal (and also the kidney) are swept out ;
and at the same time food-bearing water is carried to the
vestibule where the myriad transparent hairs which cover
the " moustaches " sweep the unsuspecting minutiae into
the slit-like mouth.
I often wonder whether so tasty a morsel as the oyster
itself possesses a sense of taste. Were Nature just, this
sense should be well developed. One would fain hope that
our sapid friend's fleshy moustachios may minister to taste ;
that for him too there may be some gleams of " gustatory
summer lightning." As a hope, however, it must remain :
there is no conclusive evidence that the oyster possesses a
sense of taste. Indeed it does not appear that Nature has
been in any way lavish towards the oyster, in the matter
of sensory endowments. Its sense of hearing has gone
along with the foot, in which organ the auditory sac is
lodged in less sedentary rnollusks. Smell, or rather some
sense by means of which it can test the incoming water, it
may have. A sense of touch, distributed especially, it may
be, along the mantle-fringe, is undoubtedly present. There
are no eyes ; but the dusky-coloured mantle-fringe is
probably vaguely sensitive to light. For when the shadow
of an approaching boat is thrown on to a bed of oysters
they are said to close their valves before any undulation of
the water can have reached them !
306 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
I have not been able to glean any anecdotes of the in-
telligence of oysters. The most favourable report I can
give is from the pages of the Rev. W. Bingley's Animal
Biography. " The oyster has been represented, by many
authors," he says, " as an animal destitute not only of
motion, but of every species of sensation. It is able, how-
ever, to perform movements which are perfectly consonant
to its wants, to the dangers it apprehends, and to the
enemies by which it is attacked. Instead of being desti-
tute of sensation, oysters are even capable of deriving some
knowledge from experience. When removed from situa-
tions that are constantly covered with the sea, they open
their shells, lose their water, and die in a few days. But
when taken from similar situations, and laid down in
places from which the sea occasionally retires, they feel the
effect of the sun's rays, or of the cold air, or perhaps appre-
hend the attacks of enemies, and accordingly learn to
keep their shells close till the tide returns." From this it
would seem that if an oyster be left high and dry he
briefly considers his situation ; if he deems it probable
that the tide will rise and again submerge him, he shuts
his shell and determines to hold out as long as he can.
But if he thinks there is no chance of the tide's returning
he gives way to despair, opens his valve and dies. Per-
sonally I don't believe that the oyster reasons thus. A.S to
his facts, however, Dr. Bingley seems to be right. Just as
some fresh- water organisms may be gradually accustomed
to water with a greater and greater amount of salt, until
they can live in sea-water which would have killed them
had they suddenly been placed in it, so may oysters be
gradually accustomed to a longer and longer exposure to
the air without gaping. And this fact is turned to
practical account in the so-called oyster-schools of France.
But on the amount of intelligence involved in the process
xxt. OYSTERS. 307
T leave others to speculate ; for I am terribly sceptical
of our ever attaining to much knowledge of molluscan
psychology.
In America they muzzle their oysters when they send
them to a distance. Oysters usually feed at the turn of
the tide, and thus contract a habit of opening their valves
at regular intervals. To do this when they are travelling
is fatal, for out runs the water and they soon die. They
are, therefore, muzzled to prevent their incontinently
yawning in this unseemly way.
During the summer months oysters become " sick," and
are then out of season. But the sickness is not unto
death but unto life. For if a sick oyster be examined,
the mantle-cavity and the interspaces between the gills
will be found to be packed with a granular slimy substance,
known to fishermen as " white spat," and disclosed under
the microscope of the naturalist as a teeming mass of
developing eggs. As development proceeds, the granules
become coloured, and the fishermen call them " black
spat." Frank Buckland likens the spat in this condition
to very fine slate pencil dust ; and he found from ex-
periment that the number of developing eggs in an oyster
varies from 276,000 to 829,000.
, " One fine hot day the mother-oyster opens her shell
and the young escape from it in a cloud, which may be
compared to a puff of smoke from a railway engine on a
still morning. Each little oyster is provided at birth with
swimming organs, composed of delicate cilia, and by
means of these the little rascal begins to play about the
moment he leaves his mother's shell."
The " little rascal " in some respects resembles and in
other respects differs from its mother. It resembles its
mother in having a shell of two valves, but the valves are
smooth and transparent as glass ; symmetrical and united
308 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
by a straight hinge. The mouth, which as yet of course
has no moustache, is large and opposite the hinge. There
are no gills. The shell is closed by a muscle similar in
function to that of the mother, but different in position.
But the most noticeable point of difference between the
little rascal and its mother is the possession of an oval
cushion projecting between the edges of the valves, and
bearing on its edges the delicate swimming hairs by which
the little embryo mollusk propels itself through the water
amid its myriad companions, and enjoys for a while a
vigorous and active life. By means of special muscles, the
cushion with its swimming-hairs may be withdrawn into
the shell, whereupon the oyster sinks.
