.dt Those Other Animals, by G. A. Henty-A Project Gutenberg eBook
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Yours truly
G A Henty [**signature]
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[Illustration:
Yours truly
G A Henty [**signature] ]
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THOSE OTHER ANIMALS.
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BY
G. A. HENTY.
WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
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[++ Illustration: The Pig]
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AND TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRISON WEIR.
LONDON:
HENRY AND CO., BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.
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The Whitefriars Library of Wit and Humour.
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FIRST SERIES.
The following Vols. are now ready, 2s. 6d. each.
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ESSAYS IN LITTLE. By Andrew Lang.
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SAWN OFF: A Tale of a Family Tree. By G. Manville Fenn.
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A LITTLE IRISH GIRL. By the Author of “Molly Bawn.”
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THREE WEEKS AT MOPETOWN. By Percy Fitzgerald.
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A BOOK OF BURLESQUE. By William Davenport Adams.
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IN A CANADIAN CANOE. By Barry Pain, B.A.
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SECOND SERIES.
Price 3s. 6d. each.
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THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. By G. A. Henty.\
With Illustrations by Harrison Weir. [Ready.
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IN CAMBRIDGE COURTS. By Rudolph C. Lehmann.\
With Illustrations by A. C. Payne. [October.
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.it Transcriber’s Notes:
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.it The symbols “++” placed in an illustration caption indicate that the caption\
was created by the transcriber.
.it Text that was in italics is enclosed in underscores (_italics_).
.it Additional Transcriber Notes are located at the end of this book.
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TO THE READER.
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MAN, being essentially a creature of habit, has come
to look upon what he is pleased to consider as the
inferior creation from one point of view only, and that in
most cases the narrow and selfish one of his own interests;
thus his views are frequently lamentably prejudiced and
erroneous. The natural result has been that, while we
condone the failings of those creatures we make useful
to us, we ignore the virtues of other and much more
estimable ones. Thus, we admire the Bee because we
benefit by his labours, while we have not a good word
to say for the Wasp, who is, in point alike of industry and
intelligence, the Bee’s superior.
.pi
An attempt has been here made to view some of
the animal creation from a broader point of view, and to
endeavour to do justice to those whose good points have
been hitherto persistently ignored, and to take down others
from the pedestal upon which they have been placed, as
it would seem, unfairly and unreasonably. If some of the
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conclusions at which we have arrived are not in accordance
with those propounded by men of science, we can only say
that we are sorry for the men of science.
It has only to be added that some of these essays were
first presented to the world in the columns of the Evening
Standard.
.rj
G. A. H.
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CONTENTS.
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| PAGE
THE ELEPHANT| #1:ELEPHANT#
THE CROCODILE| #7:CROCODILE#
THE CAMEL| #13:CAMEL#
THE DONKEY| #19:DONKEY#
THE DRAGON| #25:DRAGON#
THE TORTOISE AND TURTLE| #30:TORTOISE#
THE SHARK| #36:SHARK#
THE SNAKE| #41:SNAKE#
FROGS| #47:FROGS#
DADDY LONG-LEGS| #54:DADDY#
THE APHIS| #59:APHIS#
GEESE| #65:GEESE#
SLUGS| #72:SLUGS#
THE PIG| #78:PIG#
CATERPILLARS| #84:CATERPILLARS#
THE DOMESTIC FOWL| #90:FOWL#
THE SPARROW| #96:SPARROW#
FLIES| #101:FLIES#
THE PARROT| #107:PARROT#
THE COCKROACH| #113:COCKROACH#
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MICE| #118:MICE#
CATS| #124:CATS#
THE LADYBIRD| #130:LADYBIRD#
THE DOG| #136:DOG#
SHEEP| #143:SHEEP#
THE BEE AND THE WASP| #150:BEE#
THE BEAR| #156:BEAR#
THE SPIDER| #162:SPIDER#
THE GNAT| #167:GNAT#
THE ANT| #173:ANT#
THE BEAVER| #179:BEAVER#
THE SQUIRREL| #184:SQUIRREL#
THE FLEA| #189:FLEA#
THE MOSQUITO| #195:MOSQUITO#
THE COW| #200:COW#
THE OCTOPUS AND CUTTLE FISH| #206:OCTOPUS#
THE BACILLUS| #212:BACILLUS#
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THOSE OTHER ANIMALS.
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THE ELEPHANT.
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IT must be admitted that it is hard upon the citizens of
the United States that the elephant is not found in
the Western Continent. The Americans have an especial
fondness for big things. They are proud that they possess the
biggest Continent, the largest rivers, the longest railways,
the loftiest trees, the most monster hotels, and the tallest
stories of any people in the world. It is, then, extremely hard
upon them that they have not also the biggest quadrupeds.
Two good-sized quadrupeds, indeed, they had—the bison
and the moose—but they are fast disappearing. As they
were not the very biggest, the citizens of the States had no
interest in preserving them. Had the elephant been there,
he would, doubtless, have been religiously protected as
a subject of national glorification. The elephant is not
thought so much of in the countries where he resides. In
India he has been utilised, but in Africa is prized only for
his flesh and his tusks. He is considered to be a highly
intelligent animal, and in books for children is generally
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spoken of as the sagacious elephant; but in proportion to
his size he is rather a poor creature in the way of intelligence,
and the brain of the ant, tiny as it is, contains more real
thinking power than the skull of the elephant.
.pi
It can hardly be doubted that he owes much of the respect
in which he is held by man to the peculiar formation of his
proboscis. A large nose is generally considered as a sign of
ability in man, but even the largest human nose is, since the
change of fashion abolished its usefulness as a snuff-box,
incapable of any other function than that of an organ of
smell, and as a convenient support for a pair of spectacles.
It is practically fixed and immovable, at least for all
purposes save that of expressing the emotions of scorn
and disdain. Man has, then, never recovered from the
astonishment and admiration experienced by the first discoverer
of the elephant at finding a beast capable of using
his nose as a hand—of conveying his food to his mouth
with it, and of utilising it in all the various work of life.
This peculiarity has been more than sufficient to counterbalance
the many obvious defects in the appearance of
the elephant—his little pig-like eyes, his great flat ears, his
short and stumpy tail, and the general hairless condition
of his leathern skin. Then, too, mankind, even in the
present day of advanced education, are worshippers of
brute strength, as is evidenced by the attraction of the
feats performed by strong men; and the elephant possesses
enormous strength. This, however, is positive rather than
relative, for he is a poor creature indeed in comparison
with the flea, or even with the beetle, both of which can
move weights enormously exceeding their own. Even the
donkey could, bulk for bulk, give the elephant points.
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The elephant is but a chicken-hearted beast. In spite of
his size and strength he is easily scared, and a hare starting
up at his feet has been frequently known to have excited
in him an uncontrollable panic. Now and then one can
be trained to await quietly the charge of an angry tiger;
but this is rather because of the confidence that the
animal feels in the shooting of the men he carries than in
his own powers, and after having been once mauled he can
seldom be induced to repeat the experiment. Naturally, the
elephant is timid in the extreme; the slightest noise startles
him, and, except in the case of a solitary bull rendered
morose by being driven from the herd by younger rivals, he
will seldom unless wounded face man. He is, like most
animals, capable of being taught something; but when it is
considered that he lives a hundred years, while the dog
lives but ten or twelve, he would be stupid indeed if he
did not in all that time come to some understanding as
to what was required of him; but even at his best, a
well-trained dog is a vastly more intelligent animal. This,
indeed, might only be expected, for the elephant’s brain
is smaller in proportion to its bulk than is that of almost
any other creature, being little larger than that of man; and
while the brain in man is of about one-twenty-fifth of the
size of the body, that of the elephant is but one-five-hundredth
part. We should, therefore, pity rather than blame the
creature for the smallness of his capacity. It may be said
that Baron Cuvier, who made the habits of the elephant a
subject of attentive study, came to the conclusion that at
the best he was no more intelligent than a dog.
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[++ Illustration: Elephant]
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The elephant should have been admired by Dr. Johnson
on the ground that he is a good hater. Although his brain
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is not capable of holding many ideas, his memory of an
injury is particularly retentive, and if he has to wait for
years, he will get even at last with any one who has played
him a trick. In old
times the elephant was
trained to war.
Gunpowder had
not been invented,
and the
elephant
was therefore
practically
invulnerable;
but
even then his utility was problematical, and if pricked by
an arrow or javelin, he was as likely as not to turn tail, and
to spread confusion and death in the ranks of the troops
that marched behind him. His courage, in fact, is beyond
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all comparison less than that of the horse, who seems to
enjoy the clamour of battle, and will carry his rider unflinchingly
through the heaviest fire. As a beast of burden
the elephant has his uses, and in countries impassable to
wheeled vehicles he is very valuable, especially in the
carriage of pieces of artillery that could not be transported
by any other available means. Upon a level road, however,
he possesses no advantage whatever over smaller animals,
which will not only drag larger weights in proportion to the
food they consume, but will do so at much greater speed.
The elephant, in fact, appears to have been built up with
a single eye to his own advantages, and altogether without
reference to the use he might be to man. He is admirably
fitted for sustaining the struggle for existence. The mechanism
of his feet is such as to sustain to a nicety his enormous
weight. His thick skin enables him to push his way through
the thickest and thorniest jungles with impunity, and his flat
ears closely set to his head also facilitate his passage. The
great strength and pliability of his prehensile trunk, with its
finger-like termination, enables him either to break off the
massive limb of a tree or to pick up the smallest tuft of herbage.
By its power of suction he can pour volumes of water
down his throat, or cool himself by spurting it over his coat
of mail. In his natural state, before man appeared upon the
scene, he had few enemies, and it was therefore unnecessary
to cultivate the attribute of courage. His bulk imposed upon
smaller though fiercer creatures, and his thickness of skin
protected him from their assaults. As for intelligence, he
needed but a small degree of it,—his food lay everywhere
within his reach, and he had no occasion for either craft
or speed in obtaining it. He was a huge perambulating
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machine for the conversion of vegetable matter into flesh,
and as such he performed his functions admirably, and had
no occasion to look further. In his progress, in fact, from
the germ up to the elephant he steadily devoted himself to
purely selfish ends. Courage was unnecessary, because he
intended to be so large and so armour-clad that none
would assault him, while, as he had no relish for flesh, he
had no need for courage to assault or for speed to pursue
others. It was useless to be intelligent, since for him there
was no occasion either to hide or to seek. He had but to
stretch out his trunk to procure abundant sustenance, and
more brain than was needed for this would be but lumber.
His digestive organs, on the other hand, were to be upon
the largest scale, so as to permit him to enjoy the pleasure
of constant and prodigious feeding. These points must
have been steadily kept in view during the whole upward
progress of the creature, and it is but due to it to say that
they were crowned by perfect success. The elephant was
a world to himself—not a very lovable, or intelligent, or
courageous one, but sufficient in all respects for his own
wants and desires; and it would be hard to blame him
because he has not devoted himself to the cultivation of
qualities that, although admirable in our eyes, would have
been wholly useless to him in the career that he had marked
out for himself.
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THE CROCODILE.
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THE crocodile and its very near relative, the alligator,
possess a double interest to man. In the first
place, they are the relics of a bygone age. Their cousins,
the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus, and the other great
Saurians, have happily long since vanished from the world,
but the crocodile is still with us, and doubtless retains
traditions of the days when he and his relatives ranged
undisputed masters of a swampy universe, undisturbed even
by anticipations of changes and cataclysms that should
render the world an unsuitable place of habitation for,
at any rate, the larger species among them. The second
reason for man’s interest in the crocodile is the crocodile’s
marked partiality for man. The crocodile and the alligator
differ very slightly from each other; the principal difference
being that the alligator has a broader head, and that the
hind feet of the crocodile are much more completely
webbed than are those of the alligator.
.pi
The general observer, however, would see no greater
differences between members of the various species of
alligators and crocodiles than between different human
beings; but the scientific man delights in subtleties, and
there is nothing that affords him a deeper satisfaction than
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in discovering slight peculiarities and differences that enable
him to divide and subdivide, to invent fresh hard names,
and so to deter as far as possible the general mob from
the study of the subject. As, roughly speaking, the crocodile
inhabits chiefly the Old World, while the alligator has almost
a monopoly of the New, the former was naturally first known
to man, and was an object at once of fear and admiration.
Its mouth was so much larger than that of man, and its
armour so much more perfect than anything that man
could contrive, that it is easy to understand the admiration
it excited. Our first written record of it is in Job; and
it is there, under the name of Leviathan, spoken of as the
bravest and most formidable of all creatures, as “a king
over all the children of pride.” The Egyptians, who were
given to worship animals, and perhaps saw more of the crocodile
than they liked, did their best to win its goodwill, and
elevated it to the rank of a deity. Their tame crocodiles
were well cared for; and although perhaps these did not
derive any very lively satisfaction from being adorned with
rings of gold and precious stones, they doubtless appreciated
the abundant food with which they were supplied, and the
feasts of cake, roast meat, and mulled wine occasionally
bestowed upon them. The Indian variety have had an
equally good time of it, and their reputation in that part
of the world has lasted longer than in Egypt, and indeed
still continues, large numbers being kept in tanks belonging
to some of the temples, still regarded as sacred, and fed
abundantly.
The alligator of Northern and Southern America, although
it has always been held in great respect by the
natives, has scarcely risen to the lofty position occupied
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by its Eastern cousins. It has, nevertheless, held its own,
being too formidable and well defended to be interfered
with with impunity. Although killed and eaten occasionally,
it was as a rule left severely alone, its flesh having a musty
flavour, that needs a strong stomach and long familiarity to
appreciate. Of late, however, evil times have fallen upon
the alligator. A use has been found for it. So long as the
dead crocodile was considered as worthless, save for the
somewhat disagreeable food it furnished, so long the alligator
was safe; but it was otherwise as soon as it was
discovered that a portion of it was a marketable commodity.
Some close investigator remarked that under its coat
of mail it wore a leathern doublet exactly corresponding to
it, and found that this doublet was capable of being turned
into an excellent peculiarly-marked leather. From that
day the fate of the alligator was sealed. It will doubtless
be a long time before it is exterminated, even in the
United States; but, like the bison, it has to go. Already
on the rivers where the population is comparatively thick
it has become rare, and even in the swamps where it
formerly was undisputed master the search is hot for it.
Theoretically this will be a matter for regret; practically
its loss will not be sensibly felt.
It may be owned that the alligator has been to some
extent maligned, and that the number of human beings
destroyed by it was by no means so great as its exceeding
numbers in some of the sluggish rivers of the
Southern States or of South America would warrant one
in expecting. Nevertheless, it was certainly a very formidable
foe, and a swimmer attacked by it had but small
chance of escape. Unlike the shark, the crocodile kills its
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prey by drowning; the shark can take off a limb with a
single bite, the alligator has no such power. Its teeth are
sharp and pointed, but placed at irregular distances apart,
and though these can wound and lacerate sorely they have
no cutting power whatever, and when it has captured and
drowned a prey too large to be swallowed at a mouthful,
hides it up in a deep hole or under the river bank until it
decomposes sufficiently for the reptile to be able to tear it
in pieces. It is said that any one seized by an alligator or
crocodile can, if he possess a sufficient amount of presence
of mind, compel the creature to let go by thrusting his
thumbs into its one vulnerable point—its eyes. The experiment,
however, is one that cannot be recommended.
It would doubtless be interesting, but, like Alpine climbing,
the satisfaction of success would scarcely compensate for
the risk incurred.
In no creature have the defensive powers been carried to
the same perfection as in the case of the crocodile: its coat
of armour is absolutely invulnerable to the weapons that
it was intended to withstand; and even now that man has
armed himself with rifles, he is unable to penetrate its
defence unless the creature is struck in the eye or in the
thick skin of its leg-joints, which are comparatively exposed.
The coat of mail, doubtless, possesses certain disadvantages,
as did the armour worn by the knights of the Middle Ages;
while this was proof against missiles of all kinds, against sword
and dagger, the knight, if unhorsed and hurled to the ground,
was unable to rise without assistance, and lay a helpless
victim to the dagger of the meanest camp-follower. So it
is with the crocodile; it can turn its head but at a slight
angle with its body, and can turn itself only by means of
.bn 018.png
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a long détour; hence an active man or an animal of any
kind can easily escape it, unless suddenly seized or knocked
over by the sweep of its tail.
The crocodile possesses many amiable qualities. It is
an excellent mother. It does not indeed sit upon its eggs
like a hen, but this is simply because it knows that the
heat of the sand in which it buries them is amply sufficient
to hatch them. The earlier crocodiles, which doubtless
followed the example of birds, would speedily discover
that what was good for the goose was not good for the
crocodile, and that while but a small supply of heat passed
through their armour, its weight was disastrous to the wellbeing
of the eggs. The crocodile, however, carefully guards
the buried eggs, and as soon as they are hatched watches over
the young with anxious and continued care; she escorts
them to the water, and once there protects them to the
utmost of her power from all assailants, among whom, it
must be admitted with regret, the male crocodile figures
prominently. This care on the part of the mother continues
during many months of the young crocodile’s life.
In spite of this, only a small proportion of them arrive at
maturity, for in their early days great numbers fall victims
to vultures and other birds during their rambles on shore.
Like all saurians, the crocodile is partial to warmth, and as
it is capable of prolonged fastings it is able to spend a
considerable portion of its life basking or asleep on the
sands in the sun.
The crocodile’s eye is provided with three distinct lids.
It is evident that this advantage admits of an extraordinary
variety of what may be called eye-action, and it is probable
that these animals are able to converse with each other
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by means of the varied action of the lids. Man is able
to convey a great deal of expression by the action of a
single eyelid, and it is reasonable to suppose that the
alligator would not have been provided with a triple
eyelid had it not been able to utilise these coverings in
a very marked manner. It is strange and somewhat unfortunate
that this peculiarity should not have been made
the subject of much further investigation and research by
scientific men than has hitherto been bestowed upon it. It
is evident indeed that we have still much to learn concerning
the crocodile; and in view of its early disappearance, it is
to be hoped that the matter will speedily be taken in hand
by some trained investigator.
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THE CAMEL.
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DURING the countless ages that must have elapsed in
its upward progress from the original germ, by the
various processes of the survival of the fittest, selection, and
adaptability to circumstances, it is clear that the camel kept
its eyes strictly to business. The object of the germ and
its descendants was to build up an animal that should
be capable of enjoying existence in the desert. To this
they turned all their attention, with, it may be admitted,
marvellous success; but it must be added that, while so
doing, they unaccountably neglected the beautiful, and
turned out a creature which in point of awkwardness and
uncouthness stands completely apart from the rest of the
brute creation. The camel’s wide, spongy feet save it from
sinking in the sand, its long neck enables it either to allay
irritation by gnawing itself down its spine to the root of its
tail, or to grab a rider by the foot, while its hind legs are
specially adapted by their length to allow it to scratch itself
behind the ear. It may be admitted that in these respects
few animals have its advantages. As a provision against
sand storms it has the unique faculty of being able entirely
to close its nostrils; while by complicated internal arrangements
it is able to carry its water supply about with it
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for some days. Probably the camel did not foresee that,
while thus little by little perfecting itself for a life in the
desert, it was constructing an animal that would be exceedingly
useful to man, and was preparing for itself and
its descendants a lifelong servitude; but so it has been.
The camel was one of the very first animals that man turned
to his use. Jacob possessed camels, and Joseph was carried
away into Egypt by a caravan of Ishmaelites with laden
camels. Job possessed three thousand camels at the
beginning of his misfortunes, and was promised six thousand
at the end. The camel has, in fact, from the first been
made a servant by man; it is only in Central Asia that it
is known to exist in a wild state, and it is far more probable
that these wild camels are the descendants of some escaped
from captivity, than that they should all along have retained
their freedom.
.pi
The camel is capable of great and prolonged endurance
if not overloaded or overdriven; but it is a mistake to suppose
that there are no limits to its powers in this way. The
authorities of the Nile Expedition fell into this error, with
the result that in three weeks after its start from Korti, the
four thousand camels collected and brought up at so great
an expense were all practically hors-de-combat, more than half
being dead and the rest reduced to the last stage of misery
and weakness. The camel on this occasion showed its usual
obstinacy, and insisted on dying as a protest against being
obliged to travel night and day with utterly insufficient
quantities of food and water. A similar result followed
the confidence of the authorities of the Abyssinian Expedition
in the power of the camel to exist without water
when dumped down by thousands on the bare sands of
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Annesley Bay. The failure of the camel upon these
occasions must not, however, be imputed to it as blame.
In its progress from the germ it had anticipated only the
conditions under which it would naturally find itself, and
had made no allowance for the stupidity of man.
It is not surprising that the camel, finding itself from
the first reduced to slavery and converted into a beast of
burden, should have developed a bad temper. No epithet
was ever more ridiculously misapplied than that of patience
in connection with the camel. It is, in fact, only possible
to account for its use upon the ground that when first
applied the word bore its strict Latin signification, and
that it was the “suffering” and not the “long-suffering”
signification of the word that renders it applicable. The
life of the camel is spent in one long protest against its lot.
It grumbles and growls alike when it is laden and unladen,
when it is ordered to rise or to kneel; to stop or to go on;
it roars threateningly at any animal that approaches it, and
is ready at all times to take a piece out of any one who may
place himself incautiously within reach of its teeth, and even
when lying down will shoot out its hind leg with wonderful
activity and viciousness to a distance of some two or three
yards at a passer-by. The camel has literally no pleasures; its
life is one unbroken round of toil, and it would seem almost
that it has cultivated ill-temper until it has become a form
of enjoyment. Even the camel’s walk is evidently the result
of deep calculation, for it is of all kinds of gait the most
unpleasant for its rider. The camel has its regular pace,—it
will walk two miles and three-quarters an hour, neither faster
nor slower,—and however urgent the need of haste may be
to its owner, neither blows nor execrations will induce the
.bn 023.png
.pn +1
camel to quicken its pace except for a few hundred yards,
at the end of which it will settle down into its regulation
stride, with doubtless much inward chuckling at its rider’s
exasperation. It would not be fair to blame the camel for
this; its disposition has been embittered, and it is not
unreasonable that it should find an alleviation in the only
way open to it. Indeed, man has much reason to be
grateful that the obstinacy of the camel does not take the
form of refusing from the first to live, rejecting sustenance,
and persisting in giving the whole thing up as soon as its
eyes are open to the lot awaiting it.
.if h
.il fn=p016.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Camel]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
There are breeds of camels that differ materially from the
ordinary specimen in point of speed. The Heirie or Maherry,
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
and the Sabaye, are very swift, and will keep up a trot of
eight or nine miles an hour for many hours together, and
have been known to perform a journey of thirty-five days’
caravan travelling in five days, doing six hundred and thirty
miles; while Purchas says that camels will carry messages
from Timbuktu to places nine hundred miles distant in
less than eight days. These fast camels have but one
hump; but this is also the case with some of the beasts of
burden. The object of these humps is not very clear, but
it is supposed that as the stomachs are a reservoir of water,
so the humps are natural portmanteaus in which the animals
convey a reserve of sustenance to draw upon in case of
need. It is, at any rate, certain that the fatty substance
composing the humps considerably diminishes and dwindles
when the animal is overworked.
The camel has courage as well as endurance: it goes
on at its regular pace like a clock that is wound up,
until it stops suddenly and falls; when it once does so,
nothing can induce it to endeavour to use its feet again
as long as man is present, although after the departure of
the caravan it has been known to get up to browse on the
bushes, and to find its way back to the wells from which
it started in the morning. It is very insensible to pain.
Count Gleichen, in his account of the Camel Corps in the
Nile Expedition, gives many instances of this; notably the
case of one camel which, having had its lower jaw shot off
by a ball from an Arab matchlock, yet continued its journey
to the end of the day in apparent unconsciousness that
anything unusual had taken place. The one form of enjoyment
of the camel is that dear also to the donkey and horse—namely,
a roll in the sand. This appears to afford it great
.bn 025.png
.pn +1
comfort and consolation, and after an indulgence in it, it
is ready, when again loaded, to start with renewed vigour.
The Heirie, being better treated and cared for than the
ordinary camel, is naturally a very much better tempered
beast than his humble congener, and is even capable of exhibiting
an affection for his master. This is in itself a proof
that the moroseness of disposition so general in the race is
due to the treatment they receive from man, and not from
any inherent incapacity to see things on their bright side;
and the thoughtful should pity rather than blame camels
for using their only available means of exhibiting their
disgust and discontentment with their hard and joyless lot.
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=DONKEY
THE DONKEY.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
WHILE the dog has risen vastly in the scale since
Scriptural times as the friend and companion
of man, the donkey has as distinctly descended. There is
no reason for believing that this is the fault of the donkey,
but lies rather in the want of appreciation on the part
of man. The donkey is, indeed, to no small extent the
victim of appearances, and it can hardly be doubted that
the length of his ears has told terribly against him. This is
not because there is anything inherently objectionable in
a donkey’s ears. They match admirably with his general
appearance, and their constant movement evinces the
animal’s intelligent interest in what is going on around it.
Unfortunately for the donkey, however, men are accustomed
to see in all other creatures’ ears bearing a smaller proportion
to the general bulk than they do in the case of
a donkey, and, therefore, rashly and foolishly, jump at the
conclusion that the donkey’s ears are excessive. This being
once established, it naturally follows that man should
attribute various bad qualities to the donkey, simply because
his ears are large; but he is specially credited with stupidity
and obstinacy. We do not hesitate to say that the
stupidity is very much greater on the part of man, who
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
fails to recognise the characteristics of one of the most worthy
of animals, than on that of the donkey himself; for it may
be doubted whether any individual of the animal creation
possesses so many virtues as he does. He is strong, hardy,
patient, laborious, and, in his wild state, fleet and brave.
He can live on the most meagre provender; he can stand
all climates. He is a willing servant, and does not despise
humble work. He is affectionate whenever he gets a chance
of being so, and is one of the most intelligent of animals.
The horse is more showy, but in proportion to the amount
of food he consumes, and to his weight and size, he is less
strong than the donkey; he is undoubtedly less intelligent,
and, in spite of his size, he is no fleeter. The wild ass
can leave the horse behind him; can climb precipices
inaccessible to his rival, can go fearlessly along mountain
paths where the horse would not dare to tread, and is in no
way inferior in courage. Well groomed and cared for, his
coat is almost as sleek and glossy; while he is free from the
various vices that so often mar the usefulness of the horse.
.pi
When living under similar conditions, the horse recognises
at once the superior sagacity of the ass. On the
great ranches of the Western States of America donkeys are
frequently turned out with droves of horses, and in such
cases the donkey is always accepted as the leader, and the
horses gather round him, or follow his footsteps with
implicit confidence. The wild stallion on the plains is
a very formidable animal, and is more than a match for
man himself when unprovided with firearms; but the ass
has no fear of it, and the testimony of the plains’ men
is unanimous that in a combat between them the jack
is likely to come out the victor. In such cases the donkey
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
is well aware that he is no match for the stallion with his
heels, but fights with his teeth, and the combat resembles
that between a well-trained dog and a bull. The jackass
will rush at his opponent, and, skilfully dodging the blows
from its fore legs, will leap at its throat, and, having once
caught hold, his grip cannot be shaken off. In vain will
the stallion strike at him, in vain lift him in the air and hurl
him down again, for the jack, with his legs well apart, will
always come down on his feet. In vain will the horse
throw itself down and roll with its opponent. The jack
will hold on until the horse succumbs to his grip, or the
flesh he has seized comes away in his hold.
.if h
.il fn=p022.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Donkey]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
Seeing his utility to man, his willingness to give all his
strength for so slight a return, his patience under hardship,
starvation, and cold, it is wonderful that the ass is not more
highly appreciated, and that he does not occupy a far higher
place than he does in our regard. In one respect only has
the ass a weak side. If, as the philosopher says, silence is
golden in the case of man, it is still more so in the case
of the ass. The donkey prides himself, not upon his many
and sterling virtues, but upon what others consider to be
his greatest failing. Unfortunately, like many human
beings, he entertains an altogether mistaken idea as to
his vocal powers, which he never loses an opportunity of
exhibiting. Other animals use the voice for the purpose of
expressing their emotions. The dog’s bark expresses joy,
watchfulness, or menace; his growl, anger; his whine, impatience
or discontent. The horse is naturally silent, but
his neigh is indicative sometimes of welcome, sometimes
of impatience. Love is the burden of the bird’s song.
Maternal solicitude, or a desire for food, that of the baa of
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
the sheep. The donkey’s song appears to express nothing
but his desire to favour all within hearing with a specimen
of the beauty and power of his voice, and of his amazing
vocalisation. Thus he lifts it up at all times, and in all
places, whenever the idea seizes him, and the utmost intelligence
of man has hitherto failed to grasp the meaning
of the strange, varied, and prolonged cachinnations. The
boldest animal trembles when it hears them. Man puts
his hands to his ears, and flies. It is not a challenge, it is
not a call; it is indicative neither of hunger, nor of anger,
nor of satisfaction. It seems simply a vocal effort, and as
such is unique, but, unfortunately for the donkey, it is
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
unappreciated. The connection between a donkey’s voice
and his tail is obscure, but undoubted. It is impossible for
him to do justice to himself unless his tail be elevated, and
advantage has been taken of this peculiarity by man, who is
apt at turning the weaknesses of others to his own benefit.
It has been found that by attaching a weight to a donkey’s
tail—a brick is sufficient—neither the tail nor the voice
can be elevated. In this respect it must be owned that the
donkey is easier to deal with than a woman; for while the
former can be effectually reduced to silence, no means
have hitherto been discovered for suppressing ladies with a
mistaken estimate of their vocal abilities.
Happily of late there has been some slight reaction in
favour of the donkey, and the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals has done something towards impressing
upon the minds of the class of men who chiefly utilise the
services of the ass that the animal is not altogether insensible
to pain, that he needs a certain amount of
sustenance, and that there is a limit to his draught powers.
Why a mistaken idea upon these points should have so long
prevailed is by no means clear. That it has prevailed is
evident from the fact that a certain class of men brutally
misuse donkeys, as they misuse no other creatures save
their wives. Men do not take an absolute pleasure in
beating dogs; but no one can doubt that the brute who
lays a heavy stick across an unoffending donkey does feel a
malicious joy in the pain he gives. Matters are better than
they were; the schoolmaster is abroad, and so are the
policeman and the officer of the Society, and between
them some slight alleviation of the lot of the ass is in
progress. But even now the spectacle of five or six hulking
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
louts seated behind a staggering little donkey, and urging
him on his way with oaths and blows, may be witnessed
any Sunday or Bank Holiday afternoon, upon every road
leading through the suburbs into the country, to the disgrace
alike of our civilisation and humanity. In Egypt and in
the East the donkey still holds something of his former
position in public esteem, and even a portly merchant, or
a grave functionary, has no idea that he is in any way
demeaning himself when, perched upon the top of an
enormous saddle, placed on the back of a donkey, he
proceeds about his business. Had the capacities of the ass
been equally recognised in the West, the cycle would never
have obtained such a height of popularity as it has done.
A well-made cycle will cost almost as many pounds as a
donkey will cost shillings. Its expenses of repair will equal
in cost the keep of the donkey, and, except as a means of
promoting perspiration and keeping down flesh, no human
being would compare the easy and gentle amble of the
donkey with the labour required for a cycle as an instrument
of progression. It is a pity that among the many good
works that have been effected by the influence of Royalty
that of raising the donkey in public esteem has hitherto had
no place. The appearance of the Princess of Wales in the
Park, in a light equipage drawn by two handsome donkeys,
would in a short time produce a moral revolution, and the
good little beasts would soon resume their proper place in
popular favour.
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=DRAGON
THE DRAGON.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.7 0.65
LIKE the dodo, the moa, and the great auk, the dragon is
admittedly an extinct animal, but that is no reason
why his characteristics should not be considered in these
pages. The question that has long agitated scientific
men is, first, as to the extent to which the personal peculiarities
of the dragon have been exaggerated by popular
tradition, and in the second place as to the period at which
he became extinct. There have been those who have even
asserted that his existence was purely apocryphal, but with
men so mentally constituted argument is useless. The
traditions of almost all nations point to the fact that not
only did the dragon exist as a race, but that individual
dragons continued to exist down to comparatively modern
times. We may set aside at once the dragon of Wantley.
Cæsar makes no allusion to dragons existing in Great
Britain; Wantley did not exist before Cæsar’s time; therefore
there can have been no dragon at Wantley. But it is
not possible so summarily to dispose of all legends, and it
is remarkable that the dragon should figure with almost
precisely the same characteristics in the folk lore of both
Western and Oriental peoples. Our most valuable national
coin bears its portrait, and it is the national emblem both
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
of China and Japan. St. George, as we know, was a warlike
saint of Cappadocia; although his feats and adventures
are somewhat doubtful and misty as to locality, it may be
assumed that the dragon who succumbed to his prowess
was a native of Asia.
.pi
The dragon is, in fact, an exceedingly interesting problem,
and the balance of probability appears to be wholly in
favour of his existence. We know that great winged
saurians inhabited the earth in prehistoric times, and such
a creature would be likely to survive cataclysms which
overwhelmed the greater portion of his contemporaries.
Water would not seriously inconvenience him. His habits
would on the whole be retiring, and until man multiplied
and became thick over the world, there would be but
small inclination to interfere with him. The saurians
attain to extreme longevity, and if only a few specimens
escaped at the time of the flood, their descendants of a
very few generations would have existed in comparatively
modern times. The Chinese legends point to the preservation
of the dragon in this manner. They say that at a
time which closely approximates to that generally assigned
to Noah’s deluge, great floods extended almost to the
boundaries of China, and that it was at that time that the
dragons first made their appearance and became a serious
scourge in some of the frontier provinces. Doubtless the
European traditions connected with the dragons were
brought by the tribes which wave after wave poured in from
Central Asia, and it must be assumed that there, if anywhere,
the survivors from the flood for some time flourished.
It is certainly difficult to assume that the descriptions of
these creatures by so many peoples and such diverse sources
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
would be all but identical, had they been purely the work
of imagination and not drawn from a living model. All
accounts unite in describing the dragon as a creature
clothed with scales, possessing a flexible neck like that of
the plesiosaurus, a large head, with jaws well furnished with
pointed teeth like the crocodile’s, a flexible tail like the
lizard’s, and wings like a pterodactyl’s. The flying apparatus
of these extinct creatures, indeed, closely resembled that of
a bat, being a membrane from the vastly extended finger
of the fore leg to that of the hind leg. This does not agree
with the popular idea of the dragon, but the ancients were
not close observers, and it was quite enough for them to
know that their gigantic enemy was furnished with wings,
without inquiring closely into their arrangement. It does
not appear that the dragon was able to fly, but it would
rather seem that when he ran to attack an enemy he aided
himself by flapping his wings, as a swan often travels along
the surface of the water before it fairly takes to flight.
Some of the dragons are depicted as altogether devoid of
wings, the Imperial Japanese dragon showing no signs of
such appendages. Thus both the Chinese and Japanese
legends go far to prove that several species of saurians
survived for some time the general disappearance of their
prehistoric congeners. The legendary dragons differ but
slightly from some of the prehistoric reptiles, and as the
Orientals were entirely in ignorance of the former existence
or appearance of these creatures, it is difficult in the
extreme to believe that they could have coined from their
own imagination a creature so closely resembling them.
In one respect only we must admit an error, and a
serious one. Most of the legendary dragons possessed
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
stings at the tip of their tail. We give up the stings, but
at the same time would urge that this error cannot be
considered as destructive of the truth of the legend. In
the present day it is popularly believed by the vulgar that
the larva known as the Devil’s Coach Horse—a creature
which when alarmed carries its tail in a threatening manner
over its head—is, like the scorpion, armed with a sting.
In some countries, too, it is believed that dragon-flies are
similarly armed. If, then, such errors can exist in an age
of general enlightenment, it may well be that in older
times the dragon, a creature certainly rare as well as very
terrible, was by the popular fancy endowed with means of
defence even more formidable than those he possessed.
The breath of the creature is in all legends relating to it
described as fœtid and poisonous. And as undoubtedly
snakes exhale a fœtid odour, there is nothing improbable
in the assertion that the dragons also did so.
No details whatever have come down to us as to the
domestic habits of the dragon. We only know that he
desolated whole provinces, and that the only method of
preserving the community from his attacks was the appeasement
of his appetite by the offering of victims. These
victims are generally represented as being young females,
but it is not probable that the dragon himself was particular
on this score. Women would be chosen for the
tribute, partly because it was supposed that their tender
flesh would be more gratefully received than that of tougher
victims; but much more because women were in those days
considered of smaller account than men, and could be
pounced upon and handed over to the monster with much
less fuss and trouble than would have been the case had
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
fighting men been chosen. Women’s rights in those days
were much less perfectly understood than at present; and
the question of the equality of the sexes had not so much
as occurred even to the most speculative philosophers.
The origin of the story of the female tribute evidently is,
that the dragon was too formidable a creature to be assailed,
and that it was deemed sound policy to keep him in a state
of lethargy in the cave in which he dwelt by supplying
him with an occasional victim, rather than that he should
sally out and make his own selection. The whole story
would seem to show that the dragon was, like most
saurians, content to pass a tranquil existence unless when
disturbed; that, like the rest of the race, he was capable
of prolonged fasts; and that, huge as was his bulk, a meal
once a month or so sufficed for his needs. The dragon was
said to roar, and this again is another confirmation of the
truth of the legend, for the crocodile when enraged can
bellow like a bull, and this would naturally be the sound
that a great saurian would utter. Upon the whole, it is
evident that the balance of probability inclines heavily towards
the reality of the existence of the dragon up to comparatively
modern times; and we may still cling to the belief
that the national legend of the victory of St. George over
the dragon is not wholly apocryphal, but possesses a large
substratum of truth.
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=TORTOISE
THE TORTOISE AND TURTLE.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE tortoise has in all ages been an object of wonder
to man. Its form, its slowness of movement, its
wonderful coat of armour, its power of prolonged fasting,
the absence of any apparent pleasure in its existence, have
all seemed to set it apart among living creatures. The
Orientals, who are profound thinkers, arrived at the conclusion
that the world must be held up on the back of a
tortoise, no other creature appearing capable of sustaining
the burden. But even their powers of speculation shrank
from endeavouring to cope with the inevitable problem:
what in that case held up the tortoise? There was nothing
in the habits or customs of the tortoise, as met with on the
surface of the earth, that could authorise the supposition
that it could, in any state, not only support itself in the air,
but hold up the not inconsiderable burden of the earth;
indeed, the problem was evidently so insoluble an one that
we meet with no trace in any of the writings of the early
pundits that they ever attempted fairly to grapple with it.
.pi
It would certainly seem that nature has been more unkind
to the tortoise than to any other creature. It has
given it nothing whatever to compensate for the dulness of
its existence or its slow and laborious method of progression.
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
Almost all other creatures are, in their youth at any rate,
gay and frolicsome, delighting in their powers of speed and
activity. No one has ever observed the tortoise at play; it
can neither run nor frisk, climb a tree, nor throw a somersault.
It plods gravely on from its birth to its death, like
a creature in a living tomb, carrying a burden that seems
almost too great for its strength—eating a little, sleeping
a great deal,—thinking, it must be presumed, for even a
tortoise must do something, deeply and uninterruptedly.
As it sees so little of the world around it, we must suppose
that its meditations are self-directed, and that it is continually
occupied with attempts to solve the problem of the
why and the wherefore of its own existence. As it has a
hundred years to think this out, there is no reason to doubt
that were the tortoise capable of conveying its thoughts and
conclusions to man the results would be of the highest
value, and that it would be found that the speculations of
our deepest thinkers are shallow indeed by the side of
profound meditations of the tortoise. It has, too, the
advantage of long traditions, and the accumulation of the
wisdom of ages; for the tortoise is, perhaps, the oldest
existing creature on earth. Its congeners, who ranged with
it the surface of the earth countless ages before the present
race of animals existed, have all passed away, but the tortoise
remains almost identical with his far-off ancestors.
The number of varieties of the land and water tortoise,
the latter known as the turtle, are very great, and are of
high interest to scientific men; the points of structural
difference between them, especially in the skull, being very
much more numerous and important than those existing
between any species of animals, birds, reptiles, or fish.
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
Their habits differ as widely as their structure. Of the
land tortoises, some prefer a vegetable diet, some insects,
worms, and molluscs, while some of the larger turtles will
feed upon fishes and small aquatic birds. Both land and
water tortoises are capable of fasting for upwards of a year.
Their tenacity of life is extraordinary, for their hearts will
continue to beat, and they are still able to move their limbs
with considerable force, for ten or twelve days after their
heads have been cut off. The tortoise is sensitive as to
weather; it does not like too great heat, and lies in the
shade when the sun is strong. It equally objects to cold,
and buries itself under loose rubbish, or scrapes itself a
hole in the ground on the approach of winter, taking many
weeks about the operation.
It might be thought that, clad in its waterproof coat, it
would regard rain with indifference; but this is far from
being the case, for if a shower is at hand it will hurry
away to shelter. It can only be supposed that this extreme
sensitiveness to all atmospheric changes has been bestowed
upon the tortoise to afford it matter for interest and excitement.
Not only does it sleep throughout the whole of the
winter months, but in summer it retires to rest early in the
afternoon, and remains asleep till late in the morning. In
the Galapagos Islands the tortoises rival in size those of the
prehistoric period, weighing three or four hundred pounds.
The speed of these animals is relatively fast, for they can
travel as much as six yards a minute. The water turtle
attains even a greater size, individuals having been taken
weighing from sixteen to seventeen hundred pounds.
The life of the turtles and fresh water tortoises is a
lively one in comparison to that of the land species.
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
Instead of the short and misshapen legs that serve the
purposes of locomotion to the latter, they are furnished with
paddles that enable them to swim with great rapidity, and
were it not for their sleeping habits, and for the necessity
for the females to go ashore to lay their eggs, man would
have but few opportunities of enjoying turtle soup, for
their speed is far greater than that at which any boat
could be rowed. They are thus able to obtain an abundance
of food from the slower moving fish; and as their
power of jaw is very great they are practically masters
of the waters they frequent. Those close observers, the
Chinese, who have a marked partiality for turtle, do not
rely wholly upon its sleepiness of habit or its occasional
landings for their supply of soup; they employ in their
service a fish of the Remora species, which is of peculiar
construction, and possesses a great power of grip. These
fish are trained to the work, and taken out in tubs in the
fishing boats. To the tail of each fish a ring is attached,
and to this the fisherman attaches a long cord, and slips the
fish overboard as soon as they approach a basking turtle.
Directly the fish discovers the turtle, it makes towards it,
and fixes itself firmly to it by means of a peculiar apparatus
upon its head. The fisherman then hauls in the rope, and
pulls both fish and turtle to the boat, and on getting them
on board pushes the fish’s head forward, when it at once
looses its hold. The story would appear incredible were it
not vouched for on high authority.
Except as an example to man of patience under a
singularly joyless life, the purpose of the land tortoise is
not very marked. The second lesson it teaches—namely,
that a life of indolence and lethargy conduces to extreme
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
longevity—can scarcely be considered as an advantageous
one. One species, indeed, furnishes a material that is
utilised principally for the manufacture of combs and
female ornaments, and it was remarked by the Brothers
Mayhew as singular that the tortoise which supplies ladies
with combs has itself no back hair. However, even in
this respect the uses of the tortoise have of late years been
greatly discounted by the introduction of compounds of
india-rubber for the purpose of combs, and the decline of
the fashion for the lofty decorative combs used by our
grandmothers—a fashion which, however, appears to be,
to a certain extent, reviving just at present.
.if h
.il fn=p034.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Tortoise]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
Properly considered, the tortoise should be viewed as an
example to be avoided rather than followed. Had it not
been for the indolent habits of the prehistoric tortoise, there
can be little doubt that it would in time have effected
very considerable changes in its structure. The survival
of the fittest might not have done much for it, as all
tortoises can hold their own in the way of living on. But
the progress of selection, the intermarriage between active
males and females, would naturally have led in time to a
much greater development of leg, and the tortoise might
have become as speedy on land as the turtle in water.
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
Unfortunately active tortoises, male or female, were extremely
scarce, and the result of ages of indolence has been
that the race has remained absolutely without progress, and
that no visible improvement has been effected since its first
introduction among the inhabitants of earth. The lesson
furnished by it cannot be too earnestly taken to heart,
especially as we see the same thing, although in a modified
extent, among the lower races of humanity.
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SHARK
THE SHARK.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.25 0.65
PHILOSOPHERS, although as a rule men of exceedingly
positive opinions, wholly averse to confess their
ignorance upon any point whatever, have failed signally in
arriving at any satisfactory conclusion as to the advantage
of the shark in the general scheme of nature. It has been
suggested that it was created specially for the repression
of conceit in man, and to show him that he was not,
as he might otherwise have supposed, the undoubted
lord of the inhabitants of the water as of the dwellers upon
earth. Given special advantages—such as that of holding
the end of a stout rope, at the other extremity of which is a
hook fixed in a shark’s mouth—man may, with the assistance
of a number of his fellows, have the best of the shark. But
alone, and in the water, the advantage is wholly and absolutely
the other way, and the strongest swimmer and the bravest
heart fail when the tyrant of the sea seeks to make his
acquaintance. It is true that reports have been current
that there are natives of the islands of Southern Seas, who,
armed with a knife, fear not to go out and give battle to the
shark in its own element, but these tales must be accepted
with caution, and are akin to the many apparently authentic
narratives of the appearance of the sea-serpent.
.pi
The shark is a creature gifted with great strength, a savage
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
temper, dogged perseverance, and exceptional power of jaw.
The lion and tiger may mangle, the crocodile may lacerate,
the bulldog may hold fast—the shark alone of living creatures
possesses the power of cleanly nipping off a human limb at a
bite. One ill service nature has done the shark, namely,
that of placing a triangular fin on his back, which acts as a
danger signal and gives warning of his approach. Happily
the shark has not been gifted with sufficient sagacity to be
aware of this peculiarity, for had he been so he would
unquestionably have abandoned his habit of swimming
close to the surface of the water, and would in that case have
been enabled to approach his victim unobserved. The shark
is a slow swimmer for his size and strength. Byron observes,
“As darts the dolphin from the shark,” but Byron was a
poet, and does not appear to have been a close observer of
the habits of the inhabitants of the water; or he would have
known that a shark would have no more chance of catching
a dolphin than a sheep would of overhauling a hare.
A shark will keep up with a sailing ship, but it is as much
as it can do to follow in the wake of a fast steamer, and a
torpedo boat would be able to give it points.
As it is a source of wonder how the flea manages to exist
in the sand, where his chances of obtaining a meal may not
occur once in a lifetime, so naturalists are greatly puzzled
how the shark maintains himself. The ocean is wide, and
the number of men who fall overboard small indeed in
comparison to its area. The vast proportion of sharks,
then, must go through their lives without a remote chance
of obtaining a meal at the expense of the human kind.
There is no ground for the supposition that the shark can
exist upon air. He is not, like the whale, provided with an
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
apparatus that enables him to sweep up the tiny inhabitants
of the seas. He is too slow in swimming, and infinitely too
slow in turning, to catch any fish that did not deliberately
swim into his mouth; and unless we suppose that, as is said
of the snake, he exercises a magnetic influence over fish,
and causes them to rush headlong to destruction between
his jaws, it is impossible to imagine how he obtains a sufficient
supply of food for his sustenance. As it would appear
that it is only when he gets the good luck to light upon
a dead or badly injured fish that the shark has ever the
opportunity of making a really square meal, his prolonged
fasts certainly furnish an ample explanation and excuse for
his alleged savagery of disposition.