It is pleasant to think that even the sedate and seden-
tary native enjoys, if only for a few days, an active, frisky,
mischievous boyhood. In this it resembles the vast
majority of bivalve mollusks. Our oyster is indeed
peculiar in affording any protection to its young. Most
bivalves, and even such near relations as the Portuguese
oyster and the American oyster, are cast adrift as soon as
they are born, and undergo no period of incubation beneath
the mantle-wing of the mother. A curious example of
a somewhat similar protection is afforded by the fresh-
water mussel.
This shell-fish in some respects resembles, and in other
respects differs from the oyster. The figure shows one
lying in its right shell, the left valve having been removed
and the mantle cut away along the dark line. There are
two strong muscles (mm.) for closing the shell instead of
one as in the oyster. The mouth is seen at mo., and close
to it the moustache-like pelps. The foot, /., is large. The
gills, o.g. and i.g, lie on either side of the foot.
When the mussel is at home the foot-end is buried in
the mud or sand and, though the valves gape a little, the
XXI.
OYSTERS.
309
mantle-edges close across the lower part, s.s. But the end
of the shell-fish which lies to the right in the figure, and
which is then uppermost, shows two tubular openings, one
above the other. Water is constantly drawn in at the
lower tube, i.s., passes over and through the gills, and
makes its exit through the upper tube, e.s.
It is an excellent exercise in observation and interpre-
tation for the young naturalist to compare two such forms
FRESH -WATER MUSSEL.
o.(j., outer gill ; i.g., inner gill ; mo., mouth ; m., muscles for closing
shell ; ma., mantle ; s., shell,/., foot ;h., position of heart ; e.s., exhalent
siphon, whence the water passes out from the gill-chamber ; i.s., inhalerit
siphon, where the water enters.
The left valve of the shell has been removed, and the mantle cut away
along the dark line.
of life as the mussel and the oyster and to trace their re-
semblances and their differences.
Now the eggs of the mussel when they are shed become
lodged in the chambers of the outer gills. Here they de-
velop into embryos so unlike the parent that they used to
be regarded as parasites. They are minute bivalve shells,
with triangular valves. The hinge runs along the base of
the triangle, while the apex is curved round into a strong
toothed beak. The small fry remain for a long time in
310 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP.
the gill of the parent, the neighbourhood of fish such as
perch or sticklebacks seeming to have some influence in
determing their ejection. They then swim by flapping
their valves, and ere long attach themselves, by fine
threads with which they are provided, to one of the fish,
and hang there, snapping their valves until they bury
them in the skin of the fish. Becoming thus enveloped
in the skin they there undergo a complete metamorphosis,
by which they are converted into tiny mussels which are
set free and drop to the bottom. This, in the case of the
mussel, is Nature's provision for the preservation of the
race. Were the fry hatched as free-swimming embryos,
they would inevitably be swept away by the seaward cur-
rent of the river, and the mussel, as a freshwater race
would be unable to maintain its existence.
The existence of the adult oyster, to whom we must
now return after this digression, is not altogether free
from danger. What with sponges tunnelling in their
shells, dog-whelks boring neat holes and sucking their
sapid juices, and artful starfishes waiting for them to gape,
and then inserting insidious fingers, they have a rather a
lively time of it. But the short, active life of the oyster-
fry is beset with yet greater dangers. It is a sensitive
little thing, and succumbs to the cold of inclement seasons.
It is also a tasty little morsel, and is greedily swallowed by
any marine monster that has a big enough mouth for
there are epicures in plenty among the marines. And
when, tired of the giddy dance of youth, he would fain settle
down into sedate and sedentary bearded oysterhood, it is
but too probable that the inexorable tides and currents, of
the very existence of which he, like many another gay
youngster, was doubtless ignorant, have swept him out
into the deep sea, or to some uncongenial spot, where he
is choked so soon as he endeavours to settle.
OYSTERS. 311
The settlement of young oysters is spoken of by the
fisherman and oyster-farmers as a " fall of spat." It is part
of the business of oyster-culture to collect the spat, which
may then be transferred to some locality especially fitted
for the growth and fattening of the young mollusks. For
this purpose tiles are employed, covered with a layer of
chalk, which is afterwards easily removed, together with
the young oysters adhering to it. These are placed on the
bottom. But they are apt to get covered with slime, or to
lose the roughness of their surface, and thus to become un-
suitable for the reception of the spat. To obviate this
difficulty floating collectors are now in some places em-
ployed. These are moored near the surface where the
oyster-fry disport themselves before their shell become so
thick as to weigh them down. Floating cars or frames
containing seed-oysters are also sometime employed with
considerable success.
When they first settle, and adhere to the tiles and col-
lectors, or to the gravel, dead shells, &c., which form the
natural collecting medium (or " culch," as it is termed),
they are very minute. But they grow rapidly, and in six
or eight months attain the size of a threepenny-piece, when
they are known as " brood." The diameter of an oyster at
two years is about two inches ; another inch is added in
the third year; after which the growth is much less rapid
At the Fisheries Exhibition, the South of England Oyster
Co. and the Whitstable Oyster Co., showed shells of oysters
which had produced black spat at the age of one year.