The scientific name of sharks is squalidæ, though why
scientific men should have fixed upon such a title is not
clear, for there is to the ordinary eye nothing particularly
ragged or squalid about the shark’s appearance. The shark
belongs to the same section as the ray, which fish, however,
resembles its cousin the shark only in the awkward position
of its mouth, and in its astonishing power of biting, it being
able to indent an iron boat-hook or bar. The immemorial
enmity between man and the snake on land is not less
bitter and deep-seated than that which man on the sea
cherishes against the shark. In this case, however, it is
one-sided, everything pointing to the fact that so far from
having any hostile feeling for man, the shark has an excessive
liking for him. It is as unjust to charge the shark
with hostility towards man as it would be to accuse man
of a savage animosity against the ox or the sheep. To the
shark man is food to be eaten, that is all; and man, the
almost universal devourer, is the last who is entitled to blame
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
the shark on this ground. The Maori has always been regarded
as a remarkably fine specimen of a savage, and his
liking for “missionary” has never been seriously imputed to
him as a grave failing. Man’s likes and dislikes are unfortunately
sadly tinged with selfishness. Many men go to
sea, and therefore the man-eating propensities of the shark
excite in us a feeling of indignation. The proportion of
men who went out as missionaries to the Maori was so
small as to be altogether inappreciable, and the majority
therefore regarded the weakness of the Maori for them from
a purely philosophical point of view.
Fortunately for the inhabitants of these islands, the
aversion of the shark to cold water is as much marked as is
that of the occupants of the casual wards of our workhouses;
and the consequence is that the larger and more dangerous
species are very seldom met with on our coasts, and upon
the rare occasions when they visit us, are in so low and
depressed a state of mind from the cold that their appetites
appear to be wholly in abeyance, and there is no record
of a bather having been devoured at any of our sea-side
watering places.
The eye of the shark is small, long, and narrow, closely
resembling that of a pig. All observers have agreed in
attributing to it a sly and malicious expression, but this must
to some extent be taken as a flight of fancy. The only real
reason for attributing to the shark a savage disposition is that,
like the wolf, it has no pity whatever for a comrade in distress,
and a wounded shark will be instantly attacked and devoured
by its companions. This is, indeed, an evil trait in the creature,
and can be excused only on the ground of its prolonged
fasts, and the overmastering demands of its appetite.
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
The shark, like the elephant, is of a timid disposition, and
is cautious and wary in its approaches. All observers are
agreed that it is always attended by two pilot fishes, who act
the same part as that wrongly assigned to the jackal in
reference to the lion—going on ahead to examine any likely
object, and returning to inform the shark whether it is of an
eatable nature. The splashing of oars, or even of the arms
and legs of a swimmer, will often deter the shark from
making an attack, and there is every reason to believe that
if swimmers in tropical waters would always carry with
them three or four hand grenades, they would have little
occasion to fear interference from him. It is strange that
so obvious a precaution should be generally neglected.
The inability of the shark to seize its victim without
turning itself first upon its back must be a serious inconvenience
to it, and a swimmer with sufficient presence
of mind to await its coming, and then when it turns to
dive suddenly under it, can baffle the rush of a shark,
just as a man can avoid the charge of an enraged bull by
coolness and activity. Man’s aversion to the shark here
stands greatly in his way, few swimmers when attacked
possessing sufficient coolness and presence of mind to carry
the manœuvre into successful effect, although many possess
nerve enough to await without flinching the onset of the most
formidable of terrestrial animals. Did we know more of the
domestic habits of the shark, and learn to appreciate the
virtues that he probably possesses, there can be little doubt
that the unreasoning aversion felt towards him would be
largely mitigated, and we should come to make due allowance
for the pressure of hunger that at times operates to
our own disadvantage.
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SNAKE
THE SNAKE.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
IN treating of the snake it should at once be premised
that all accounts of it must be received with a certain
amount of suspicion, as representing the views of man
as to the snake, rather than the real state of things. It is
notorious that no historian, however much he may strive to
write without bias, can be thoroughly trusted in his account
of matters in which he is a partisan of one side or another.
Upon no subject is man more strongly prejudiced than upon
that of the snake; and although he may endeavour to do it
justice, it is impossible that he should succeed, writing as he
does under the influence of a hereditary enmity against it.
The transaction in the Garden of Eden is doubtless responsible
for much of this feeling among Western peoples; but
this would have no influence with Orientals and others who
are still in ignorance of the legend, and the feeling must
therefore be considered as a natural and instinctive antipathy
throughout the whole human race. Whether such a
feeling would ever have existed had not a considerable
proportion of snakes been provided with poison fangs, is
a point that can never be determined with precision; but
the probabilities are certainly strongly in favour of the theory
that it is entirely to its lethal powers that the snake owes
the distrust and hostility of man. In itself there is nothing
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
that is or should be objectionable in its appearance. Very
many species are beautifully marked; their movements are
for the most part graceful; and they are admirably adapted
in all respects for the life they have to lead. The harmless
sorts have frequently been tamed, and are capable of considerable
affection for their masters; and even the poisonous
kinds, when deprived of their fangs and accustomed to the
presence of man, have no objection to be handled, and
submit to familiarities without any show of resentment.
Unfortunately for the snake, man is not endowed with an
instinct that enables him at once to distinguish between the
harmless and venomous species, and the consequence is,
that in the countries where snakes abound, one of the first
things impressed upon the minds of little children by their
mothers is, that the snake is a creature to be severely
let alone; and even in a country like our own, where
poisonous snakes are rare, we are never able in after life to
completely emancipate ourselves from the prejudices of
childhood. The snake, upon the other hand, has no natural
hostility to man. If man places his foot upon its tail it will
of course retaliate, but with a few exceptions the snake
never goes out of its way to attack man, and will always
avoid a contest if the opportunity be afforded to it. Indeed,
there is every reason to believe that if man were
inclined to be on good terms with it, the feeling would
be more than reciprocated. The snake suffers much from
cold, and would gladly accept the genial warmth of the
human bed, or the human dwelling, were it but made
welcome. Even as it is, it does sometimes seek that
warmth, with consequences that are frequently unpleasant
either to man or itself.
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
.pi
As man has at all times been in the habit of deifying
creatures of which he is afraid, it is not surprising that snake
worship has existed to a very considerable extent among most
of the primitive peoples of the world in localities where the
snake is a good deal in evidence, and even among the moderns
it is intimately associated with the author of all evil. Among
the almost infinite number of legends that surround the
snake, and testify to the deep respect in which it has always
been held, is that to the effect that earthquakes are due to
the movements of a gigantic serpent immured deep down
in the centre of the world. Had the snake been gifted with
the ordinary powers of locomotion, it is probable that he
would have excited a smaller amount of disfavour, but man
is given to dislike anything that he does not understand, and
the mysterious and silent movements of the snake were
to him so unaccountable as to excite antipathy. It is
remarkable, however, that the worm, whose mode of
progression is somewhat similar, has escaped the same
odium. The eye of the snake has unquestionably operated
to his prejudice; there is an entire want of expression about
it which baffles the effort of man to penetrate its mask, and
to get at the creature’s inner nature. Had the snake been
endowed with an eyelid and a clear liquid eye, man would
have been more inclined to respond to its advances, and to
give it the place it requires by his domestic hearth. It is
doubtless unjust that the snake should suffer from a defect
for which it is not personally responsible, but unfortunately
man is not always just in his dealings with the lower order
of creation.
The snake varies in dimensions far more than does any
other living creature. The dog perhaps approaches most
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
nearly to it in this respect, but the dog is to a great extent
what man has made him by careful breeding and selection;
and yet even in that case the great St. Bernard is not so
large in proportion to the tiny toy terrier as is the giant boa
of tropical forests by the side of some of the slender little
whip snakes. Undoubtedly the snake in prehistoric times
grew to much larger dimensions than at present, and skeletons
of snakes have been found in America by the side of which
the largest existing python is absolutely insignificant. Indeed,
they rival in size the largest sea-serpent, as described by its
beholders. The serpent that kept a whole Roman army at
bay was but a pigmy to these extinct creatures, and man
has reason to congratulate himself that they probably disappeared
before he had any opportunity of coming into
contact with them.
No theory has been offered by men of science why some
species of snakes should be provided with venomous fangs,
while others have no such advantage, and there have been
hot arguments whether the original father of all snakes was
or was not so furnished. The balance of probability would
certainly appear to be with those who argue that he must
have had venomous teeth. Had it not been so, it is difficult
to believe that his descendants could by any process of
survival or selection have established poison bags in their
jaws, with the necessary apparatus for passing that poison
through hollows in the fangs. Upon the other hand, it is
easy to understand that had the snakes all been originally
so furnished, some of them might, either from accident or
from incautiously grasping a round stone under the belief
that it was a bird’s egg, have knocked out their fangs, and
that their descendants might have been born without them.
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
We have, indeed, an example of similar action in the case
of the Manx cat, who, being descended from an ancestor
which had, either by traps or otherwise, the misfortune
to lose his tail, begot a race of tail-less cats, whose descendants
have to the present day lacked the usual caudal
appendage. If, then, a cat could transmit this accidental
peculiarity to his descendants, there can be no reason to
doubt that, in some cases, a snake having lost his poison
fangs could be the father of a race of snakes similarly
deficient.
As might be expected, the largest snakes all belong
to the non-venomous species. Being unprovided with the
teeth that enabled their congeners to slay their prey or
combat enemies, the fangless snakes would naturally devise
other means to procure a living. Having no offensive
weapons, they would recognise at once that some entirely
novel means must be hit upon. They could neither bite
nor tear their prey: they could neither stun it with blows,
nor, like the crocodile, drown it. It was, we may suppose,
to a snake of exceptional genius that the idea occurred of
squeezing a foe to death. The idea was, doubtless, received
with enthusiasm, but to be carried into effect against any
but the smallest of creatures it was clearly necessary that
the fangless snakes should attain far larger dimensions than
those possessed by any of the species furnished with poison
fangs. However, the idea once mooted, Mr. Darwin’s
system of natural selection would do the rest. The smaller
individuals remained small, and from them sprang the blind
worm and other species of harmless snakes. The larger
individuals paired together, and keeping the one object
steadily before them, in time their descendants attained the
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
gigantic proportions of the fossil serpents, who could have
mastered and made a meal of the Mastodon as easily as the
largest boa now existing could dispose of a rabbit. With the
disappearance of the huge prehistoric animals, the serpent
must have seen that unless he were to perish of hunger it
was necessary for him to reduce his size; and by a long
process, the exact reverse of that by which he had built
up his bulk, he diminished himself to dimensions which,
though still vastly greater than those of the poisonous snake,
were yet in exact proportion to the size of the animals that
were henceforth to furnish him with food.
So far there has been no marked change in the sentiments
which man and the snake have entertained towards each
other from the earliest times; and it is probable that at no
distant date, when man has peopled the world to its utmost
limits, the snake will find that it is incumbent upon him
to go.
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=FROGS
FROGS.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THERE can be no doubt that frogs do not stand as high
as they ought to do in the estimation of the world.
They are regarded as creatures of little account, and their
large mouths and general emptiness have told against them,
though why this should be so can hardly be explained,
seeing that several human beings possessing precisely the
same characteristics are regarded as great statesmen. But
these physical peculiarities are, after all, a minor consideration,
and the low estimation in which frogs are regarded
really arises from an irreparable misfortune which has
befallen the whole race—namely, their inability to stand
upright. It is this inability which has sunk the frog so low
in the scale of creation. Had he possessed the power of
standing upright, his striking resemblance to a somewhat
stout human being would have been so remarkable, that it
is probable he would have ranked even higher than the
monkey as a type, if not as an ancestor, of man. Any one
who has seen well executed specimens of frogs set up in the
attitudes of human beings, must have been struck with
the extraordinary resemblance, and a community of frogs
capable of walking would undoubtedly be regarded by men
as the closest assimilation in the animal world to human
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
forms and ways. Frogs, no doubt, owe this loss of the
power of walking to the persistent habit of their early
ancestors of sitting in the water, a habit which, at first,
naturally resulted in lumbago, and finally deprived them
and their descendants of
the proper use of their
lower limbs.
.if h
.il fn=p048.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Frogs]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.pi
In the earlier ages of
the world there is strong evidence that frogs had not
lost this power; and the learned may without difficulty
assign the origin of all the early legends of pixies, brownies,
and dwarfs to the accidental discovery by ignorant rustics
of communities of frogs, which had not, as yet, lost the
power of walking. It may, of course, be urged that even
admitting the existence of troops of little manikins
with human motions, this would not account for the
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
long conversations and strange doings reported of the
brownies and pixies, were these nothing but frogs with
the power of standing and walking upright. But such
an argument fails to take into consideration the united
power of superstition and imagination. Have not elaborate
ghost stories originated upon no more solid basis than a
shadow upon a wall, a fluttering garment, or a wreath of
evening mist? Are not the Irish peasantry full of stories of
the most detailed adventures with fairies, and are not all
popular myths built up on the most slender foundations?
The frightened peasant who, returning from work in the
gloaming, first came upon a tribe of frogs walking about
like human beings, would, upon reaching home, scared out
of his senses, magnify what he had seen. Not content with
describing the tribe of little men, clad in green and brown
jerkins, he would be sure to invent further wonders in the
way of conversation, and, as his story spread, so it would
grow, until the existence of a race of brownies would become
locally believed in. The next rustic who came upon the
tribe of frogs would of course outvie the first discoverer
in the fulness of his details; and thus we can see how, upon
the foundation afforded by the frogs who had not yet
lost their power of walking upright, the whole superstructure
of brownies, pixies, and elves would naturally be
raised.
No one who has closely watched the habits of a frog can
doubt that he possesses great thinking powers, and a fund
of information, inherited or acquired. His habit of sitting
motionless is clearly identical with that of the philosophic
thinker. There can be no reason why he should so long
remain in the same attitude, save that he is meditating.
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
His weather-wisdom is notorious; he descries the approach
of wet weather long before any change is visible to the
duller sense of man. As an athlete he is remarkable, in
spite of his comparatively disproportionate girth; he can
leap long distances, and as a swimmer he is unrivalled.
Although habitually silent, he is capable of sustaining a
lively conversation, and even of singing. These accomplishments
he is chary of displaying in this country, having
experience of the proneness of the rustic boy to cast stones
at him; but in countries such as Italy, where the boy is
less aggressive and the frog more numerous, the force and
power with which a tribe of frogs will lift up their voices in
chorus is astounding.
It has been the opinion of scientific inquirers that the
frog could do a great deal more talking than he does if
he chose. Certain it is that a frog, when in danger, such
as being played with by a cat, can cry like a child, making
himself heard two or three hundred yards away. But it
is only on an emergency like this, or when assembled in
conclave, that the frog cares to break his customary silence.
He acquired the habit undoubtedly during the period of
his sojourn under water in the guise of a tadpole. During
that period of his life he had neither means nor opportunities
of exchanging ideas with his fellows, and the result is the
same taciturnity in afterlife that would be shown by a human
being deprived during his early years of all friendly intercourse
with others. That the frog possesses a strong sense of
humour is undeniable. The manner in which he will sit,
apparently unconscious of the approach of man, until a hand
is outstretched to seize him, and will then, with a whisk and
plunge, dive headlong into a pool, and lift his head from
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
the water at a safe distance, in evident enjoyment of the
trick he has played, is a proof of this.
.if h
.il fn=p051.jpg w=400px align=r
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Frogs]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
That frogs are dainty eating is acknowledged by all who
have tried them. In this
respect their striking likeness
upon a small scale to
the human race has, doubtless,
been advantageous to
them, for it is this which
has deterred the fastidious
from feasting on them,—the
idea that there
is something approaching
cannibalism
in the consumption
of a frog
being still
very strong
in the
uncultivated
human mind.
It has been
urged, as an
argument
against the
near relationship
of frogs
to the human family, that they build no abodes for themselves;
but such abodes would be clearly superfluous in
the case of creatures who absolutely prefer being wet
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
to being dry, who are comfortably clothed in handsome
waterproof jackets, and prefer to eat their food raw to
cooking it. In some respects the frog has an advantage
over the human being. He has no trouble whatever with
his family, which is a large one, for, from the first, tadpoles
are able to set themselves up in life without assistance from
their parents.
Frogs vary in colour and habit in different countries
fully as much as do the human race. Although, as a
family, they prefer marshy places, some species never go
near the water from the time they emerge from the tadpole
state until they return to it full of family cares. There are
other kinds which make their living among trees, climbing
with great sureness of foot, rivalling the leaves in their hue,
and feeding upon the insects that frequent them. This
power of adaptation to circumstances must be taken as
another proof of the intellectual development of the frog,
and, had the race received as much consideration from
man as has fallen to the lot of many animals, there is
no saying to what point their intellectual faculties would
have developed. As it is, it cannot be denied that they
compare not unfavourably with similarly neglected human
beings, and the frog can, at least, claim to be on a level
with a Digger Indian.
Whether the frog is endowed with courage is a moot
point. He has not, it is true, been seen to dispute the
passage of his favourite haunts with wild beasts, or even
with horses or oxen; but this may arise from magnanimity
as well as from want of courage, and he may feel that,
being able to enjoy the pool at all times, it would be
unjust to grudge a drink occasionally to thirsty animals.
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
As to insects, he is less tolerant, and destroys those
who venture on the surface of what he considers his water
with promptitude and despatch. Enough has surely been
said to show that the frog is worthy of vastly higher
consideration at the hands of man than he has been
in the habit of receiving, and that, were it not for that
unfortunate affliction in the matter of legs, frogs would
attract great attention from their striking similarity to men,
their meditative habits, their powers of concerted singing,
and their great athletic attainments. Now that attention has
been called to them, doubtless the race will be seriously
studied, and it may be expected that it will be discovered
that they possess far higher and finer traits of character
than has hitherto been suspected.
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=DADDY
DADDY-LONG-LEGS.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
ONE compensation for the coming of winter is that at
that season we are free from the presence of the
daddy-long-legs, known to the scientific as Tipula oleracea,
who comes among us in the autumn in vast hosts, and
makes himself as unpleasantly conspicuous as possible by
his earnest and persevering efforts to commit suicide in
our lamps and candles. This creature is remarkable as
being a standing protest against the Darwinian theory of
the survival of the fittest. Nothing could be more unfit
than this insect to battle for existence; his flight is slow and
weary; he is incapable of dodging his pettiest foes, and his
long, useless legs are everywhere in his way. Had there
been anything in the theory, the Tipula oleracea would
have set to work to shorten his legs, to strengthen his wings,
and to attain something of the easy elegance and lightness
of movement of his first cousin, the gnat. That it is no
fault of his own that he has not done so we may be sure,
for evidently the creature is painfully conscious of the
clumsiness of his appearance and gait, and is prepared at
the shortest of notice to divest himself altogether of the
legs which are such an encumbrance to him. The urgency
of his desire to commit suicide in the flames is another
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
proof of his consciousness that he is a painful failure, and
that the sooner he terminates his existence the better, and
he gladly yields up his life on the smallest pressure between
the human finger and thumb. He himself is unable to see,
and no one else has been able to discover, the raison d’être
of his existence. He is certainly not ornamental, nor is he
useful. He has no means of defence, and seems to have
no joys in his life. He does not appear to have even
the pleasure of going to sleep. Other insects are diurnal
or nocturnal in their habits, but the Tipula is active all
day, and about and on the look-out for candles all night.
The closest observer has never seen him close an eye.
Even in the grub state his existence cannot be a cheerful
one, unless he derives a positive pleasure from the act
of devouring everything he comes across. For as a grub,
he possesses no legs, and no visible eyes; he is a round,
wrinkled, tough tube, and one of the most destructive of
the enemies of the farmer and the gardener.
.pi
Why in one stage of his life this creature should be
altogether legless, while in the other he should possess an
absolute superfluity of leg, is a problem which has puzzled
the deepest thinkers, and it has been suggested that the
abnormal stupidity of the daddy-long-legs is caused by his
own ineffectual efforts to grapple with the problem. Nature,
indeed, has given to him an infinitesimally small amount of
brain. While in the fly and the ant the head bears almost
the same proportion to the body as it does in the human
species, in the Tipula oleracea it is not the hundredth part
of the bulk of the body; indeed, it is questionable whether
in all nature a creature is to be found so badly provided
with head. Even the rustic mind, which is slow to recognise
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
facts in Natural History, views this unfortunate and misshapen
insect with good-natured pity and sympathy. The
very village boys abstain from tormenting him, partly perhaps
from their feelings of kindly contempt; more because
he is too slow and stupid for his chase to cause any excitement;
most of all because he parts with his legs and wings
so willingly that there can be no pleasure in tormenting
a creature who does not care whether he loses them or not.
The Tipula is spoken of by rustics as Gaffer-long-legs, sometimes
as Peter—or Harry-long-legs, and is credited with a
character for harmlessness and blundering well-meaningness,
which is sufficiently well deserved in his state as a perfect
insect, but is wide of the mark indeed in his larva stage. The
wrinkled tube is one of the most voracious of creatures,
and nothing comes amiss to it. The roots of grass, turnips,
potatoes, and, indeed, almost all vegetables, are equally
welcome. When the villa gardener sees with dismay his
cherished little piece of lawn turn yellow and gradually
wither up, he knows, or ought to know, that it is the work
of the grub of the daddy-long-legs. He had, indeed, in the
autumn watched swarms of these creatures blundering about
on the grass, taking short flights of a foot or two, and settling
down again, but it did not then strike him that each and
every one of them was hard at work laying eggs, and that
their seemingly meaningless flights were only movements
from crevice to crevice in the soil, an egg being inserted in
the ground whenever the Tipula could find a spot in which
she could introduce it. The work of maternity once completed,
the daddy-long-legs waits till nightfall, and then
hastens to commit suicide at the first friendly light. As
many will, if an opportunity be offered, perform this speedy
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
despatch previous to the deposition of their eggs, those
who have the wellbeing of their lawn at heart will do well
to light a fire of shavings or other brightly burning stuff in
the close vicinity of their grass for an hour or two every
evening when the daddy-long-legs first begin to appear in
form. They will fly into the flames by thousands. Some
may urge that such a method is cruel, but death in a large
body of flame is instantaneous. Indeed, ocular demonstration
is abundant to show that these creatures, as, indeed,
most other insects, are scarcely capable of suffering; for,
were it otherwise, it is hardly possible that they should,
after repeated singeings, continue to fly at a candle flame till
they finally succeed in destroying themselves. Where such
measures as this are not taken, and the flies are permitted
to deposit their eggs in the soil, the only method of safety
is by rolling the ground with very heavy rollers, so as to
destroy the grubs, but this has only a partial success, as
most of them are too deep below the surface to suffer injury
from the pressure.
Birds are valuable allies to the farmer and gardener in
their war with the daddy-long-legs, but their numbers are
wholly insufficient to cope with the evil. Even the most
voracious bird would be choked did he try to stow away
more than a certain-sized bundle of straggling legs and
wings in his crop. Moreover, the Tipula appears at about
the same time that plums ripen, and birds greatly prefer
stone fruit to daddy-long-legs. As our own taste inclines
the same way, we cannot find any serious fault with them
on this score. Spiders dispose of a few, but it is remarkable
that, awkward and blundering as the daddy-long-legs’ flight
is, he very seldom intrudes into the meshes spread for him
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
by the spider. He makes no efforts to avoid a human
being, and will fly right into his face with the greatest
nonchalance; he will settle in his hair, and cling to his
clothes, but he will almost always manage to avoid a spider’s
web. In the autumn spiders are extremely plentiful, and
their webs spread from bush to bush, and from tree to tree,
are a perfect nuisance to passers-by. With the nets spread
for them in all directions, it is wonderful how the Tipula
manages always to avoid these snares; for, however thickly
they may be swarming in the garden, it will need a very
careful search to find a single specimen in one of the webs.
This naturally gives rise to the idea that the daddy-long-legs
is a far craftier insect than he is generally assumed to
be, and that his awkwardness of gait and motion is assumed
merely to gain sympathy and toleration; just as a woman
pretends to be an invalid when she wishes to coax her
husband into giving her something she has set her mind on.
There may be something in the hypothesis, but the smallness
of head and lack of brains are against the theory; and
we prefer to believe that the insect’s power of avoiding the
snares of the wily spider is due to some at present undiscovered
sense or instinct. The daddy-long-legs has not
been used to any extent for edible purposes, but there is no
reason why he should not be as good as the locust, who is
by no means bad eating. Those who are fond of experiments
could easily collect a sufficient number by the aid of
a sweep net on any piece of grass during the month of
September.
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=APHIS
THE APHIS.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
INDIVIDUALLY the aphis is insignificant; collectively
the aphides are a mighty army working incessant
damage to man. Whether the locust, the caterpillar, or the
aphis effects the greatest injury upon the vegetation necessary
to man’s existence is a moot point. Were the locust
to be found in all parts of the world, instead of being confined
within comparatively limited regions, the palm would
certainly be awarded to it, for the locust spares nothing,
and destroys every green thing as its armies march along.
The caterpillar and the aphis, although far more widely
distributed, are less universal in their tastes, and fortunately
neither of them has any partiality for cereals, the great staple
of man’s food. It may well be believed, however, that were
it not that the caterpillar is kept down by the ichneumon, and
the aphis by the ladybird and other foes, both would in a very
short time multiply so vastly that having devoured every
other green thing they would be driven to fall upon the
corn crops in their green stage; for when approaching ripeness
the cereals are far too hard for mastication even by
the jaws of the caterpillar, while the aphis might as well
endeavour to obtain sustenance from a stone-wall. It is
needless, however, here to enter into a detailed consideration
as to the respective merits, or rather demerits, of the
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
three insect scourges; it is enough that one aphis alone is
fully capable, if left to its own devices, of developing in the
course of a single year into a host so mighty that it would
cover the land and wither up and devour all green things.
While the caterpillar devours the substance of plants, the
aphis only sucks their juices, and kills by so enfeebling the
shoots that they are unable to put forth their leaves. It is an
awkward, slow-moving creature, with its heavy green body
swelled almost to bursting with vegetable juice, supported
by legs so thin and fragile that they can scarce hold up its
weight; and yet it seems to pervade all nature, and to appear
at its season in vast armies, which fall almost simultaneously,
it would seem, upon the plants it affects. So sudden and
unaccountable is their appearance, that there are many
persons who have maintained, and vast numbers still firmly
believe, that the aphis is spontaneously produced from the
juices of the plants it affects. The rose-grower will go into
his garden and watch the young shoots from the leaves
making vigorous progress, and he smiles to himself at the
thought of how soon the sprays will be covered with rich
blossoms. A cold night comes, followed perhaps by a day
or two of dull weather. He shakes his head as he inspects
his bushes, and marks how the delicate young leaves are
slightly discoloured. He knows what will follow. Two or
three days later every shoot is closely packed with a layer
of the green fly sucking up its vital juices. It is not
surprising that the grower absolutely refuses to believe that
the whole of this infinite number of creatures were floating in
the air waiting to pounce upon his plants at the very instant
when, weakened by the frost, they are the less able to resist
its attacks.
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
.pi
What renders the problem still more difficult is that the
aphis army is not homogeneous. Each plant has its own tribe
that prey upon its juices. The bean aphis differs from that
of the rose, and this again from the hop fly; and, indeed,
the number of varieties of aphis is exceedingly large. This
greatly adds to the difficulty of explaining their simultaneous
appearance in such countless numbers, for it would
be necessary to imagine not only one army of aphides ready
to sweep down upon vegetation weakened by frost or east
wind, but a number of them, each selecting the particular
plants they love, and rejecting all others—one hovering
round the town looking out for the rose-trees in its suburbs,
another scouring the rural districts in search of beans or
peas, a third biding its time until drought or long spell of
wet weather shall have weakened the hop bines to a point
when they may be in a condition to suit its palate. It must
be remembered that their appearance upon a certain plant
is not gradual, but almost simultaneous. A week after a
sharp frost on a May morning the whole of the rose growers
in the district affected by the frost will find their plants
attacked by the aphis, while the wail of the hop growers
at the appearance of the fly will rise simultaneously over a
whole district. The scientific explanation is that the appearance
of the aphis in such vast numbers simultaneously is
due to its prolific nature, but the practical man refuses to
credit the suggestion. The aphis is prolific, but not prolific
in the same way as is the white ant. The aphis will produce
twenty-five offspring daily, but this will not account
in any way for the fact that within a day or two of the pest
making its appearance hundreds of thousands are to be
found on every rose bush. Could the female aphis, like
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
the termite, produce eighty thousand per day, the argument
that the whole of the rose trees in a garden have been
covered by the offspring of comparatively few females who
found their way there might be accepted readily enough;
but the rate of increase is incredible when we know that
each female can produce but twenty-five young in twenty-four
hours. It would need, then, not a few, but an infinite
host of winged females, to account for the phenomenon.
That many may pass the winter as eggs in the bark of trees
and other places may be granted, but no one has yet observed
the vast hordes streaming out from their places of
concealment ready to start off in search of peas or beans,
roses or hops. Moreover, in seasons favourable to vegetation,
when neither frost nor east winds nor prolonged wet
nor drought weaken the plants, and they grow robust and
strong, what becomes of the armies of green fly that would,
had the vegetation been sickly, have pounced down upon
it? Nothing could be less scientific than these arguments,
but as somehow there is common sense in them, they
commend themselves to the minds of the foolish multitude,
who, in spite of the teaching of their instructors, still
believe the evidence of their own eyes that the aphis is the
product of a certain unhealthy state of the juice of plants.
But although the increase at the rate of twenty-five per
day by no means accounts for the almost simultaneous
appearance of countless millions, it is a ratio that unless
checked would by the end of the season absolutely cover
the face of the earth, for the young ones so speedily
become mothers that it is calculated the descendants of
one aphis will during the season number 5,904,900,000.
One objection on the part of scientific men to the
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
spontaneous generation theory is that the aphis in other
respects is an exception to the general law that governs the
lives of all other creatures. It is not necessary for the
aphis to have a father. The aphides that appear in spring
are all females, and the process of multiplication and re-multiplication
goes on with as much regularity as if the
male sex had no part whatever in the economy of the
world. It is only late in the autumn that the males appear,
and it is not until after pairing that the females take to laying
eggs, all the previous generations having been born alive.
It is clear that when treating of a creature so unique in its
habits and ways, the word “impossible” should never be
used even by men so absolutely sure of what they assert as
are scientific men. It is well, indeed, for man that the six
thousand million possible descendants from each spring
aphis do not put in their appearance. Happily nature,
while in a moment of light-heartedness producing creatures
possessed of such extraordinary powers of multiplication, and
of no visible place or advantage in the general scheme of
creation, thought proper to furnish them with a vast number
of foes, whose life should be spent in ceaseless efforts to
counteract the effects of this fertility. Chief among these
stands the ladybird, but there are numerous others almost
as indefatigable and voracious, even without counting man,
with his tobacco juice, soap-suds, and fumigating apparatus.
Nature has handed over the aphis defenceless to its destroyers.
It possesses neither jaws nor sting; it is unprovided
with armour, it cannot coil itself up like a wood louse,
or assume a threatening aspect like the Devil’s Coach-horse.
It is simply a helpless and unresisting victim, whose destiny
is to do as much damage as it can to vegetation, and then
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
to be slain. The closest observers have been unable to
detect any signs of playfulness or of any other form of
enjoyment in the aphis. Its existence is as monotonous
as that of the vegetable the juices of which it drinks, and
from the juices of which it is popularly believed to have
sprung.
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=GEESE
GEESE.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
NO thoughtful man who believes in the transmigration
of souls can doubt for an instant that those of
military men pass a portion of their period of change in
the bodies of geese. Of all birds it is the most military;
its carriage, habits, and customs all point to its being animated
by a spirit which in some former phase of existence
has passed through the hands of a drill sergeant. Whether
walking, swimming, or flying, the goose shows its military
instincts. It carries its head well upright, with a certain
amount of stiffness, which speaks of reminiscences of the
military stock. It advances with its comrades in solid
phalanx, and even when feeding preserves the same order,
and holds itself in readiness for instant action. A similar
formation is preserved while swimming and flying, although
in the latter exercise the goose prefers travelling in single
file, each member of the column preserving its distance
accurately, and keeping itself in readiness to range up in
close order should necessity require such a movement.
.if h
.il fn=p066.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Geese]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.pi
The watchfulness of the bird is proverbial. In their wild
state sentries always keep guard over the feeding flock, and
at night it is easier to surprise a house guarded by the most
wakeful of watch-dogs than to approach one around which
geese have taken up their quarters. The fact that geese
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
saved Rome by giving warning of the approach of the Gauls
while the watch-dog slept is historical, and the goose was
ever afterwards honoured by that military people. Even now
the goose is employed in many places as a watcher, and
there are many nurserymen in the neighbourhood of London
who keep two or three geese in their gardens to give notice
of the approach of marauders upon their fruit and flowers.
It is singular, indeed, that they have not been utilised still
further in this direction. They certainly have the drawback
that, however great their valour, they are not feared by the
armed burglar as much as is a savage watch-dog; but, upon
the other hand, they can be cheaply kept, and can bring
up a family which can be turned to other purposes than
that of sentinels. Of all birds they are the most courageous;
the gallinaceæ, and, indeed, many other birds, will fight
fiercely among themselves, but they rarely exhibit valour
against other creatures, and are almost universally afraid of
man. The goose, on the contrary, is of mild temper with
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
its comrades, and it is rare indeed that quarrels of a serious
nature arise even in a large flock of them; but they have
little fear of other creatures. They will close up together
and face a dog, and will fiercely resent the approach of a
bull to their feeding ground; they will attack even a good-sized
boy who ventures to interfere with them, and although
they will retreat before a man, they do so in good military
order, showing a brave front as they fall back, and ready
instantly to assume the offensive if an occasion offers itself.
In its wild state the goose is an aquatic bird, but when
domesticated among us it prefers the dry land to the water;
even when a pond is handy for its use, it passes but a very
small portion of its time upon the water, and depends
principally for its sustenance upon what it can pick up on
the land. It has doubtless observed that the horse, the
bullock, and the sheep, who stand high in the estimation
of man, obtain their sustenance by grazing in the fields, and
has therefore abandoned its family habits of feeding upon
marine plants and insects, and has taken to grazing. It
retains its web feet, however, so as to be in readiness for
any contingency that may arise. This adaptability to circumstances
has given rise to the supposition that the military
spirits inhabiting the bodies of geese belonged in their lifetime
to the gallant corps of marines, who always distinguish
themselves equally by land and sea. The goose has suffered
grievously owing to the popular, but altogether erroneous,
belief in its silliness. How this belief—as expressed by
calling a child a silly or a stupid goose—first originated has
never been explained, for there can be no doubt whatever
that the goose possesses an intelligence far above that of
average birds.
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
Under ordinary circumstances the goose is dignified
in its deportment, and there is nothing that so angers it
as to be hurried. Under such circumstances its movements
are awkward, and when compelled to walk much
faster than its ordinary gait, it is often on the verge of
falling on its nose—a misfortune which does not, so far
as we know, happen to any other bird or beast under the
same circumstances. It is the consciousness, no doubt, that
its appearance when so bustled borders on the ludicrous
that excites the anger of the goose, for it is to be observed
that after such an exhibition it is a long time before it
recovers its usual placidity of demeanour. At times geese
have shown themselves capable of strong personal attachment
to their owners, following them about like dogs, and
abandoning their usual habits of military evolution with
their comrades. This clearly enough points to the fact
that these geese were, in their former state, soldier-servants,
whose duties lay in personal attendance upon officers, and
were never of a military character.
.if h
.il fn=p069.jpg w=571px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Mother Goose and Dog]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
Unlike the hen, the female goose is not perpetually roaming
about laying eggs. In the proper season she lays a
sufficient number for the perpetuation of her race, and
brings up a family more or less carefully; but even in this
matter she does not exhibit the perpetual fussiness of the
hen. She allows her young ones considerable freedom of
action, but is ready in their defence to face the largest dog,
and to oppose a threatening and formidable demeanour
even to a human being whom she suspects of aggressive
intentions towards them. So courageous is her attitude
under such circumstances, that even the fiercest dogs will
turn tail before her onslaught, and the ordinary boy, although
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
he may pretend to deride her anger, will keep at
a respectful distance from her. Undoubtedly the goose
when attacking would have a more dignified appearance
did it keep its head back
in readiness for a stroke, as
does the swan, instead of
advancing with outstretched
neck. This, however, is
clearly the result of bygone
drill, and the reminiscence
of bayonet exercise. The
cry of the goose is scarcely
melodious; its hissing is almost peculiar to itself, its
congener, the swan, being alone with it in the possession
of the faculty of raising this angry and threatening sound.
A flock of geese advancing to the attack, hissing
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
loudly, are sufficiently alarming to the average woman,
and terrifying in the extreme to a child, and even animals
vastly superior in bulk and strength exhibit signs of
trepidation when thus assailed. As might be expected,
the goose is not particular as to its rations, and will eat
anything. It will browse upon water weeds, it will graze
on grass, it delights in corn, and will eat scraps of any
kind of food. The final result of all this is eminently
satisfactory. It is doubtful whether any kind of bird affords
such excellent eating. Were the goose a rare bird, and its
flesh so costly as to be seen only on the tables of the
wealthy, it is probable that it would be considered as the
very greatest of luxuries. Owing, however, to its numbers,
and the manner in which it picks up its own living, it
requires but little outlay in its rearing. Its flesh is so
plentiful that at certain seasons of the year it can actually
be purchased at a lower rate than butcher’s meat. At
Christmas time geese can be bought in London at sixpence
a pound, and the goose can fairly claim to be the working
man’s greatest luxury in the way of food.
Although fashion has ordained that the turkey shall
occupy the place of honour on the Christmas board of the
well-to-do, the flesh of that bird is dry and tasteless in
comparison to the juicy and well-flavoured meat of the
goose. But, in addition to supplying man with some of
his most tasty food, the goose also bestows upon him the
most comfortable of beds. It is true that the hand of
innovation has produced many contrivances of steel and
iron, with complications of springs, to produce the same
effect of elasticity as the bed stuffed with good goose
feathers, and it may be owned that in summer time the
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
spring bed possesses certain advantages, but in the depth
of winter it is a poor substitute for the warmth and cosiness
of the feather bed. Altogether, the goose deserves a far
higher place than it really occupies in the esteem and
affection of mankind. Its courage and military habits
render it admirable when alive; its flesh and its feathers
should win for it our warmest regard after its death.
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SLUGS
SLUGS.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.6 0.65
ALTHOUGH the slug is not generally classed under
the head of feræ naturæ, it is in the summer time
of the year hunted extensively, and with the greatest
assiduity. The chase is kept up, indeed, in every garden
in England, but it is in the villa gardens of London that
the hunt is most actively pursued. It is not that the hatred
towards the slug is stronger there than elsewhere, but its
depredations are more noticed and cause greater annoyance.
In a large country garden, although the head gardener may
gnash his teeth when he finds that heavy raids have been
made upon his beds of petunias or his tender young vegetables,
the damage done is comparatively so small that it is scarcely
noticed. But the ravages committed in a villa garden catch
the eye at once. The possessor, if fond of his little domain,
knows every plant in it by sight, and when he finds a dozen
of his pet seedlings—raised under a handlight, watched,
watered, and tended with pride and pleasure—lying upon
the ground, eaten off a quarter of an inch above the surface
on the very morning after being planted out, his heart is
filled with grief and rage, and he becomes from that day a
determined slug-hunter. This pursuit is a fascinating one;
undertaken at first from a thirst for vengeance, it is soon
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
pursued for its own sake. Many high qualities are requisite
for marked success in the sport. It requires watchfulness,
patience, ingenuity, a knowledge of the habits of the prey
and of its likes and dislikes, and a certain intrepidity as to
the risks from night air and damp feet, for it is only when
the ground is moist that anything like a good bag can be
hoped for.
.pi
The slug is as defenceless as the pigeon, and no greater
share of courage is required for slug hunting than for
pigeon shooting; but whereas the one amusement is a
slaughter of innocents, the other is the destruction of
ravening beasts, and stands therefore in a far higher category.
The slug trusts neither to speed nor fierceness; we
know from story how his cousin, the snail, when attacked,
put to flight a troop of tailors, by the exhibition of his
horns, or, as the scientific would tell us, of his eyes on
their upreared stalks. But if the slug possesses eyes, he
makes no show of them. We are aware that he possesses
a rudimentary shell, which he carries somewhere in his
body, and it is possible that he stows away his eyes with
equal care.
Secretiveness is, indeed, a strong point in his character,
and it enables him to hide himself with such marked
success that, until he chooses from hunger or inclination
to walk abroad, he can defy the most careful searcher.
The slug, unlike the snail, leaves a trail behind him,
and this remains visible for hours. The creature is
fully aware of the danger which this shining evidence of
his passage would entail upon him, but his native craft
enables him to baffle his pursuers. As the fox doubles
across his trail to throw off the hounds, so does the slug
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
upon his return to his hiding-place at daylight double and
twist until his trail is a very labyrinth which Dædalus
himself could not solve. Men have been known in the
enthusiasm of the chase to sprinkle finely powdered charcoal
over a trail of this kind. The use of a bellows
removes all the particles save those adhering to the shiny
trail, which is thus rendered permanent, and can then be
studied at leisure. But even under these favourable conditions
the problem has proved insoluble, and medical men
cannot too strongly dissuade their patients from undertaking
a pursuit which experience has shown will eventually
terminate in madness.
People who write books about gardening give instructions
for guarding plants from snails, and often recommend a
circle of sawdust, soot, or lime to be spread round each plant.
The villa gardener knows that one might as well try to
keep a fox from a hen-roost by making a chalk mark on the
door. He has tried the experiment. He has spent hours,
and nearly broken his back, in applying these pretended
remedies, and in the morning his most cherished plants
have fallen before the destroyer. He knows that there is
no prevention, and that the only cure is the persistent
hunting down of the enemy. There are various methods
of attaining this end. Pieces of orange peel, if laid on the
ground, may be searched in the morning with a fair chance
of success; for the slug is so fond of them that, instead of
returning to his home at daybreak, he clings to them, and
may be found underneath, gorged with over-much eating.
Pieces of board six or eight inches square, pressed firmly
into the ground, are a good trap, as these keep the soil
beneath them moist, and the slug loves moisture and takes
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
refuge under them. Much execution may be done by these
and similar traps, but the enthusiast regards these devices
with contempt, for he knows that the enemy may be thinned
but that he will never be exterminated by such means. The
legitimate sport is the night hunt, the search, by the light of
a lantern, of cabbage or lettuce leaves cast down in the
favourite haunts of the slug. On these, on a warm night
after a light rain, it may be found by the score—of all sizes,
from the tiny glistening speck no larger than a pin’s head,
to the full-grown animal as long and as thick as a man’s
little finger. The slug-hunter recognises two species of
slugs. There are others he knows, notably the great
black slug of the woods, but these concern him not.
The two garden species are the white slug, slimy, active, and
enterprising, thin in figure, and seldom over an inch in
length; and the brown slug, very much larger and heavier,
short and dumpty in figure, triangular in section, only slightly
slimy to the touch, and with a coat of the toughness of
india-rubber.
Hitherto all efforts to turn the slug to profitable use have
failed, and mankind have been content to destroy without
utilising it. The snail, we know, makes a good and
nourishing soup, and nothing but prejudice prevents it
from becoming a valuable article of food. But the snail,
living as it does in its shell, has but a soft skin, while the
slug possesses a coat of extraordinary toughness, which
would seem to be an obstacle in the way of its ever becoming
useful for culinary purposes. Inventive minds have suggested
other uses for it. An enthusiast was convinced that
the slug would make an admirable glue, while another has
pointed out that the skin of large specimens, carefully
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
tanned, would make imperishable fingers for gloves. The
latter idea has never yet been carried out, owing to the
impossibility of finding any material of equal durability and
toughness for the other portions of the glove.
All efforts to tame or educate the slug have been vain.
It has, indeed, been used by showmen at fairs to spell
out names from letters scattered at random on the stage;
but it is well-known that the creatures were directed to
the desired letters by small pieces of cabbage-leaf fastened
beneath them. The exhibition was abandoned, owing
to the slowness of movement of the creatures, as they
took no fewer than four hours to spell out a word of
five letters, and audiences grew tired before the conclusion
of the performance, and did not stay to obtain the full value
of the penny paid at the door. But although, so far,
the slug has failed to afford either profit or gratification
to man, its existence cannot be termed a failure, for
there can be no doubt that, although unprovided with
visible eyes, feet, or other organs, the slug manages to
enjoy itself vastly. It has a keen scent, and a most discriminating
appetite; its food is abundant, and costs it
nothing. Although it can eat and enjoy cabbage leaves, it
has higher tastes. For young melons and cucumber plants
it has the keenest relish, seedlings of all sorts it loves, and the
more rare and valuable the better it likes them. The slug is,
in fact, a gourmand, and it is the delicacy of its palate which
proves its ruin. Did it content itself with the abundant
cabbage or the full-sized lettuce, men would not grudge it
its share, and none would trouble to hunt it with lantern
and traps; but it is its fastidiousness of appetite, its craving
for the young and the rare, its weakness for the quarter
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
of an inch next to the ground of the stalks of seedlings, which
sets vengeance upon its track, and causes it to be hunted
to extermination. At present, however, the end is apparently
far off; for in spite of its foes the slug flourishes exceedingly,
and whatever be the prospects of other game, it is likely
to afford sport for the suburban gardener for generations
to come.
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=PIG
THE PIG.
.hr 10%
.if h
.il fn=p079.jpg w=400px align=r
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Pig]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.ni
.dc 0.45 0.65
SO accustomed are we to the pig in his sty that we are
apt to forget that he is naturally one of the most
valiant of animals, a sturdy and desperate fighter, able to
hold his own against most wild beasts, and ready to face
man and to die, fighting valiantly to the last, in defence of
his wife and offspring. Whether the pig has improved or
deteriorated under the hand of man depends upon the
point of view from which he is regarded. Those engaged
in consuming the succulent ham, or the crisp rasher, would,
doubtless, reply in the affirmative; while the Indian officer,
on his return from a morning spent in the fierce and
hazardous sport of pig-sticking, would utter as decided a
negative. Between the wild boar and the domestic pig
the difference is as wide as between the aboriginal Briton
and the sleek alderman; and, in both cases, though
civilisation has done much, eating has done more to bring
about the change. Gluttony is undoubtedly at the root of
the pig’s present condition and status. It cannot be called
a gourmand, for it is not particular as to its food, and
demands quantity rather than quality. It is content to
eat and to sleep alternately, and the whole energy of its
naturally vigorous disposition is devoted to putting on fat.
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
The consequence is, it is ready for market at almost any
period of existence. Whether as the toothsome sucking-pig
or as a venerable great-great-grandmother, the pig is,
after a period of repose and extra feeding, equally appreciated
as an article of food. Other animals become tough
and lean in old age; the pig knows its duty to man better
than this, and is ready at all times of its life to bring itself
into the condition fitted for the knife. In his wild state
the boar is swift of
foot, clad in a coat
of coarse, thick
hairs, with bristling
spine. His tusks
are very formidable
weapons, and
he can use his
strong forelegs to
strike with effect.
Even the royal
tiger will shun a
contest with this
sturdy warrior, unless absolutely driven to it by hunger.
His cousins and relations all share his courage. The
peccary of Mexico, small as he is, will when in bands
attack the jaguar, or even man, with absolute confidence,
and, although many may fall in the assault, will, in either
case, almost certainly prove the conqueror in the end;
while the wild pigs of Paraguay are equally fierce and
formidable, and, having driven a hunter into a tree, will
remain round it, and refuse to retreat until scores have
fallen by his rifle, or until they are driven away by hunger.