As a rule, however, the oyster does not attain its majority
until the third or fourth year, and produces the greatest
quantity of spat from the fourth to the seventh year. The
spatting season usually commences in May, but depends
much on the temperature, being deferred till a later period
in a cold season. In a warm lake on the south coast of
312 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. xxi.
Sweden which forms a natural hothouse for oyster-culture
oysters are found to contain ripe spat as early as the
end of March. The spatting season may continue until
the end of September. And one of the most curious facts
in the natural history of the oyster is this : that so soon as
she has laid her eggs the mother-oyster changes her sex
and becomes a male. Not all oysters, however, are so
changeable as this. Americans and Portuguese have not
learned the trick or have abandoned it for the more staid
and more respectable habits. Whether this change of sex
in our oyster takes place several times in a season, and if
so, how often, is not known. It is a curious arrangement :
but depend upon it, it has not been instituted by Nature
without a purpose.
THE END.
RICHARD OLAV AND SONS, I1MITED, LONDON AND BtJNGAV
October, 1902.
Mr. Edward Arnold's
New and Popular Books
Telegrams : 37 Bedford Street,
Scholarly, London.* Strand, London.
RECOLLECTIONS OF A
DIPLOMATIST.
By the Right Hon. SIR HORACE RUMBOLD, BART., G.C.B.,
G.C.M.G.
FORMERLY BRITISH AMBASSADOR AT VIENNA.
Two Volumes. Demy &vo. 2$s. nett.
After narrating some interesting episodes of his youth in Paris, the
author carries on his Recollections from the year 1849, when he entered
the Diplomatic Service, down to 1873. During this period he occupied
posts at Turin, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Vienna, Athens, Berne, St. Peters-
burg, and Constantinople, and in 1859 he accompanied the British
Mission to China. He had unrivalled opportunities of studying the
different phases of Society in nearly every country of Europe, and
although the book necessarily touches but lightly on politics, it contains
a series of brilliant and entertaining reminiscences of the Courts and
high Society of the Continent. Sir Horace Rumbold has many a good
story to tell, and it is believed that a large measure of popularity may
reasonably be predicted for his work.
LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 37, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.
THE HOUSE OF SELEUCUS.
By EDWYN ROBERT BEVAN.
AUTHOR OF THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED TRANSLATION OF 'PROMETHEUS VINCTUS.
Two Volumes. Demy 8v0. With Portraits and Maps. $os. nett.
This book treats of a phase of Greek civilization of immense impor-
tance, and yet singularly neglected the Greco-Macedonian rule in the
East after Alexander the Great. It deals with the dynasty which played
the principal part in the Greek East that founded by the Macedonian
Seleucus. There is no modem book, even in German, which makes a
special study of the history of the Seleucid kingdom.
The period is of vital consequence in many ways : (i) A great deal in
the Roman imperial system was taken over from the Greek monarchies,
and in them many of the elements of the great European tradition took
shape. (2) The episode of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Jews, which
marks an epoch in the history of our religion, belongs to Seleucid
history also. (3) The Greek civilization, which these rulers repre-
sented, was identical in germ with our own, and the English who to-day
are the chief representatives of that civilization in its contact with the
East may look upon the Seleucid kings as their forerunners.
This book, in fact, reveals an earlier chapter of that process which
we are watching in the European conquest of the East to-day.
It contains, besides two full-page portraits of Antiochus III., repro-
ductions of the very complete series of coins issued under the Seleucid
dynasty.
THE ENEMIES OF ENGLAND.
By the Hon. GEORGE PEEL.
Demy %vo. I2S. 6d. nett.
This is an inquiry into the causes of the hatred now and for many
centuries felt for England by the peoples of Europe. The author
examines in turn the current explanations, and finds that neither race,
religion, manners, trade, envy, nor malice satisfactorily accounts for it.
The true cause he finds in the fact that during the last eight centuries
each Power that has risen in turn towards the domination of Europe
has encountered the strenuous opposition of England. In course of
time animosities, bred from the broken ambitions of each, have slowly
accumulated against us. Meanwhile, we have planted an Empire over-
seas, the future of which all Powers alike regard with apprehension.
LONDON BIRDS AND OTHER
SKETCHES.
By T. DIGBY PIGOTT, C.B.
NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. Large crown %vo. >js. 6d.
With numerous Illustrations.
The warm welcome accorded to the earlier edition of this work by
the comparatively limited circle of readers into whose hands it came
has suggested its publication in an enlarged and popular form. Mr.
Digby Pigott's occasional contributions to the Press on the birds of
the London parks are a delight to all lovers of natural history. This
volume contains not only the chapters which appeared in the author's
" London Birds and London Insects," carefully revised and brought up
to date, but a considerable amount of fresh matter. It is believed
that these s