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
The domestic pig, like the Britons when under the tutelage
of the Romans, would seem to have lost his warlike virtues,
were it not that there still lingers in his wicked little eye an
expression of savage defiance that speaks of a consciousness
of latent power ready to break into open war did he see
a prospect of emancipating himself from his degrading
slavery.
.pi
There is a prejudice against the pig because he is
dirty. It is difficult to imagine a more unreasonable one.
He is kept by man in a filthy stye, penned in within the
narrowest possible limits, and deprived of the decencies
of life. Under such circumstances, it is practically impossible
that he could be otherwise than dirty. As in his
wild state he is protected by a coat of smooth bristles from
the dirt, nature has not bestowed upon him the long and
flexible tongue that enables the dog and cat tribe to clean
themselves. His short neck, too, renders it impossible for
him to reach the greater portion of his body. The fact
that his skin becomes dirty from the conditions under
which he lives would matter comparatively little, so far as
the estimation in which man holds him, were he covered
with hair. Man is tolerant of dirt when it is not brought
prominently under his notice, and it is the height of injustice
to blame the pig for a hairlessness which is solely
due to the fact that he is kept in comparatively warm
quarters. The pig of Italy and Sardinia, which for the
greater portion of the year picks up his living in the forests
in a state of semi-wildness, is still well clothed with hair;
and, indeed, it is only when kept entirely in confinement, as
with us, that he almost wholly loses his natural covering.
The pig is an eminently vocal animal, and even in the
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
bosom of his family he maintains a steady, if to man
monotonous, conversation. He possesses a large variety of
notes, in this respect far surpassing any other animal. The
cat has an extensive register, but principally among the
high notes; while the pig’s tones embrace the whole gamut,
from the deep grunt of discontent to the wild shriek of
despair. Properly educated, the pig should be capable of
vocal triumphs of a very high kind, its upper notes being as
clear and no more unpleasant than the corresponding ones
of an operatic soprano, while the lower ones would be the
envy of a basso profundo. It is a little singular that no
persistent effort should have been made to utilise the pig’s
vocal powers in this direction, although he has at times
been taught to spell and to perform other feats requiring
as high an intelligence as that of singing.
The pig is capable of adapting himself to all and any
circumstances in which he may find himself. In Ireland it
complacently accepts the position of a member of the
family; in Africa and the East, where flesh is not in demand,
and no one takes the trouble to fatten him, he readily assumes
the office of scavenger in general, and performs that role
admirably. No one has yet, so far as we are aware,
adopted the pig as a drawing-room pet; and yet, if tended
with the same care bestowed upon the lap-dog, there is no
reason why he should not shine in that capacity. His tail is
fully as curly as that of the pug, his skin may compare not
unfavourably with that of the shaved poodle, while in point
of sprightliness he is, at any rate in his younger days, superior
to the bulldog. He would not run up curtains like a kitten,
nor knock down valuable ornaments from the chimney-piece;
while he might, doubtless, be trained with very little
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
trouble into becoming an efficient guard in the house. He
is certainly capable of affection, and, as all acquainted with
his habits are aware, has pronounced likes and dislikes.
In the East the pig is viewed with extreme abhorrence,
or, at the best, with contempt; but as he shares this feeling
with the dog, it must be regarded rather as a proof of the
want of perspicuity on the part of man than of any demerit
on that of the pig. The pig does not naturally take to the
water, and it would have been well had he been, like the
dog, encouraged to do so, for when once fairly driven to it
he is a good swimmer; and the popular belief, that he cuts
his own throat with its fore feet, is, like many other popular
beliefs, wholly erroneous, although it is true that he will
sometimes, in his first flurry at finding himself in an unaccustomed
element, scratch his cheeks somewhat severely.
In the early days of our history the pig formed an even
more important article of food than he does now. The
swineherd was a much more common personage than the
shepherd; and, indeed, at a time when the greater part of
the country was covered with a dense forest, sheep must
have been comparatively few and rare. In all the descriptions
of the banquets of our forefathers swine’s flesh stands
in the very first position, and seems to have been a much
more common article of nutriment than beef. The pig,
indeed, affords a great variety of food. The boar’s head,
properly garnished, is a lordly dish; brawn has always
been regarded as a delicacy; and pig’s flesh is good whether
boiled or roasted, salted or smoked. The pig can be eaten
almost to the last scrap, for his feet are edible, chitterlings
and tripe are relished by many, and from his superabundant
fat we have the lard so useful to housewives.
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
His skin furnishes an excellent leather. His bristles are
unrivalled for the manufacture of brushes. Our ancestors
showed their wisdom in the warm appreciation of the pig,
and no small proportion of our cousins, the Americans, exist
almost entirely upon his flesh. The pig is an admirable
emigrant, and appears to be almost indifferent to climate,
flourishing wherever it has been introduced—from the
sunny islands of the South Seas to the rigour of a Canadian
winter. So that it can be given sufficient food or obtain it
by foraging, he is contented, and applies himself vigorously
to the work of putting on flesh and rearing frequent and
extensive families. The contempt with which the pig is
too generally regarded should be exchanged for a respectful
admiration of his numerous and varied excellences.
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=CATERPILLARS
CATERPILLARS.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.45 0.65
BUTTERFLIES and gnats, bees, ants, flies, crickets,
and many other insects, have inspired writers of
poetry or prose; but up to the present time, as far as we
know, no one has made the caterpillar his theme. Yet,
closely examined, many of the caterpillars are well-nigh as
gorgeous in their raiment as the most beautiful of butterflies.
The caterpillar is free from the flippancy and vanity of the
butterfly—who spends by far the greater portion of its life
in play and flirtation; it has business to do, and does it
conscientiously, and is indeed a character to be admired,
save in the matter of the destruction of choice vegetables,
for which, after all, its mother, who deposited the egg upon
them, is, in fact, solely responsible. The caterpillar is infinite
in its variety of hue, but chiefly affects black, ashen
grey, and white, bright greens, yellows and browns with rich
bands or blotches of white, yellow and scarlet, and indeed
almost every variety of brilliant colour. Sometimes it is
soft, smooth, and hairless; at others covered with a short,
thick, silken coat like velvet; and occasionally bristling with
long, stiff hair, a very porcupine among its fellows. Caterpillars
from the time they are born give evidence of the
possession of two predominant faculties, the one an all-devouring
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
appetite; the other, the knowledge of constant
danger and the efforts to escape the eye of their teeming
foes. This they do in accordance with varied instincts
inherited from progenitors.
.pi
Some will hide on the under side of a leaf, others will
eat into its substance, and establish themselves a domicile
between the outer and inner tissue, proceeding at once to
enlarge their house and to satisfy their appetites. Others,
on the approach of danger, will curl themselves up, and
drop to the ground, trusting to fortune to fall between two
clods of earth, but, in any case, shamming death until the
danger has, as they believe, passed away. Another kind,
a greyish-brown in colour, and rough and knobby of skin,
will stand upright, imitating so exactly the appearance of a
little bent twig, that the keenest eye would fail to detect the
difference; while a great many caterpillars guard themselves
against unpleasant surprises by establishing themselves from
the first in a place of concealment, and there passing the
greater portion of their lives. When, as not unfrequently
happens, the chosen hiding-place is in the heart of a bud
just beginning to form, the results are naturally the death
of the flower, and extreme exasperation upon the part of
its owner. There is nothing pugnacious about the caterpillar,
all its means of defence being more or less passive
in their character. A not inconsiderable section no sooner
leave the egg than they set to work to form themselves a
shelter by turning over the edge of the leaf, and fastening
it with silken threads, so as to form at once a house and a
hiding-place. Lastly, there are the caterpillars who live in
communities, and establish a rampart against their foes by
throwing round their dwelling-place a thick curtain of silken
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
threads, through which their insect foes cannot break, while
even birds seem to hold it in high respect.
The mission of the caterpillar may be considered as two-fold:
he has to reach the chrysalis stage, from which he
will emerge as a butterfly or moth, and then perpetuate his
species; and he is an admirable machine for the conversion
of vegetable matter into a form in which it can be digested
and relished by birds. He stands to the feathered world,
indeed, in exactly the same position that the ox and the
sheep occupy in relation to man. Although partial to seeds
and fruits, birds are not vegetarians in the broad sense of
the term, and many would starve had they nothing but
leaves, whether of the rose or the cabbage, to devour; the
caterpillar then comes to the rescue, and forms the intermediary
link. He possesses an appetite of extraordinary
voracity, and in the course of his not very long life eats
many hundred times his own weight of vegetables, and
converts them into a rich and luscious food for the birds.
It may be said that, in some respects at least, the instincts
of caterpillars must be defective, or, knowing that their
plumpness is their danger, they would eat less. This is no
doubt true, but as it is true also of sheep and bullocks, it
can hardly be made the subject of reproach to the caterpillar.
But, after all, vast as is the number of caterpillars who
go to feed the birds, it cannot be said that birds are by any
means their chief enemy. Their great foe and relentless
exterminator is the ichneumon, against whom none of their
cunning devices of concealment avail, for he can discover
them unerringly in their inmost lurking-places. The ichneumon
varies in size as greatly as does the caterpillar himself.
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
Some of them are as long as wasps, although with a slender
body, no thicker than a bodkin; some so tiny that they can
scarce be seen with the naked eye; but all are alike in their
habits. Watch one, large or small, as he settles upon a
leaf. Straightway he begins to hunt up and down with
quick eager motion, like a dog quartering a turnip field for
partridges. Up and down, below and above, prying into
every cranny, he hunts, hurrying from one leaf to another
until he finds a caterpillar. He wastes no time with him,
but thrusts the long ovipositor through the skin, and places
an egg there snugly. He repeats this two, three, or half a
dozen times, according to his own size, and that to which
the caterpillar will grow. His young ones must be fed
where they are hatched, and it would not do to lay more
than the caterpillar can support. What the sensations of
the caterpillar are when thus treated no one has so far
attempted to explain. It gives a little wince each time the
operation is performed, and then pursues its vocation as
quietly as if nothing had happened. There can be little
doubt that it is profoundly discouraged; it must feel that
all its efforts to elude the foe have been wasted. It doubtless
knows that it has received its death wound, that it will
never soar in the air as a bright-winged butterfly, and that
its chrysalis state will be its last. It speaks well, then, for
the sense of duty of the caterpillar, that it goes as doggedly
on as before, eating as largely and steadily as if nothing
had occurred, and showing no sign of pain or disturbance
at the birth of foes, who soon begin to gnaw away at its
interior. It is to be hoped, indeed, that it suffers but
slightly. The organs of the caterpillar are simple. It is
little more than a tube, and it is probable that its sensibility
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
is slight. Still it is inevitable that it must suffer more or
less; but it goes on until, just as it is about to assume the
chrysalis state, or shortly after it has done so, it dies, and
the little ichneumons make their way through its skin, and,
after a brief repose, fly away to recommence the deadly
work of their parents. It is calculated that fully 80 per
cent. of caterpillars are slain by ichneumons.
The caterpillar is distinguished for its imperturbable good
temper; no one has yet witnessed a good stand-up fight
between two of them. Even when browsing in hundreds
upon a leaf, each caterpillar continues its work of eating,
wholly regardless of the multitude feeding around it. Its
fellows may press it on every side, or walk across its back,
without its evincing the slightest sign of irritability, or even
dissatisfaction. It may be said that, after all, this host are its
brethren, and that the nearness of the family tie produces
this feeling of universal benignity. But family ties are not
always found to have this effect, even among human beings,
and, moreover, the caterpillar’s good temper and forbearance
extend to individuals of entirely different species and
families. The largest caterpillar coming across a small one
makes no attempt to bully or interfere with it, and the
whole race appear to be imbued with a spirit of admirable
courtesy and gentleness.
The caterpillar, in confinement, develops qualities of a
quite distinct nature to those which it exhibits in the wild
state. The silkworm caterpillar, for example, is intolerant
of noise of any kind, and the most absolute silence is
maintained in the feeding house. It is not that noise excites
irritability or anger, but it fills it with such disgust
that it falls ill and speedily dies. Gardeners would be
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
gratified, perhaps, were the wild caterpillar equally susceptible;
as, in that case, two or three discharges of a gun
would extirpate the whole race throughout the extent of
a garden. The caterpillar is clearly worthy of much greater
attention and study than it has yet received; and as we are
told to look to the ant and the bee as examples of patience
and industry, so we may advantageously take a lesson of
courtesy and good temper from the hitherto little regarded
caterpillar.
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=FOWL
THE DOMESTIC FOWL.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE males of the gallinaceous family may be regarded
as types of what is best and most chivalrous in man,
and the cock bird of the variety that has become domesticated
by man has lost none of the qualities that distinguish
his wild congenitors. He is among birds what the knight
of chivalry was among the herd of humanity in the Middle
Ages. Splendid in his appearance, erect and martial in
gait, proud of his prowess, fierce in battle, ready to die
rather than acknowledge his defeat, he is yet the mirror of
courtesy among his dames. Not only does he guard them
from all foes, but he watches over their safety with anxious
care, leads them to the spot where food is the most
abundant, and will even scratch the ground to procure
dainties for them. He possesses, too, the faults of the
human type; he is needlessly quarrelsome, and prone to
take offence; he will challenge to combat a distant stranger
with whom he has no dispute whatever, and will fight for
fighting’s sake, while, if victorious, he indulges in a good deal
of unseemly exultation and boasting at the expense of his
foe. Whatever his hue, whether clad in brilliantly-coloured
panoply or in burnished black, the cock is the type of
the true warrior, with his bright eye, his martial mien, his
readiness for battle, his obstinate courage, and the display
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
of a certain foppery in the care that he bestows upon his
appearance. While other birds fight with beak and wing,
the cock is furnished by nature with a dagger, a formidable
weapon, especially in that branch of the family in which the
martial qualities are carried to their highest development—the
game fowl. The cock can use his beak with effect,
but it is upon his spur that he mainly
relies for victory. Throughout the
whole of the gallinaceæ the same
characteristics are observable in a
more or less marked degree. The male of the pheasant,
grouse, blackcock, and their numerous cousins and relations,
are all pugnacious to a degree, proud of displaying their
airs and graces to their wives, and ready to answer the
most distant challenge uttered by another male.
.if h
.il fn=p091.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Domestic Fowl]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.pi
The period at which the fowl was first domesticated is
lost in obscurity. The early Greek writers mention it as
a bird held from remote antiquity in high honour, and
Peisthetærus says that it is called the Persian bird, and at
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
one time reigned over that country. It is to the East, then,
that we must look for the ancestors of the domestic fowl,
although it is not known how the breed was introduced into
Greece or the South of Europe. It may either have come
through Northern India, or Persia, or have been introduced
by Phœnician traders. It figured early on Greek and
Roman coinage, and was carried in the public shows of
those nations. It was dedicated by the ancients to Apollo,
Mercury, Æsculapius, and Mars and the Romans, good
judges in matters gastronomic, had already discovered
that it was best when fattened and crammed in the dark.
Probably the Phœnicians brought it to Britain when
they came for tin; at any rate, it was here before the
invasion of Cæsar, who tells us that the Britons abstained
from tasting the hare, the cock, and the goose, although
they bred them for pleasure—probably, in the case of the
cock, for its fighting powers. As poultry have been found
domesticated in widely different localities, among peoples
having no communication with each other, and even in
islands in the South Seas, which must have been cut off
from communication with the mainland for vast periods
of time, it is evident that their domestication must have
taken place in the very earliest times, or that there was a
natural fearlessness and a desire for man’s companionship
on the part of the fowl that marked it out as specially
adapted to be his servant and purveyor.
The hand of man has brought about many changes in
the bird by the intermingling of species, by careful breeding
to render accidental peculiarities permanent, and by other
methods; by these a great variety of breeds have now been
established differing widely from each other in size and
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
plumage. The breed in general, doubtless, owes its popularity
partially to its appearance and courage, but still more
to the flavour of its flesh, its great power of increase, and
to its productiveness in the matter of eggs. Other birds
lay as many eggs as they desire to have offspring. The hen
is less selfish, and will produce a vastly larger number of
eggs than she is able to hatch. As the wild bird is not so
prodigal, it can only be supposed that this fecundity in the
matter of eggs is upon the part of the hen a proof of gratitude
for the food she receives from man, a trait which, in
itself, should place her high in man’s estimation.
While the cock is, above all things, a warrior, the hen is
the type of the careful housewife and affectionate mother.
Nothing can exceed the care and attention she bestows
upon her young—feeding them, guarding them, and teaching
them with constant attention, and with occasional chidings
when disposed to wander from her. She is no gadabout,
and her whole thoughts are centred upon her duty. But
although so affectionate a mother and submissive a wife, the
hen is mindful of her position as the spouse of a warrior;
and as the wives of the knights of old would, on occasion,
don armour, and in their husbands’ absence defend their
castles, so the hen is ready, when danger threatens, to face
boldly the dog or the hawk in defence of her children.
Neither the cock nor his spouse possesses the power of
singing, although they can utter a large variety of sounds,
from the gentle cluck of contentment, the incessant talk by
the mother to her children, and her triumphant announcement
of the laying of an egg, to the cock’s bold challenge
to battle—the latter being as unique a sound among birds as
is the bray of the donkey among beasts.
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
Poets have, with their usual inaccuracy, been accustomed
to associate the crowing of the cock with the dawning of
morn. The neighbours of persons who keep fowls know
better. Unfortunately, the cock appears to be entirely
unaware that it is possible to have too much even of a good
thing, and is ready at all hours of the day or night to lift up
his voice in defiance of
all or any within hearing,
or to accept the most
distant challenge borne
upon the air. This
constitutes a grave defect
upon the part of
the cock. Among human beings we are accustomed to
consider the constant braggart to be a coward. No such
suspicion can attach to the cock; but it is a pity that he
cannot be brought to understand that it is useless to be
uttering defiances at all times, when the interposition of a
strong wire netting renders combat impossible.
.if h
.il fn=p094.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Hens]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
The cock can, however, be silenced. Just as the donkey
cannot bray without straightening its tail, the cock cannot
crow without standing perfectly erect. A light plank, or
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
even a lath, placed above his perch, so as to prevent him
raising his head to the fullest, will effectually silence him.
To the negro race the attractions of the domestic bird are
simply irresistible, being shared, however, by those of the
melon. In the United States it is found that even the most
irreproachable conduct in every other respect, together with
a close chapel membership, fail to brace him to resist their
temptations, and that the fowl-house and melon patch are
attractions irresistible to the negro. Indeed, a yielding to
temptation in this respect is regarded by him as no more
serious an offence than is the purloining of an umbrella or
the cheating the Customs by an Englishman.
The domestic fowl, although itself affording delicate
eating, is in no way particular about its own food, and is in
this respect almost omnivorous. Insects, slugs, and worms
are doubtless its natural food, but it delights in grain of all
kinds, and will eat with avidity vegetable refuse and kitchen
scraps of every description. Neither fish, flesh, nor fowl
comes amiss to it, nor does it, as far as it is known, suffer
from indigestion, although occasionally inconvenienced by
over-eating. But as the greater part of humanity also suffer
from partaking of a much larger quantity of food than is
necessary for existence, it would be unfair to blame the fowl
on this account. Upon the whole, the cock and his wife
are, except for a tendency to be quarrelsome and an inordinate
fondness for lifting up his voice on the part of the former,
a couple deserving our highest admiration, alike for the
courage and valour of the male, the domestic virtues of
the female, and the assiduity which they display not only in
the multiplication of their race, but in the provision of a
large supply of most wholesome and nutritious food to man.
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SPARROW
THE SPARROW.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
IF, out of the whole feathered creation, one bird had to
be selected as the national emblem, it is questionable
whether, upon the whole, any could be found more suited
to the position than the sparrow. He is a bold, daring
bird; where he settles he speedily makes himself master
of the position, and elbows out all rivals. He can adapt
himself to all climates; he is prolific, and multiplies with
appalling rapidity. He can make himself at home equally
in town or country, and manages to thrive where other
birds would die. He has, of course, some characteristics
which Englishmen would perhaps repudiate, but it must be
owned that the natives of every other country are almost
unanimous in crediting us with their possession. He is
quarrelsome, combative, self-sufficient, given to bullying
the weak, and has an excellent opinion of himself. If a
foreigner were asked to describe our national characteristics,
some of these qualities would certainly be included in the list;
and it is a question if any bird possesses so large a share
of our national characteristics as does the sparrow. He
is distinguished for his partiality to the neighbourhood
of human abodes. The swallow may build as frequently
against houses, but he only uses them as a convenience,
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
and gathers his food or takes his pleasure entirely regardless
of the inhabitants of the house against which he builds.
The sparrow, on the contrary, would just as lief place his
nest near a house as on it. He will build in a disused chimney,
or a gutter, or rain-pipe; but if none of these places suit
his fancy, he will establish his nest in the ivy covered wall
near at hand, or in a clump of bushes, and, having so built,
he proceeds to get at once benefit and amusement from his
human neighbours. He regards their fruit trees and rows
of peas as planted for his special benefit. He sits on the
edge of the roof and observes man as he walks in his
garden with evident interest and amusement, and discusses
his peculiarities loudly and volubly with a friend on an adjoining
roof. He is quite fearless of man’s presence, and will
pursue his search for insects on the lawn within a few feet
of him; and he relies confidently upon receiving offerings of
food in hard, frosty weather in return for his friendship.
He alone, of birds, makes himself thoroughly at home in the
crowded streets, perfectly fearless of passing vehicles. He
is gregarious by habit, and it is to be remarked that there
is nothing selfish about him. Throw out a handful of
crumbs upon the snow, and its first discoverer will joyously
call his mates to share in it; and if fights do occasionally
arise over the division, it is apparent that there is no malice
about them, but that, like the Irish, the sparrow fights from
high spirits and “a love of divarshun.”
.pi
While the sparrow is favourably viewed by the dwellers
of towns and their suburbs, it must be owned that he
is not regarded in the same light in the agricultural
districts. He is eminently a Socialist, and inclines to the
doctrine of equal rights. When he is comparatively few in
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
numbers man does not grudge him the small share he
claims, but when his numbers are legion it becomes another
matter. The farmer regards his stacks and his crops as
his private property, and when myriads of sparrows demand
toll the agriculturist is apt to become rusty. He sees the
sparrow only on his predaceous side, and has no leisure
to investigate his amiable qualities. The few insects the
sparrow may destroy in his leisure moments weigh but little
in the farmer’s mind as against the loss of his crops of
cherries, the general destruction of his peas, or a wholesale
raid upon his corn stacks, and so he betakes himself to net
and gun. This would seem hard upon the sparrow; but he
has no right to take it amiss, for it is his own habit to wage
a war of extermination against other birds wherever he
obtains a footing. The native birds of North America are
rapidly disappearing before the army of sparrows that have
sprung from the few hundreds sent out to cope with the
caterpillar which devastated the trees in the parks and
open spaces in New York—just as the aborigines of the
country have been almost wiped out by the Anglo-Saxon
settlers. Even in this country he is fast driving out other
and more useful birds; the tits and the finches abandon
neighbourhoods where he abounds, and the house martin
has almost disappeared from some localities. The consequences
of this tyrannical conduct will, in the long run,
recoil upon the sparrow himself. With the decrease of the
insect-feeding birds, the pests of our fields and gardens will
so multiply that, in self-defence, a crusade against the sparrow
will be organised in all rural districts. The movement
has, indeed, already begun in many localities, and in the
future we may expect the sparrow to leave the country
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
side, where he is neither liked nor appreciated, and to
establish himself altogether in towns, where his sprightliness
and fearlessness render him a favourite.
It may be admitted that his voice is not the strong point
of the sparrow, but perhaps it is as well that this should be
the case, for were he vocal the volume of sound would be
unbearable in neighbourhoods where he abounds. There
is, however, a cheeriness and good-fellowship about his
confident and inquisitive little chirp, and occasionally in
the days of his courtship he can emit a very cheerful
little song. Although so domestic in his habits, the sparrow
takes but little trouble with his nest. It is a ragged
collection of odds and ends, and is evidently built on the
assumption that his offspring will, like himself, have to be
handy and shift for themselves, and that anything like
luxury would be thrown away upon them. As a conversationalist
the sparrow excels. His short notes are very
numerous and varied, he is fond of learning the opinions
of his neighbours, and of laying down the law himself.
Animated discussions, warming sometimes into quarrels,
arise frequently from these consultations upon the housetop;
but they seldom last long. There is a rush into a bush and
a hot pursuit, sharp angry cries, and a momentary tussle;
and then, the matter having been arranged, the disputants
separate amicably and proceed on their various business.
The flight of the sparrow is not elegant; he wastes no
time in graceful curves and turnings, but hurls himself
straight at his mark. He has none of the restlessness of
the migrants; he has hard times here when the ground is
frozen and food is scarce, but he takes the rough with the
smooth, and has no thought of seeking warmer climes.
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
Contenting himself with the shelter of a bush, he fluffs out
his feathers, and reduces himself into the smallest compass,
so that he is almost unrecognisable as the alert little bird
with long neck and sprightly movements that we know in the
summer. His confidence in the goodwill of man in the time
of his distress is touching. Blackbirds, starlings, and thrushes
will come to share the feast man throws out; but they never
lose their fear of him, and are ready to take flight at the first
sign of his presence. The sparrow and the robin will alone
hold their ground, will light on the window sill fearlessly,
and will, if encouraged, even come into the room through
the open window; and the man must be hard of heart
indeed who will refuse to give them the little they need to
save them from perishing. Fortunately for the sparrow,
his flesh is not particularly toothsome, and there is but little
of it. Were it otherwise, it is to be feared that he would
not be spared; but that as Goths are found capable of
devouring that charming songster, the lark, still less respect
would be shown to the friendly sparrow.
Doubtless, the bird would be a less imposing national
emblem than the eagle, especially when the latter is adorned
with two or three heads; but he would be at least as respectable
a one. A cock sparrow rampant would be a not
unfitting emblem of the push, the energy, the hardiness, the
pluck, and the domesticity of the Englishman; and even its
self-sufficiency and its cockiness should not be taken amiss
by a nation who are, by the general consent of mankind, the
most arrogant and self-sufficient people upon earth. Should
anything happen to put us out of conceit with the lion, we
cannot do better than instal the sparrow in his place upon
the national arms.
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=FLIES
FLIES.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
ENGLISH poets, whenever they have condescended to
take notice of the domestic fly, have done so from a
favourable point of view. It is for them the sportive fly,
the jocund fly, or, at worst, the giddy fly. This in itself will
be a sufficient proof to future generations that the poets of
our day did not suffer from the loss of their hair, for no
bald-headed man would view the foibles of the fly indulgently.
It must, therefore, be assumed as proved that the
mental exercise of the elaboration of poetry causes a certain
cerebral warmth which conduces to the growth of the hair;
and this view of the case will receive an additional support
should any portraits of Lord Tennyson be extant at the
time when this investigation takes place. It is singular
that, whereas bald-headed men have a marked and unanimous
objection to flies, the latter have on their part a
warm and effusive affection for bald-headed men. No
philosopher has, so far as we know, attempted to explain
the irresistible attraction which a bald head presents to a
fly. It has been suggested, indeed, that, owing to its high
polish and its capacity for reflecting light, it is assumed to
be a luminous globe, and so exercises the same attraction
to the fly as the globe of a gas light does to the nocturnal
moth. A far more probable solution is that, as we know,
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
the feet of flies are provided with suckers, and that as but
few surfaces are sufficiently smooth for the perfect working
of these machines, they view a bald head as a delightful
place of exercise for them, and enjoy the fun exactly as
the street boy enjoys the similar sport of attaching a leather
sucker to the pavement and pulling at it with a string.
The fact that poets view the vagaries of the fly with a
mild indulgence will also, by our far-off descendants, be
taken as a proof that the poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries were well-paid and well-to-do persons,
living in cool and shaded abodes; for undoubtedly, although
the wealthy man who dwells in houses of this
kind may view the fly with gentle tolerance, and even with
amusement, such is not the light in which it is regarded in
the dwellings of the poor. Indeed, it may be said that,
with the exceptions named, the fly is invariably regarded
as an unmitigated nuisance, rising in many countries to
the dignity of a scourge.
.pi
In small numbers—in very small numbers—it may be
admitted that the fly is, as Artemus Ward would have said,
an “amoosing little cuss.” His restless, and apparently
purposeless, circling and dancing in the air, the way in
which he is perpetually charging any other of his species
who flies near him, the earnestness and perseverance with
which he brushes his many-lensed eyes with his forelegs,
and arranges his wings, the gravity with which he inspects
and tastes the sugar and other articles on the table, the
confidence with which he treats all that is yours as his, and
the pertinacity with which he insists on committing suicide
in the milk jug—all these traits are amusing when you do
not get too much of them.
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
The raison d’être of the fly has not yet been discovered.
Naturalists tell us that he belongs to the order of Diptera—that
is, that he has but two wings—but they cannot tell us
much more about him. The common house fly is provided
only with a proboscis, somewhat resembling that of the
elephant, with which he takes up moisture; but he has a
cousin exactly resembling him, who when, relying upon this
likeness, you allow him to settle on the back of the hand,
neck, or other surface of flesh, instantly digs in a sharp
lancet, which is capable of drawing blood. Happily, however,
this treacherous cousin is comparatively rare, and
none of the poets appear to have been familiar with him.
But if in England it is still doubtful why the fly was created,
there is no hesitation on that point in foreign countries.
There the consensus of opinion is unanimous. The fly was
made to try the patience of man. He was intended to
make human life a burden by his buzzing, his settling, and
his tickling, by the zeal he shows in rendering food uneatable,
and by the cunning with which he circumvents all
the efforts of man to interfere with his designs.
No one, indeed, can watch a fly engaged in the work of
human torment without entertaining a suspicion that he is
possessed of a certain diabolical instinct. So long as the
man is wide awake, the fly will keep at a distance, unless,
indeed, he sees that he is engaged in writing, and that his
hands are ineffective for offensive purposes. The instant,
however, that drowsiness steals over the subject, the fly,
who has pretended to be taking no notice whatever of him,
but to be engaged in a game of touch-as-touch-can with two
or three of his comrades in the air, at once gives up his
romps and takes to business. Choosing the most sensitive
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
point he can find, he alights upon it, and begins to shuffle
his feet about. A score of times he repeats this performance,
generally selecting a fresh spot each time, and always
evading any slaps aimed at him. It is remarkable that
while at other times he flies noiselessly, he begins to buzz
when he commences this game, so that even when he does
not settle, he causes watchfulness and drives away sleep.
The fly who establishes himself in the kitchen enjoys
higher delights than the flies who occupy other portions
of the house. Cooks are notoriously an irritable genus,
and the more irritable a victim, the more a fly enjoys
tormenting him or her. Besides, cooks often have their
hands full, and so are unable to defend themselves, and
a fly always in preference attacks a person under these
conditions. It is an admitted fact that flies possess a
strong esprit de corps, and that they resent any interference
with their ways. In a house where flies are undisturbed,
they take good care not to be troublesome beyond a certain
point. But if war is waged upon them, they are implacable.
The foolish man who tries fly paper, whether of the sticky
or poisonous sort, will soon regret having done so, for
legions of flies assemble to revenge their slaughtered comrades.
For every one slain a hundred put in their appearance,
and madness is the probable result of perseverance
in the crusade against them. The Egyptian woman is well
aware of this, and will allow a hundred flies to settle undisturbed
around her infant’s eyes, knowing that if she
brushes them away worse will befall.
As autumn draws to its close, the fly changes his habits.
He ceases to gambol in the air, for although his attacks
upon human beings become more persistent and annoying
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
than before, the quickness and the cunning are gone, and
an obstinate, blundering stupidity has taken their place, and
the fly in turn becomes the victim. If he escape this fate,
upon finding death at hand he selects some spot where his
demise will be particularly objectionable to the careful
mistress of the house: a window, a looking-glass, a
burnished ornament, or even a particularly white piece
of wall-paper is chosen, and there he dies, a white
fungus growing out of his body, and spreading to some
distance around the spot where he has breathed his last.
Whether this white fungus is the cause of his death, or
whether his death is the cause of the white fungus, is still a
point of dispute among the learned; the rest of mankind
are contented to know that he is dead.
Unhappily, a certain proportion live over the winter,
taking refuge in warm nooks and corners, and hibernating
there. So seldom are they found, however, that it is a
belief among the unlearned that the fly, like the swallow,
is a migratory creature, and that upon the approach of cold
weather he seeks warmer climes. It is urged, with a strong
show of reason, how can all the vast number of flies destined
to be the parents of the countless myriads in the following
year hide away so as to escape detection? Scientific men
have never attempted to grapple with the problem, but
cover their ignorance by saying that as they are sure flies
do not migrate, and as flies do reappear in the spring, it
is self-evident they must hide away somewhere; and with
this dictum the public must be content. Taken all in all,
it must be admitted that the fly has a good time of it, and
that his life is devoted solely to amusement, varied by
feeding. Most other creatures labour hard for a not
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
inconsiderable portion of their life in the preparation for
and care of their young. The fly neither builds nests like
the birds, nor lays up stores of food like the bees and wasps,
nor pierces holes in wood like the beetles, nor spends half
his time in the hunt for food like most quadrupeds. He
assumes no responsibilities, for he has neither home nor
family. Man places his food on tables for him, and builds
mansions in which he can sport, untroubled by the weather.
As the fly is found in every part of the known world, it
must be assumed that he really has his uses, and that he
possesses some latent virtue, edible or medicinal, which
a future generation will, it may be hoped, discover and
turn to account.
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=PARROT
THE PARROT.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE parrot is at once wise and amusing—a conjunction
seldom observed in the human race. Under the
general denomination of parrots are included several distinct
species, varying from the great macaw to the tiny paroquet,
having an exceeding wide range of distribution, being found
in South America, Africa, and India, and the group of
islands stretching down to Australia. Brilliant colouring is
the most striking characteristic of the family, although there
are some members, especially the parrot of Western Africa,
that are almost Quaker-like in the quiet grey of their
plumage. Next, perhaps, to their colour, their most notable
characteristic is the extreme harshness of their voices,
which are at once shriller, more discordant, and more
agonising to the human ear than the sound uttered by any
other of the animal creation, being approached only by
the feminine voice when raised in anger. It is the more
surprising that this should be so, since, as is evidenced by
his nice powers of imitation, the parrot is endowed with a
delicate ear, and there can be little doubt that the quality of
his own voice, and of the voices of his wife, his family, and
neighbours, must be a serious drawback to his happiness.
Many parrots are gregarious in their habits, and the noise
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
made by one of these flocks is prodigious. The shrill
screams, the angry scoldings, and hoarse ejaculations create
a din not altogether dissimilar to that which must have
arisen from a city in ancient times when being sacked by
a victorious soldiery. Among the smaller species, such as
paroquets, every movement is marked by grace and agility.
They are restless and playful, and very affectionate in their
intercourse with each other. Attachment between husband
and wife is very tender and lasting, and the death of one is
generally followed speedily by that of its mate. We have
less opportunity of observing the domestic relations of the
larger parrots—the macaws and cockatoos—for few men
are hardy enough to support the noise of more than one
of these birds, and a scolding match between a cockatoo
and his wife would be sufficiently discordant to empty even
the largest house of all other inmates. It is singular that
the tongue of this, the noisiest of birds, resembles more
closely that of man than does the tongue of any other bird,
being singularly thick and fleshy; it is doubtless due to this
peculiarity that it is able to imitate the tones of the human
voice so accurately as to defy discrimination.
.if h
.il fn=p109.jpg w=600px
.ca
“Indulging in a Variety of Strange Antics.”
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 8
.ti -4
[Illustration: “Indulging in a Variety of Strange Antics.”]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.pi
While cheerfulness, sociability, and activity characterise the
smaller parrots, the larger birds are marked by the striking
variation of their moods. At times they will exhibit for
hours an extreme restlessness, climbing up and down their
perches, hanging head downwards, and indulging in a variety
of strange antics. At others they will sit for long periods
almost immovable, being distinguishable only from stuffed
birds by the occasional droop over the eyeball of their
white filmy eyelids. The mental characteristics of the
larger parrots can hardly be termed agreeable, being marked
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
by cynicism, malice, and a consciousness of superior wisdom.
We do not say the assumption of superior wisdom, because no
one can doubt its existence; and one of the problems which
the human mind has failed to solve is what there is that the
parrot doesn’t know. Diogenes in his tub could hardly have
been wiser or more cynical than an elderly cockatoo; and a
human being, when watching one of these birds, feels the
same consciousness of youth and inexperience that David
Copperfield always suffered from in the presence of the
irreproachable Littimer, and that the traveller in Egypt experiences
when gazing at the Sphinx. One cannot but feel
that the parrot has, in addition to his inborn stock of wisdom,
acquired a deep knowledge of human nature, as the
result of years of careful study; that he has weighed man in
the balance, and has come to the conclusion that he is altogether
wanting. There is, too, the unpleasant feeling that
the parrot has studied almost exclusively the worst side of
human nature. The leer of his half-closed eye, the mocking
laugh, the expression of malice in his tones, the hypocritical
demeanour of friendliness until a finger approaches near
enough to be seized—all this testifies sadly to the fact that
the parrot has assimilated the worst qualities of man, while
there is no sign that the better ones have made the slightest
impression upon him. Of benevolence there is no trace, and,
although capable of affection towards his mistress, he treats
all other persons with equal nonchalance and contempt,
although he may be cajoled into temporary familiarity by
the offer of favourite food. The deep emphasis with which
he mutters “Poor Polly,” shows the intense self-pity with
which he views his forced habitation among such trivial and
contemptible companions, and his regret at his own moral
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
degeneration, the result of association with them. He
knows that under happier circumstances he might have
grown a respected patriarch in his native wilds, honoured,
by those able to appreciate him, for his wisdom, and surrounded
by respectful and admiring descendants, and it is
the contrast between this and his present lot that has soured
the bird’s temper and made him a cynic and a misanthrope.
Hardly less prominent a characteristic among parrots
than cynicism is malice. The parrot delights openly and
undisguisedly in giving annoyance. To seize the tail of a
passing cat, or to awaken a sleeping dog with a sharp bite,
affords him a delight over which he will laugh for hours.
It is a pleasure to him to interrupt a quiet conversation
with wild and sudden screams, and if by imitating a tradesman’s
cry he can give a servant the trouble of going to the
door, his malicious pleasure is unbounded.
The upper mandible of the beak of the parrot bears the
same relation to that of other birds, as does the nose of the
elephant to the similar feature among quadrupeds. Instead
of being fixed to the skull, it is furnished with a separate
bone, and is attached by a sort of natural hinge to it. He
is thus able to open his mouth to a very wide extent, and
to grasp a finger, a nut, or any other object with amazing
force. In bestowing this faculty upon the parrot, Nature
had an eye solely to the creature’s own benefit, and entirely
disregarded the possible consequences to man. The foot,
too, has an exceptional formation, giving the bird great
power of grasp, enabling it at once to climb, to hang head
downwards, or to hold its food while it devours it, with a
power and facility almost unequalled among birds. It is
not surprising that, with its power of imitating the human
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
voice, and of modulating the natural harshness of its accents
to the softest tones of that of a woman, with its human-like
manner of taking its food, its close attention to everything
that passes around it, and its evident wisdom, the parrot
has from the oldest times been regarded with a certain
superstitious respect by man. Ælian states that in India
these birds were the favourite inmates of the palaces of the
princes, and were regarded as objects of sacred reverence
by the people. Among civilised nations this feeling has
to some extent died out, but even now servant maids
generally regard their mistresses’ parrots with dislike and
aversion, being never quite sure that the parrot will not
act the part of a tell-tale, and mention to its mistress that
a shattered ornament was not really, as supposed, the
work of the cat. The aversion is almost always mutual,
a parrot very seldom admitting the slightest approach
of familiarity on the part of a domestic, regarding her
with the aversion which the dog manifests towards the
tramp. Throughout the East the parrot has always been
regarded as a bird possessed of mysterious knowledge and
power, and frequently bears a prominent part in Arab
legends. As a proof of the ingrained wickedness of the
parrot’s nature, it need only be pointed out that it possesses
a remarkable facility in acquiring bad language, and will
pick up sailors’ oaths far more readily than it will acquire
polite language. Upon the whole, although endowed
with remarkable physical advantages, it must regretfully be
owned that the parrot is a striking example of misapplied
talent.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=COCKROACH
THE COCKROACH.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE cockroach, the black-beetle of the London kitchen,
is a creature that excites an amount of repulsion
that cannot be accounted for or explained. There is nothing
threatening in its appearance, as in that of some of the larvæ,
notably the one popularly known as the “devil’s coach-horse.”
It is unprovided with offensive weapons at either
extremity; it can neither sting nor bite. It has not the habit
of startling nervous persons by leaping suddenly upon them,
as do the cricket and grasshopper. There is nothing about
its figure that should be displeasing to the eye. It is, as
far as man is concerned, absolutely harmless, and yet it
certainly excites in the majority of persons a feeling of
aversion approaching abhorrence, such as no other insect
gives rise to. The cold light of reason fails to discover any
ground for such a feeling, and it has been gravely adduced
by some as a proof of the truth of the belief in the transmigration
of souls; and that only upon the assumption that
the souls of evil men are condemned to pass a portion of
their future existence in the form of cockroaches, can the
general antipathy to these creatures be accounted for.
.pi
There are many unsolved problems connected with the
cockroach. Where does he come from, and especially
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
where did he abide before man began to build houses?
In this country, at any rate, he always takes up his abode
in the habitation man provides for him. No one ever
came across him in the fields or woods. It is in the
house he lives and multiplies. He fears man and shuns
his society, and yet appears to have a mysterious attraction
to his abodes; the cricket only among insects, and the
mouse and the rat among quadrupeds, share with the
cockroach his partiality for human dwellings. But the
cricket is but a domesticated grasshopper, the mouse has
a country cousin, and the rat will take up his abode in
many other localities. The cockroach alone is never found
elsewhere, and has no relations in any way closely connected
with him who are dwellers in the open air.
Next to man’s houses, the blatta, as he is scientifically
called, loves his ships; but the variety that is found in vessels,
especially in those trading with the East, is a larger, uglier,
and in every way more repulsive creature than his English
cousin. Once on board—and there is scarce a ship afloat
into which he has not smuggled himself—he is there to stay,
and short of sinking the vessel, or of fastening down the
hatches and suffocating him with the fumes of sulphur, there
is no way of getting rid of him. He multiplies with extraordinary
rapidity, and his odour, when he is present in
multitude, is so strong that in the hold many ships
trading in hot countries it is almost overpowering. The
flatness of his body enables him to crawl through every
chink and crevice, and all efforts to keep him out of the
cabins are unavailing. The ship variety has none of that
fear of man that sends the kitchen cockroaches scuttling
in every direction at the approach of a maid with a
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
light. They will fearlessly perambulate his cabin, take up
their posts on the deck-beams over his head, will watch
him gravely with waving antennæ, and the moment they
discover that he is asleep will run over his head and face,
entangle themselves in his beard and hair, and gently nibble
the skin on the tips of his fingers and toes.
The cockroach is an admirable judge of the weather. On
board a ship the approach of a rain squall will bring them
up from the hold into the cabins in tens of thousands; and
in vessels where they abound they will blacken the ceiling,
drop on to the tables, and drive nervous passengers for
refuge to the deck. Whether the British variety is equally
affected by the weather is a point at present undetermined,
for as he does not emerge from his hiding places until
the servants have gone upstairs and the lights are out, his
habits have never been examined very closely.
The eccentricity in the movements of the cockroach has
doubtless had a share in producing the feeling with which
he is regarded. His ordinary pace is a fast though stealthy
walk, but he is given to sudden pauses, remaining immovable,
save for the constant waving of his long antennæ,
which show that he is deep in the meditation of past sins or
future wickedness. But when alarmed his speed is extraordinary:
he is gone in an instant like a flash, and it needs no
ordinary quickness of eye and action to bring the avenging
foot down upon him. Even in his death he acts upon the
human nerves, exploding with a sharp crack of so singularly
thrilling a description that many even of those who most
greatly dislike the cockroach cannot bring themselves to
slay it.
It is on this account principally that nothing like an
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
organised war is waged against the cockroach. Feeble
efforts are made now and then to get rid of it by scattering
beetle paste, and other supposed destroyers, about the
kitchen, or by setting traps for it to walk into; but these
measures, although effective to a certain point, make but
small inroads upon its numbers, and it is only when it
ascends the stairs and begins to pervade the house that
serious attention is paid to it. There are men in London
who make a livelihood by clearing houses, restaurants,
and other dwellings, of cockroaches. Their methods are a
secret, but they are certainly efficacious, and did the operators
advertise their addresses they would be very largely
patronised. Some have supposed that they charm the insects
from their hiding-places by the sounds of sweet music;
others that they possess a perfume which the cockroach
cannot withstand, and that by it he is attracted to his death;
while a few hold the belief that the insects are induced to
leave their abodes by the use of cabalistic words.
The cockroach, like most of the order of orthoptera to
which it belongs, retains the same form from the date it
issues from the egg to its death. Familiar instances of
this peculiarity are the earwig, locust, and grasshopper.
The only difference between the first and second stage is
that they do not become winged until arriving at maturity,
the wings being then folded up under the leathery reticulated
wing-case that distinguishes the order. It is rarely,
indeed, that the cockroach uses the means of locomotion
with which nature has provided it. It is possible that if
it took to out-door exercise it would do so; but, passing
its life as it does indoors, it has no occasion whatever for the
use of its wings, and many people are even unaware that it
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
is provided with them. The cockroach is not particular as
to its food, and will devour almost anything that comes in
its way. Crumbs of bread, fragments of fat or meat, sweets
of all kinds, and indeed almost all food consumed by man,
are welcome to it. It has a marked partiality for boot
blacking, and is even able to digest leather. It will drink
water, but its tendency is rather towards liquids of a sweet
or intoxicating nature. Treacle or sugar in water attracts it,
but it has a marked preference for beer, and traps for its
ensnarement are generally baited with this liquor.
Unlike the cricket and the grasshopper, the cockroach is
mute, at least so far as our ears are able to perceive, although
it is certain that it can carry on long conversations with its
own species, and two of them may often be seen standing
head to head in close confabulation, enforcing their arguments
with waves and flourishes of their antennæ. Entomologists
may assign the blatta a specific place among the
orders and genera of insects in accordance with their characteristics,
but morally they stand apart. They are the rats
of the insect world, swarming out in their armies from dark
recesses in search of garbage; no one, indeed, can doubt that,
had they the power, they would not hesitate to follow the
example of the rats on the Rhine, and to devour a bishop if
he fell in their way. Other insects stand apart from them.
The cricket may dwell in their midst, but he is not of them,
while no observer has remarked a single case of friendship
between the industrious bee, the impetuous and hardworking
wasp, or, indeed, any other of what may be called
respectable insects, with the cockroach—a strong proof that
the creature is viewed with the same marked disfavour by
the insect world that it excites in the breast of man.
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=MICE
MICE.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.45 0.65
SINCE men and mice first became acquainted with each
other, the mouse has been an enigma to the man.
That it possesses strange and mysterious powers he is fully
aware, although himself unaffected by them; and to this
day neither naturalists nor philosophers have been able to
account for, or explain, the abject terror with which the
mouse is capable of inspiring the female mind. To the
male eye, the mouse is one of the most harmless and
inoffensive of created things. With its soft coat and its
bright eye, there are few prettier little creatures. It is very
easily tamed and domesticated; and most boys have, at
some time or other, kept mice as pets. It is affectionate,
intelligent, and capable of acquiring all sorts of tricks. It
is afraid of man, but it rapidly acquires confidence in him,
and after a very few visits it will, if undisturbed, fearlessly
pick up crumbs close to the foot of any man who will sit
still and watch it. Mice at play are as pretty as kittens,
without any of the spitefulness which readily shows itself
in even the youngest of the cat tribe. Were the mouse
unknown in England, a few imported here would soon, it
might be thought, be regarded as the most charming little
pets ever introduced.
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
.if h
.il fn=p119.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Mouse]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.pi
Such is the mouse as it appears to man. It is true
that he is obliged to wage war with it, for it is so prolific
that if man and its other enemies did not keep down its
numbers it would, in a very short time, produce a famine
in the land. It has most destructive habits of burrowing in
walls, and eating holes in flooring and wainscots; while its
depredations in stacks, granaries, and other similar places
are serious. Thus man is forced in self-defence to war
against mice; but he does it without ill-feeling, and would
rather be able to leave the pretty little things alone. The
last thing that would enter his mind would be to be afraid
of them, and the terror with which they inspire women is
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
to him absolutely unaccountable. In many respects women
are to the full as brave and courageous as men. In the
horrors of a shipwreck, in the dangers of a siege, in times
of great peril, such as the Indian Mutiny, women have,
over and over again, showed themselves to be at least equal
to men in bravery, in calmness, and in endurance. But the
woman who would, pale but firm, face a lion in an arena,
will fly in terror from a mouse; and many a moment of
sweet revenge and triumph has been felt by men with
spouses of strong minds and shrewish tongues, when they
have seen them paralysed with terror by a tiny mouse.
History records no example of a mouse attacking a man,
and, when tamed, they never use their teeth. They have
no powers of scratching; they cannot assume a threatening
aspect; they neither show their teeth, growl, nor spit;
they cannot stick up their furs as can a cat; they are,
in fact, absolutely without means of aggression, and yet
women quail before them. Man has wearied himself with
conjectures as to this phenomenon. The Greek and Roman
philosophers were posed by it, and the saying, parturiunt
montes, nascitur ridiculus mus, which has ignorantly been supposed
to signify that a small matter was produced after great
labour, has, when critically examined, an entirely different
and far more profound meaning. The philosopher clearly
desired to signify that it needed the labour of mountains to
produce a creature capable of awing the female mind. In
the Greek fable of the Lion and the Mouse, the same feeling
of respect and appreciation for the smaller animal is clearly
shown. Some have gone so far as to trace back the enmity
between the female and the mouse to the earliest times,
and the argument has been advanced that the word translated
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
as serpent, in the account of the Fall of Man, really
signified mouse, an explanation which alone seems to satisfy
the exigencies of the case.
This hypothesis is greatly strengthened by the fact that
the mouse does go on its belly; alone among quadrupeds
its feet cannot be seen to move, and it apparently glides
along on its stomach. Then, again, its head, and, indeed,
its whole body, is very frequently bruised, and, in fact,
crushed by the human heel, and for every serpent upon
which this process is performed it is done a hundred thousand
times upon mice. The mouse does not, it is true, in
return bruise the heel of its bruiser; but neither does the
serpent, so that this objection applies equally in both cases—indeed,
a tight shoe is the only article which habitually
bruises or raises blisters upon the human heel. This is no
novel idea, for in some old paintings the tempter is pictured
in the form of a mouse sitting on Eve’s shoulder, and
whispering in her ear. That the Jews entertained a feeling
of abhorrence for the mouse far above anything that can be
accounted for by natural causes, is proved by the fact that
Isaiah lxvi. 17 says, “Eating the abomination, and the
mouse.” These facts, coupled with the abject terror inspired
by the mouse in the female mind, are really worthy
of the attention of divines, who cannot fail to notice that
whereas the creature, translated serpent, is said to be more
subtle than any other beast of the field, the word cunning,
which is synonymous with subtle, is still essentially applied
to the mouse; while—putting aside the fact that the snake
is not a beast at all—no modern investigator has ever
claimed any particular amount of cunning for the serpent.
The terror with which women regard the mouse finds
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
expression in various unlooked-for ways. Man has no
peculiar liking for his nether integuments, as is evidenced
by the eagerness with which cockney sportsmen, who go
North, don the Highland garb instead of trousers, and by
the popularity among the young fellows who constitute the
Scottish Volunteers, of the ordinance which transformed
the whole regiment into a “kilted” corps. Among women,
however, movements are constantly taking place for the
adoption of male lower garments. Sometimes these are
spoken of as bloomers, sometimes as knickerbockers, sometimes
as divided skirts. The advocates of these garments
base their arguments on the ground of health and convenience;
but men, who go beneath the surface, are well
aware that these are but pretexts, and that the real reason
why women desire masculine garb is that they may the
better protect their lower limbs from the onslaught of the
marauding mouse. No one who has ever seen a woman
stand on a chair and wrap her garments tightly round her
ankles upon the alarm of “mouse,” can question how keen is
the consciousness among the sex of the possibilities of attack
by their formidable opponents offered by the present style
of clothing. It cannot be pretended that it is the mere fear
of being bitten which so unhinges the female nerves where
mice are concerned, for there are women who make parrots
their pets, although parrots sometimes bite atrociously, and
are singularly treacherous withal. There are others who
pet spiteful cats, and snappish lap-dogs, and whom neither
scratches nor occasional bites at all discompose. It cannot,
therefore, be argued that any fear of pain is at the bottom
of their antipathy for mice. The mere fact that here and
there women can be found who profess not to be afraid of
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
mice in no way affects the general truth of the argument.
There are women who are not afraid of cows; who will not
jump up in an open boat if it rocks; who are not fond of
babies; who do not care for kissing their female friends in
public. There are even women who will dress as they
please, and not as their dressmakers tell them. But these
are the exceptions which prove rules, and the almost
universal fear of mice by women can be accounted for
only upon the hypothesis of which we have above made
mention.
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=CATS
CATS.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE cat is generally considered to be a domesticated
animal, but it would be more justly described as a
gregarious one. No one who sees the placid and indifferent
air with which the cat conducts itself when within doors,
and compares it with the wild rapture with which the
creature lifts up its voice when assembled with five or six
of its species upon the end of a garden wall, can question
for an instant that the cat is above all things gregarious in
its instincts. That domestication is alien to the feline
nature is proved also by the fact that there are no recorded
instances of lions, tigers, or even the wild cats of these
islands, walking into a parlour and lying down upon the
hearthrug of their own accord. In the case of the wild
cat it may be urged that such an advance on its part would
not be welcome, but assuredly no opposition would be
offered to the lion or tiger who might yearn to domesticate
itself in this manner. The extreme repugnance which the
feline race in their wild state evince for fire is another
proof of the absence of any domestic yearnings in their
breasts, for fire is the emblem of domesticity. The cat,
then, has clearly assumed domesticated habits under protest,
and as against its innermost nature; but it must be admitted
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
that the imputation of hypocrisy, which has been freely
brought against the animal, is hardly justified. The cat, to
do it justice, pretends to no fondness whatever for those
who care for it. It will submit to be rubbed and stroked,
and to be placed upon ladies’ laps, simply because it likes
these attentions, not because it is grateful to those who
render them. It will rub against a human leg, but will also
rub against the leg of a table with an equal air of affection.
It will not answer when called unless there be a prospect
of food, but will gaze in stolid indifference at the
fire, as if wholly unconscious of being addressed. This
absence of affection in cats is in itself an argument against
the Darwinian theory. Since the days of ancient Egypt,
cats have been pets. Ladies have—in the absence of
better subjects for affection—doted upon them from time
immemorial; but in all these countless generations the cats
have not been able to get up a reciprocal feeling. Friends
of the species have endeavoured to urge in its favour that
it is affectionate to its young. If, however, five out of six
kittens are removed and drowned, the mother in no way
concerns or troubles herself. She certainly will look sharp
after the last, but this only shows that she likes to have
something to nurse and play with. Had she had a particle
of real love for her offspring, she would have cared for all
alike.
.pi
An intense devotion to public assemblies of its kind upon
housetops and walls, and to the raising of music, Wagnerian
in its absence of melody, are the special characteristics of
the cat. To gratify its passion for concerted music it will
dare every danger. Showers of lumps of coal, of boots and
brushes, cause but a momentary interruption of its song;
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
and even wet weather, which of all things it most hates,
will not suffice to damp its ardour. It can hardly be doubted
that cats are well aware that their gatherings for vocal purposes
are hateful to mankind; but this knowledge in no way
affects them, and even the voice of the mistress, who an
hour before bestowed bread and milk, is absolutely unheeded
when raised in an agonised appeal for silence. The predatory
instinct is strong in these creatures, and however well a cat
be fed or treated, it remains a thief to the end of its life.
It is believed by those best acquainted with them that the
greater portion of the time spent by a cat sitting in a state
of apparent somnolency on the hearthrug, is really occupied
in maturing plans for the surreptitious carrying off of pats
of butter, for raids upon the larder, or for the assassination
of canary birds.
.if h
.il fn=p127.jpg w=539px
.ca
A Gathering for Musical Purposes.
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 8
.ti -4
[Illustration: A Gathering for Musical Purposes.]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
The question why the cat should of all creatures be selected
by ladies as a domestic pet has occasioned high
debate among philosophers of all ages. The animal possesses
many vices. It is erratic in its habits, noisy, and thievish.
It has no real affection for its mistress. It has but one
virtue—it is soft, but many other things are soft which are
free from drawbacks. Some have pretended to see a resemblance
between the natures of the cat and the woman, but
no sufficiently strong analogy can be traced to support so
libellous an assertion. The fact that both love the fireside
and hate going out into the wet, and that it is dangerous to
rub either the wrong way, can scarcely be considered as of
sufficient importance to warrant the suggestion of general
similarity. The feeble plea that cats catch mice cannot be
admitted as an argument in favour of their general acceptance.
There are not mice to catch in a great many houses,
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
and it is notorious that where there are, not one cat in fifty
will trouble itself to catch them. The cat who can get
milk given it in a saucer is not going to trouble itself by
catching mice; and the knowledge that it is expected to
pay for its board by keeping down mice troubles it not at
all. Even as a mouse-catcher the cat is a poor creature—taking
half an hour over a job which a terrier of the same
size will perform in a second.
It has been urged that without cats there could be no cat
shows, and this may be conceded frankly, but mankind
might get on without these exhibitions. Were cats unobjectionable
in their ways, the onus of proving why they should
be abolished would rest with those who do not keep them;
but as they are most objectionable, owing to the torture of
nerves caused by their midnight assemblages, to say nothing
of their destructiveness to well-kept gardens, it is for those
who own them to prove that there is some compensation,
some good quality, some advantage arising from the keeping
of pets which are a pest and an annoyance to neighbours.
A man is not allowed to hire an organ or a German band to
play in front of his house, even in the day time, if a neighbour
object; why, then, should he be allowed to keep a
creature which renders night hideous with its caterwaulings?
The legislation which taxes man’s faithful friend and companion,
the dog, allows his wife to keep two or three cats,
and to populate the whole of the district with their progeny,
if she choose to do so. Over and over again has the desirability
of placing a tax upon these animals been pressed
upon successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, but they
have hitherto turned deaf ears to the suggestion; and the
reason is clear: Chancellors of the Exchequer are but
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
mortal, and have wives. No man having a wife would
venture to propose a tax upon cats, and until we have a
minister who is without either a wife or other female relations,
sisters, aunts, or cousins, the cat will remain master of
the situation.
And yet we are not altogether without hope. The present
is essentially an age of association. There are Salvation
Armies, Blue Ribbon Armies, Good Templars, Vegetarians,
and Anti-tobacconists. Every one is interested in the well-doing
of every one else. It cannot be doubted that sooner
or later there will be an Association for the Suppression of
Bad Language, and the very first step which such a body
must take would be the suppression of the cat nuisance. It
is calculated that at least 90 per cent. of those who have
fallen into the lamentable habit of using strong expressions
have been driven thereto, in the first place, by the voice of
the midnight cat; and a pious divine has gone so far as to
admit that at least mental profanity is absolutely universal,
even among the best of men, under these circumstances.
Even ladies of irreproachable morals and conduct have
admitted the use of mental bad language, under the irritation
caused by hours of sleeplessness through the infliction
of a concert on the tiles. A society which would take the
matter in hand would command an enormous support,
although the great proportion of the subscriptions and
donations in furtherance of its object would be anonymous,
for few men would venture upon an open adherence to
a society which, as a first step towards the suppression of
swearing, would undertake to put down the domestic cat.
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=LADYBIRD
THE LADYBIRD.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE ladybird occupies among insects a position very
similar to that held by the robin among birds, and
is similarly protected by a feeling akin to superstition. It
must be owned that the robin has no peculiar claims upon
the affection of man, on the grounds of benefits bestowed.
It sings prettily, but there are many birds which surpass it
in this respect; it has a friendly confidence in man, but not
more so than has the sparrow; it can scarcely be considered
to hold very high rank among the birds that render man vital
services by acting as exterminators of the pests of the fields
and gardens, and, indeed, it takes an ample toll of seed
and fruit for any service it may do in the way of destroying
insects. The jay’s bright feathers do not afford it protection
from the keeper’s gun, and the patch of red on the breast
of the robin would scarcely in itself account for the general
feeling in its favour. Nor would the pretty markings on
the back of the ladybird, for there are many more brilliant
and showy insects; and the affection and kindly treatment
which it receives, even from children, can hardly be explained,
save as an instinct implanted by nature in the
human breast, as a protection for one of his greatest friends
and allies. Next, perhaps, to the ichneumon, the ladybird
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
is the most valuable of all insects to man. The bee furnishes
him with wax and honey, the silkworm with a fabric
for the adornment of his female kind, the cochineal insect
with a dye, the locust with a food, this being, however,
but a poor return for its destruction of vegetation. The
worm acts as a subsoil plough, takes down dead leaves and
herbage, and brings fresh soil to the surface; many beetles
work as scavengers, the Spanish fly provides us with blisters,
and, indeed, it may be accepted that the great majority of
insects are, in one way or another, directly or indirectly of
benefit to man. But it may be doubted if any, save only
the ichneumon, can vie with the ladybird in this respect.
Its life is spent in the pursuit and destruction of the aphis,
which, were it not for its vigilance, would so increase that it
would become, in temperate climates, as great a scourge as
is the locust in the localities it inhabits. Not only does
the ladybird as a perfect insect live upon the aphis, but in
its earlier, though less known, stage it is equally destructive
to them, and from the time when it issues from the egg to
its death its whole life is passed in the destruction of these
pests of the farmer and gardener. In its labours this way
it is ably assisted by the larvæ of the Hemerobius, which,
in its perfect state, is a brilliant four-winged fly; and by those
of the Syrphidæ, which transfix and devour their thousands
on their trident-like mandibles. But these creatures, useful
as they are, are far less common than the ladybirds, which
are to be found on every plant, and, being amongst the
earliest insects to make their appearance in the spring, are
ready to meet the first invasion of the aphis. It may
frankly be admitted that the ladybird is not, in this work of
destruction, animated solely by a desire to benefit man, and
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
even that this is quite a secondary matter in its opinion.
This, however, may be said of many other recognised
benefactors of man. The bullock is considered none the
less a benefactor because he eats, not with the express
purpose of making flesh, but to gratify his appetite; while
the sheep values his warm coat rather because it keeps out
the cold than because it will some day furnish man with a
garment.
.pi
There are a great variety of ladybirds, differing only in
the colours and markings of their coats; these are for the
most part red, black, or yellow, with black, yellow, or white
spots. The red with seven black spots is the most common,
and is found all over Europe and in parts of Asia and
Africa. It is everywhere a favourite with children, and in
France they are called Vaches à Dieu or Bêtes de la Vierge,
and are considered sacred to the Virgin. Why this should
be so is not very clear, but it would be much more easy to
find explanations for the title than for the verses that
especially endear them to children throughout this
country—
.pm verse-start
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children alone.”
.pm verse-end
There are two or three versions of the last two words, but
all alike express that there is danger to the children as well
as to the house. The antiquity of this legend is prodigious;
it is one of the group brought by the earliest arrivals in
Europe from the Far East, and there can be little doubt that
it came to us from Scandinavia. It is familiar to children,
with but slight variation, all over Europe, and African
children repeat an almost identical sentence over the ladybird.
As the legends current in Europe and Asia are but
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
seldom found among the sons of Ham, it does not seem
by any means beyond the bounds of probability that the
legend was in existence before the Flood, and that the
children of the sons of Noah carried it to the various
quarters of the world when they scattered from the
common centre.
But, though there can be no dispute as to the enormous
antiquity of these apparently non-sensible lines, scientific
men, although agreeing that there must be a deep and
hidden meaning somewhere, are quite unable to arrive at
any consensus as to what that meaning can be. As of late
years it has been the habit of scientific men, whenever they
cannot find any other satisfactory explanation of an ancient
legend or story, to assign it to one of the sun myths,
“Ladybird, ladybird,” must now be considered as included
in that broad category, and so takes its place by the side of
the siege of Troy, the wars of the Gods with the Titans, and
other apparently widely diverse legends. The highest credit
is due to scientific men for the ingenuity shown in the
invention of this sun-myth limbo, into which they are able
to shunt away all legends and traditions that prove too
tough for them to unravel. But, failing to grapple with
the story of the burning of the ladybird’s house, it would
certainly be satisfactory if we could get with certainty at the
legend that connects them with the Virgin. The French
call them Bêtes de la Vierge, the German Unser Herrenhuhn,
while our own ladybird, which is, of course, a mere shortening
of “Our Lady’s bird,” is a literal translation of the
German name, the French differing only in calling the insect
a beast, while the Germans and ourselves call it a bird.
The most plausible supposition is that as the Virgin is in
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
many Catholic pictures depicted as pierced to the heart with
seven swords, the seven black spots on the red ladybird are
considered as typical of those wounds, the form of the little
creature being not unlike that of a heart.
Seeing the extreme value of the ladybird’s assistance as
a destroyer of the green fly, it has more than once been
seriously proposed to introduce breeding establishments for
its multiplication; and there can be no doubt, were this
practicable, agriculturists, and especially hop-growers, whose
bines are cruelly ravaged by the green fly, would benefit
vastly. The silkworm is bred in enormous quantities, and
there seems no reason why the ladybird should be less
susceptible of cultivation, if it could but be taught to lay
aside its habits of restlessness. Unfortunately, the ladybird
is a frequent and rapid traveller, and the hop-grower would
have no assurance that his neighbour’s gardens would not
benefit more than his own by his labours in breeding it.
Few beetles take so readily to the wing; it runs fast, too, on
the little legs packed so snugly away under the flat side of
its hemisphere. Still, as the flea can be taught not to jump,
it ought to be possible to restrain the ladybird from flying;
and, in that case, if kept amply supplied with its favourite
food, it might be content to breed in captivity, and the
management of such an establishment would be a source of
great interest and amusement to children. Owing, perhaps,
to its immunity from cruel treatment at the hands of man,
the ladybird exhibits no fear whatever of him. While the
spider will rush to a hiding-place, the caterpillar drop itself
from a twig, and the flea endeavour to escape by the aid of
its prodigious activity from the touch of man, the ladybird
will run unconcernedly across his hand, and, indeed, appears
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
to take a pleasure in so doing, until, tired of the amusement,
it opens its wing-cases, and, after a preliminary flourish of its
wings, goes off in a swift flight in search of its next meal.
Properly trained, the ladybird ought to be a skilful performer
of tricks, although we are not aware that any efforts have
been made in that direction, but a regiment of them drilled
as soldiers and taught to manœuvre accurately to the
sound of the bugle should certainly be an attractive
spectacle.
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=DOG
THE DOG.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
OF the various works of man, there are few of which he
has more reason to be proud than the transformation
under his hands of the wild dog into the domesticated
animal. The change was not early effected; during
Scriptural times it had made but little progress. The term
“dog” is everywhere used as one of opprobrium. “Is thy
servant a dog that he should do this?” is in itself sufficient
to show that the possibility of the dog being possessed of
many virtues had never occurred to the speaker. The dog
was, indeed, regarded down to comparatively modern times
in three lights only: as a scavenger, as a guard against wild
beasts, and as an assistant in the chase, and it is thus
that he is still viewed in the East and by uncivilised
peoples. It must be owned that the wild dog, or the dog
such as he exists on sufferance in Oriental communities, has
but few higher claims, that he is by nature but little in
advance of his cousins the wolf, the jackal, and the coyote,
and that he is cowardly, cringing, and ferocious according
to circumstance. His virtues, in fact, are at this stage
altogether latent; he has been cowed by a long course of
misapprehension and ill-treatment, and displays only his
worst qualities. It is as difficult to recognise him as a near
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
relation to the civilised dog as to see the connection
between a Digger Indian and a Shakespeare or a Newton.
It is, then, no small credit to man that he has discovered
and brought out the grand qualities of the dog, and that in
making him his companion and his friend he has developed
virtues equal to those he himself possesses.
.pi
It may be said that there never was a man who possessed
the proud stateliness of the St. Bernard, the unerring sagacity
of the sheep-dog, or the courage and tenacity of the bulldog.
The vainest masher is not daintier in his ways than
the Italian greyhound, or more soft and affectionate than
the Blenheim. In point of fun and vivacity the terrier in
its many varieties stands higher, while in the exhibition
of unwearied devotion, fidelity, and affection, the whole
race put man to shame. Although rejoicing in undivided
affection, the dog is yet contented with an occasional word
from his master, he always renders prompt and cheerful
obedience, is ready to spring up a score of times from the
most comfortable sleep by the fireside in answer to his
master’s voice, and is willing at once to abandon the most
comfortable quarters to brave all weathers if his owner will
but deign to take him with him. He will face any odds in
his defence, and will die in his service. Even roughness
and unkindness fail to shake his devotion, and in adversity
as in prosperity his fealty is unbroken. The dog is a fine
discriminator of persons, and while a well-attired stranger
who approaches his master’s house will be greeted with
silence, or perhaps with a slight wag of welcome, his back
will bristle and his demeanour become unmistakably
hostile as soon as he perceives a tramp approaching.
Dogs are judges of character too, and no coaxing or
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
blandishments will seduce them into friendliness with one
of whose disposition they disapprove, and it must be owned
that, like children, they are seldom mistaken in their intuitive
likes and dislikes.
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“Careful Breeding has brought about Great Varieties in Size, Form,
and Appearance.”
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[Illustration: “Careful Breeding has brought about Great Varieties in Size, Form,
and Appearance.”]
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A flesh-eater by nature, the dog adapts itself readily to
the habits of those around. His preferences are for meat,
but few things come absolutely amiss to him: bread and
cheese, fish, pies and puddings of all sorts, vegetables, and
even fruit, are eaten by him with apparent relish, and he
needs but very little education to take to beer, wines, and
spirits. As might be expected from the analogy of man,
the big dog, as a rule, is much more gentle, patient, and
good-tempered than the small one. The latter is ready
upon the smallest provocation to become excited or
pugnacious; he seems to be on the look out for affronts,
and ever on the watch to assert himself. The big dog,
upon the contrary, is generally quiet and dignified, and
very slow to wrath. While careful breeding has brought
about great varieties in size, form, and appearance, its
effects upon the dog’s mental organisation can scarcely
be traced, save for such differences of disposition as are
the result of size rather than race. The St. Bernard and
the toy terrier, the pug, the poodle, the Dachshund, and
the spaniel, although differing as widely from each other in
appearance and shape as if they belonged to different
families, are yet identical in their possession of the virtues
and methods of dogdom. Their habits may differ slightly,
some seeming to find their chief happiness in lying asleep
on a soft cushion, others in an incessant pursuit of rats and
other vermin, some in accompanying their masters to the
chase. There are dogs whose greatest joy is a swim,
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
others whose chief object of life seems to be to pick a
quarrel and then fight it out. But these differences are no
greater than those we find existing in men—even in men of
the same race. It does not require a very wide range of
acquaintance to enable us to fix upon a man whose tastes
correspond respectively to those of one or other of these
types of dogs, and, indeed, the list might be almost
indefinitely extended. This is not remarkable, since it is
man who has made the dog what he is. No such varieties
of character are to be found in the wild dog, and even the
semi-civilised dog of Constantinople, or other Eastern towns,
resembles his brethren as closely as one sheep in the fold
does another.
The Red Indian expects confidently that his faithful
hound will be his companion in the chase in the country of
the Great Manitou, and there are not a few Englishmen
who, deep down in their hearts, believe that the separation
between themselves and their affectionate friends and loyal
servants will not be an eternal one. They would repudiate
the idea that there was a future before other animals,
unless an exception were made in behalf of a favourite
horse; but the dog has assimilated himself so closely to
man, has become so much his companion and friend, that
it is not difficult to a real lover of the dog to suppose that
it too may have a future before it. At any rate, in a
comparison between the dog and the man, the advantage
is not always with the latter; and few would deny that
in point of intelligence, of generosity, and nobleness of
disposition, of fidelity to duty, of patience and of courage,
there are some dogs that are infinitely the superiors of
some men. It was not so long ago that, in discussing the
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
muzzling question, a man writing to a newspaper said,
“Better a thousand dogs should die than one man!”
There are very few men who, appreciating dogs, would at
all agree with this opinion. There are men whose lives
are more valuable than those of a thousand dogs, but there
are others whose lives would be dearly purchased by that of
one dog.
It is possible that if admitted to as intimate a companionship
with man, other animals might make as rapid
a rise as the dog has done; but there are few so well
suited for that companionship. The cat accepts kindness,
but declines to be in any way bound by it. It may like
petting, and may even run to greet a master or mistress,
and follow them over the house; but the cat takes little
interest in their conversation, and keeps its thoughts strictly
to itself, and its inscrutable face is a mask which cannot
be penetrated. But beyond the cat the choice is limited.
Rats and mice are easily tamed, but would never overcome
feminine aversion. Sheep lack the liveliness necessary for
a pet. Cattle are too large for our present style of house;
while the giraffe, whose eye is probably the most lovely of
those of any of the brute creation, would scarcely feel at
ease in a drawing-room. Lions, tigers, and other members
of the cat tribe have been made pets when young, but
become dangerous as they gain their strength. The
monkey is too intolerant of cold to become a pet in this
country, and his restlessness and love of mischief are against
him. The mongoose, perhaps, if more common, would be
the most formidable rival of the dog. It is admitted to
possess a high degree of intelligence, to be easily tamed,
and very affectionate; but it could take the place only of
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
the smaller varieties of dogs, and would fail from its want
of voice as a guard, and be of little use in a tussle with
burglars. Take him altogether, there is no animal possessing
one tithe of the qualifications of the dog for the various
purposes for which he is used by man, being capable of
acting alike as a woman’s pet, as a man’s companion, as an
assistant in the chase, as, in some countries, an animal of
draught, as a vigilant sentry, as a powerful and valiant
ally, and as the most faithful and truest of friends.
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SHEEP
SHEEP.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE position of the sheep in the scale of the animal
creation has not yet been assigned. Naturalists, who
are guided by mere externals, have, indeed, agreed that the
sheep is a quadruped, that it is herbivorous and ruminant;
but, after all, this does not help us much. Physically, the
sheep may stand high; mentally, it appears to be about
on the level of the garden slug. The sheep eats continually,
and when he is not eating, he is chewing; this gives him a
thoughtful appearance; but no savants have ever ventured
a suggestion as to the subject of his thoughts. He has his
good points as a producer of wool and mutton, but the
garden slug is edible and nourishing, and the caterpillar
yields a most valuable product for clothing; therefore this
fact cannot be considered as bearing upon the subject of
his place in the scale of creation. In its wild state the
sheep is said to be sagacious, but the stories of huntsmen,
like those of fishermen, are to be received with marked
distrust. If the sheep is sagacious in its wild state, why
should it become so densely stupid when domesticated?
The dog and the negro improve immensely in intelligence
from contact with man, and are both capable of attaining
a high degree of reasoning power. Dogs cannot, indeed,
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
speak, but they certainly understand much of human
speech, and learn to read the wishes of their masters at a
glance. Negroes attain to the point of being able to preach
sermons—a low test of intellectuality certainly, but still a
proof of some intelligence.
.pi
It is difficult to believe, then, that the sheep can have
deteriorated mentally from contact with civilisation, and it
must be assumed that any supposed sharpness of the creature
in its wild state must be due solely to the fact that it
is difficult to approach, and crafty in eluding pursuit. But
in these qualities the domestic flea is surely its superior;
and most insects, either by feigning death, by speed in
running or flying, or by tricks of hiding themselves from
observation, show higher powers of self-preservation than
the most enthusiastic admirers of the sheep can claim for it.
It is true that the sheep makes up for its lack of intelligence
by its preternatural gravity and thoughtfulness of demeanour.
Were every quadruped half as wise as the sheep looks, it is
clear that the dominion of man over the animal creation
would be played out. The ovine vocabulary is limited.
The sheep has, in fact, but one sound, which it is so proud
of that it is continually making it. Whether calling its
offspring, or protesting against being driven along a high
road, or as an utterance of opinion as to the appearance
and speed of a passing railway train, it raises this cry with
precisely the same inflection and vigour.
.if h
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“Addicted to the Childish Pastime of Follow-my-Leader.”
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Attentive observers have been of opinion that, like the
dog and cat, the sheep expresses emotion by different movements
of its tail; but none have attempted to classify these
varieties of motion or to analyse the emotion contained
by them. Like most timid creatures the sheep is crassly
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
obstinate, and will object to be driven into a pen, even
though the interior be scattered thickly with the succulent
turnip, and nothing short of prodding with a stick, assisted by
barking on the part of a dog and bad language on the part of
the shepherd, will induce it to enter. The animal, except in
early youth, has no idea of humour; and even on the part
of the lamb, playfulness is expressed only by a little frisking
of an incoherent character. It has been said that the sheep
is capable of attachment to persons; and an American
ballad specifically states, that a lamb belonging to a young
person of the name of Mary followed her wheresoever she
went. The fact, however, that the circumstance should
have been considered worthy of chronicle in verse shows
its great rarity. One of the peculiarities about sheep is
the extreme similarity of feature which characterises the
individuals of the same breed. Nature, which so loves
variety that it is said that no two leaves in a great tree are
exactly alike, gave up the sheep as hopeless. The straight
forehead and nose, the lack-lustre eye, admitted of no
variety short of complete change, and even the interference
of man, although it has created many varieties in size and
coat, has done nothing to alter the face; it remains in its
normal state of uniform stolidity. Lambs, indeed, recognise
their mothers among a flock; but it is probable that
the sense of smell rather than of sight enables them to
do so.
Even the poets, who have managed to say something for
most animals, have been unable to invent anything favourable
concerning sheep; and silly has been their favourite
epithet for it. The poet who has apparently devoted most
attention to their doings, goes so far as to say that a flock,
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
of which he is writing, on a certain occasion left their
tails behind them. This, of course, must only be regarded
as a metaphor, his meaning being that they were wholly
destitute of memory. Scriptural authority would seem to
show that the sheep is a superior animal to the goat, and
no doubt it is less given to mischievous tricks; but as this
is due to a want of sufficient intelligence to devise a
mischievous trick, it can hardly be considered a feature
worthy of high commendation. Some have supposed that
the sheep throughout its life is oppressed with a sense of
duty which deadens all other faculties. Having in some
mysterious manner become possessed of an hereditary knowledge
that the object of its life is to furnish mutton, it
sets itself deliberately to work to prepare for the butcher’s
knife. To this end, it is always eating when it is not
sleeping. Its stolidity is assumed because it knows that
energy is destructive to the formation of fat. Unfortunately
for the reputation of these animals, their breeders
have regarded them solely in the light of producers of
mutton and wool, and have endeavoured to improve them
only in this respect. Had they turned their attention
to developing their mental qualities, the consequences
might have been different; but naturally the sheep, finding
that no efforts were being made to improve its intelligence,
accepted the place in the animal creation that man assigned
to it, and has taken no pains to improve itself. There is
no saying what a society for the improvement of the intelligent
faculties of sheep might not effect, and if its efforts
did but produce some change in the expression of their
faces it would be a boon to mankind. There is a limit now
to the pleasure which any one save a breeder can obtain
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
from the contemplation of a flock of sheep, and this simply
from the want of variety. It is true that Phyllis and
Daphne, and many other maidens, have taken to the
tending of sheep; but as it is palpable that the attractions
of the calling were the shepherds and not the sheep, this
proves nothing.
To be able to obtain a fair idea of the stupidity of sheep
it is necessary to see them, not when engaged in tranquil
mastication, but while driven upon a high road. The
manner in which they persist in placing themselves under
the wheels of any passing waggon or cart is remarkable,
and would seem to show that even the instinct of self-preservation,
which is so marked in their wild state, is
altogether lost in the domestic animal. Singularly enough,
they are addicted to the childish pastime of follow-my-leader,
and wherever one goes the rest will follow, even
if it be in a jump over a cliff to certain destruction. It has
been urged in favour of sheep that they are affectionate
mothers, and will defend their offspring against attack on
the part of dogs. This, however, can scarcely be considered
a fair reason for placing them high in the scale of
animals, as some insects, such as ants and bees, will defend
their young even to the death; while as to the affection
of the sheep, any one who has watched it suckling its
lamb must have been struck at the absolute indifference
of its attitude and its evident mute protest against the proceeding.
There are many other points which might in an
exhaustive essay upon the sheep be touched on, for example
the ridiculous feebleness of its attempt to be a formidable
and dangerous assailant, as expressed by short stamps of
the feet, a pretence which fails to impose upon any one.
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
Enough, however, has been said to show that the sheep,
although classed as a quadruped, is really as an animal
an impostor, and that its true place in the scale according
to its mental attributes should rather be among the molluscs
than the vertebrates.
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=BEE
THE BEE AND THE WASP.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
IT is undeniable that the bee occupies a far higher
position in the regard of man than the wasp. The
bee is held up as an example to the young for its strict
attention to business, its forethought and prudence. It
has been made the object of much study; its habits and
manners have been watched in hives specially constructed;
and the behaviour of the bees towards their queen and
towards each other has been as minutely investigated and
described, and is, indeed, almost as well known, as are the
customs of the ancient Greeks or Romans. The wasp, on
the other hand, is regarded with absolute hostility. It is
viewed as an idler, as an irritable and hot-tempered
creature, with no fixed aims and ends, prone to unprovoked
assaults, a disturber of picnics, an intruder in the domestic
circle—a creature, in fact, to be promptly and summarily
put to death if opportunity offer itself. This hasty and
unjust conclusion is, in fact, the result of man’s natural
selfishness. He does not really admire the bee because
the insect stores up food for its winter use, but because he
is able to plunder that store, and to make it available for
his own purposes. The squirrel, the field-mouse, and many
other creatures lay up stores for winter; but, as man is not
.bn 158.png
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particularly fond of dried nuts or shrivelled grain, he does
not consider it necessary to profess any extreme admiration
for the forethought of these creatures. The wasp is perfectly
capable of storing up honey for its winter use, did it see the
slightest occasion for doing so; but the wasp is not a fool.
It knows perfectly well that its life is a short one; that it
will die when the winter season approaches. Its instinct
doubtless teaches it that only a few of the autumn-born
females will survive to create new colonies in the spring,
and that as these females will pass the winter in a dormant
state in some snug recess beyond the reach of frost, there is
no occasion whatever to prepare stores of food for their use.
Did the wasp endeavour to emulate the bee, and store its
cells with honey, it would rightly be held up to derision as
an idiot, as the only creature who imitates the folly of man
in continuing to work until the last to pile up riches for
others to enjoy after its death. If it is admirable for the
bee, who lives through the winter, to collect for his use
during that time, it is no less admirable in the wasp, who
dies before the winter, to avoid the absurd and ridiculous
habit of collecting stores which he cannot profit by.
.pi
In all other respects the wasp is the equal, if not the
superior, of the bee. The latter is content to establish its
home in any place that comes to hand. Even if man
provides a hive for it, the bee has not the sense to utilise it
until man takes the trouble to bring the habitation and to
shake the swarm into it. If the hive should not be forthcoming
the bees will establish themselves in a hollow tree,
in a chimney, in the roof of a house, or in any other place that
appears convenient, and then and there begin to build their
combs and prepare for the reception of brood and honey. The
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
wasp, on the other hand, more industriously sets to work to
build its own house, walls and all, and the labour required
for such an undertaking is enormous. Wood, the material
it uses, is obtained by gnawing posts, gates, rails, or other
timber that has lost its sap. This is chewed up by the wasp’s
strong jaws into a paste, and spread out with its tongue in
layers finer than tissue paper. Layer after layer is spread,
until the house, which varies in size from that of an apple to
one as large as a man’s head, is made rain- and weather-tight,
a model of symmetry, and a marvellous example of the result
of patient and persevering labour, a white palace, by the side
of which anything the bee can do is but poor workmanship.
The arrangement inside the structure is at least equal to
that which the bee can accomplish in the most perfectly-constructed
hive. The cells are as regular and as carefully
arranged, and it is kept with the same scrupulous care and
cleanliness. It is not necessary for the wasp to collect
honey and pollen for the use of its brood, for these are fed
upon insects, the juicy caterpillar and the plump body of
the blue-bottle being the morsels which they mostly affect.
In the capture of its prey for the use of its young, the wasp
works as assiduously as does the owl to gather in field mice
for the sustenance of its offspring; and each capture, after
being carried to the nest, is stowed away in the cell with the
egg, until it is full, and then the entrance securely sealed.
The queen wasp is, in point of activity, energy, and intelligence,
far ahead of the queen bee. As soon as the latter leaves
her cell a perfect insect, she is waited upon by a crowd of
workers, who provide her with food, attend her every movement,
and forestall her every wish, and her functions are
confined solely to the laying of her eggs. The queen wasp,
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
on the contrary, is the founder as well as the mother of her
colony. When she wakes up from her lethargy in the
spring, she sallies out to find a suitable spot for her future
kingdom. Having fixed upon it, she proceeds to build her
cells unaided. She has to feed herself while engaged on
this labour, and when a certain number of cells are completed
she has then to store them with food sufficient to
support the grubs, until, their second stage completed, they
are ready to issue out and to take their share in the work.
Even when she has an army of children, she continues to
set them an example of labour and perseverance, supervising
the operations and working diligently and continuously
herself. She is the life and soul of her community, and if
by any accident she dies before the other females, which
are hatched late in the season, appear, the community is
entirely disorganised, the neuters cease from their labours,
and the whole colony perishes. Nature, too, has done
much more for the bee than for the wasp, for the former
naturally secretes the wax from which it forms its cells,
while the wasp has no such faculty, and has to construct
its cells as well as its house from the paper it manufactures.
The wasp is as fond of sweets as is the bee, and while
a portion of the community are engaged upon the work of
collecting materials, manufacturing paper, and building, the
others collect sweets from flowers or fruit. Having filled
themselves with these, they return home, and on entering
the hive mount to the upper cells, and there disgorge the
contents of their honey bag for the benefit of the workers.
The bee is industrious, it may be admitted, but it is
industrious in a quiet and methodical way. There is no
hurry about the bee, and any one who watches it at work
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
will be inclined to admit that it does a good deal of pottering
about. The wasp has no time for this sort of thing;
it knows how much there is to be done, and that there
is not a single moment to be wasted. The queen is laying
her eggs; there are the materials for the houses to be
collected, ground up into paste, and spread; there is food
for the grubs to be gathered, and supplies for the builders
to be brought in. The work has got to be done, and there
is no time to be fooling about. There is, then, no reason
whatever for surprise, and still less for blame, that when the
wasp is interrupted in its work it loses its temper at once.
It is angry when, having entered at an open window, and
gathered from a jam-pot, a dish, or a jug—for the wasp is
not particular—a supply of food, it finds that its way back
to its hungry friends is barred by a strange smooth obstacle,
through which it cannot pass. Many men know to their
cost how small a thing rouses the temper of a woman
engaged in the arduous operations of washing or cooking,
and are careful in avoiding the neighbourhood of the wash-house
or kitchen upon such occasions; and yet they make
no allowance whatever for similar irritation on the part of
the busy wasp! Again, blame is imputed to the wasp
because it waxes wroth if it be flapped at with a handkerchief
or hat; but surely there is nothing surprising in
this? Men take offence at practical jokes, especially
practical jokes of a dangerous kind; and the wasp naturally
regards these wanton attacks upon it, when actively engaged
in the business of the community, as dangerous impertinences,
and is not to be blamed for resenting them. The
more one examines into the habits of the bee and the wasp
respectively, the more one is convinced that the high
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
esteem in which the former is held by man is simply the
result of man’s love for honey; and that the balance of
superiority is wholly upon the side of the wasp, who is a
more energetic, a more vivacious, a more industrious, and a
more intelligent insect than the bee, and should on all these
accounts occupy a far higher place in man’s esteem and
regard than it possesses at present.
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=BEAR
THE BEAR.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
NATURE, in creating the bear, bestowed upon it
many good gifts. It is strong, robust, and hardy.
It is warmly clad, and, moreover, can escape the hardships
of winter by indulging in a prolonged sleep. One gift, however,
was denied it—that of grace; altogether, few animals
are more clumsy in their gait and movements than the
bear. It is strange that, this being so, the bear should be
one of the few animals man has taught to dance. The
majority of bears are vegetable eaters. Their claws are not,
like those of the feline tribe, formed to tear or slay an
enemy, but are designed for digging up the roots that
form a large portion of its sustenance. As might be expected
from the fact that it is a vegetarian, the bear is
generally of an easy temper, and would be glad to leave
man alone, if man would but let it alone. This amiability
of temper by no means arises from want of courage. If
their cubs are in danger, bears will attack against any odds,
and if wounded are amongst the most formidable and
savage of assailants. The polar bear, living as it does upon
seals and fish, is by no means so peacefully inclined as the
various species that exist on roots and fruit. It does not
wait to be attacked, but at once takes the offensive, and
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
there are few more formidable foes. Bears are fond of
sweets, the Asiatic as well as the American species both
hunting diligently for the hives of wild bees, which their
thick coats enable them to take in defiance of the efforts of
their indignant owners. In captivity the animal is readily
tamed. Unfortunately the bear
possesses but few qualities that
would render him of great use
to man; had it been otherwise,
doubtless it would have been
tamed and kept in herds, for
there seems no reason whatever
why it should not have
been as completely domesticated
as the sheep and the ox.
As, however, its hair is too
coarse for working up into
textile fabrics, and its milk-giving
capacity is small, man
has viewed it solely as an
animal for the chase, and has
hunted it down ceaselessly, the
cubs only being occasionally
preserved for exhibition in the
Zoological Gardens, or with
travelling showmen. In the latter case the bear shows great
docility, readily learning to obey its master, and frequently
manifesting a lively affection for him.
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[++ Illustration: Muzzled Bear]
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Next only to the monkey, the bear is unquestionably the
most human of animals in its motions and gestures. In a
state of nature, indeed, it rarely rises to its hind feet except
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
for the purpose of attack; but the fact that it is able to
walk upon them, and that it frequently sits up on its
haunches, and uses its fore paws as hands either for the
purpose of putting food to its mouth, scratching itself, or
rubbing its head, gives it a very human appearance. If
wounded, too, it will sit up, and place its paws over the
wound just as a man will do.
The American Indians held the bear in very high respect.
This did not, indeed, prevent them from hunting
it, but, before feasting on its flesh, they would always make a
speech, begging its pardon, and deprecating its anger, upon
the ground that they did not kill it from illwill, but simply
from necessity. The bear dance, in which those engaged
in it imitated the movements of the animal, was a religious
ceremony, and generally the bear was regarded with respect
far beyond that paid to any other animal. It is unfortunate
for the bear that it did not from the first cultivate its
power of walking upon its hind legs, for there can be no
doubt that had it done so it would have stood much
higher in the esteem of man. Valuing himself somewhat
highly, man is naturally disposed to value animals that
approach most nearly to him. The monkey is deified in
some parts of India, and the bear might have stood in as
high a position, had it but accustomed itself habitually to
walk upright. It is true that it has none of the sprightliness
of the monkey, but its gravity, its evidently good intentions,
and the somewhat rustic awkwardness of its gait, would
certainly seem to mark it as intended to be a more genial
and friendly companion to man than the skittish and erratic
monkey. The polar bear and the North American grizzly,
the latter fast approaching extinction, come under a different
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
category altogether, and even the accomplishment of walking
upright would have gone but a short way towards endearing
them to man. The polar bear, indeed, differs widely from
other species. In spite of his great bulk and power, he has
none of that awkwardness that distinguishes the various
land bears. He can run with considerable swiftness. He
is perhaps the best swimmer of all quadrupeds, and is quick
and active in his movements; but, upon the other hand, his
face expresses none of the easy good temper of the ordinary
bear, but it is at once fierce and sullen, watchful and
alert.
.if h
.il fn=p160.jpg w=240px align=l
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Bears Climbing]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
The bear more than any animal conveys the impression
of incompleteness, and it is difficult to avoid the belief that
being slow of temperament it has taken much longer in its
passage upwards from the germ than have other creatures.
This being the case, it would be unfair to judge the bear as
awkward or clumsy when in fact it is simply incomplete;
and it is probable that in the course of another million
years or so, when the cycle of its changes is accomplished,
it will be an altogether different animal, distinguished for the
grace of its movements, and for its still closer resemblance
to man. The bear is perhaps more highly appreciated in
Germany than elsewhere, it may be because the habits of
the people approximate more closely to his than do those
of the natives of other countries. At any rate it bears a
conspicuous position in their folk-lore, and figures prominently
in many a legend and story. It is probable that
the tale dear to English children of the three bears was
derived from German sources. The bear has by general
consent been voted to be the characteristic emblem of
Russia, doubtless because the peasants, wrapped up in skins
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
in winter, with hoods of the same over their heads, do
present a very striking resemblance to him. The bear was
once common in England; its bones are found plentifully
among those of other cave-inhabiting
animals, and it was still
numerous in the island when the
Romans first conquered Britain;
it vanished, however, even before
the wolf, and has been nearly
exterminated throughout Western
Europe. It figured in the Roman
arena, where it was probably
goaded to a savagery altogether
alien to its nature. It may be
assumed that it was at one time
regarded in the Old World with
something of the superstition
with which it was held in the
New, being the only animal after
whom two constellations have
been named. Were there three
of them, we should possibly be
able to arrive at a satisfactory
explanation of the children’s
story. It is remarkable that
both bears are placed by the
ancients in close proximity to
the pole, probably in delicate allusion to its climbing
powers, as to the present day no bear pit is considered
complete unless provided with a pole. It is evident that
the ancient astronomers were wags, and while apparently
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
bent solely upon giving names to the constellations, were
quietly poking fun at the unlearned. It would be difficult
otherwise to account for the position assigned to Ursa
Major and Ursa Minor, for there is nothing whatever
in the position of the stars forming these constellations
that in any way indicates the figure of a bear, the outlines
of the various animals in the constellations being purely
imaginative and arbitrary. It is somewhat singular that the
bear did not figure among the signs of the zodiac, when
such comparatively insignificant creatures as the ram and
the fish were pressed into the service. Summing up the
bear, it may be said that its good qualities predominate over
its evil ones, and that it is man’s fault rather than the bear’s
that they do not dwell comfortably and sociably together.
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SPIDER
THE SPIDER.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE want of balance in man’s appreciation of things,
and the unreasonable nature of his prejudices, are in
nothing shown more strikingly than in the view he takes of
the spider. His objection to the spider is based upon the
fact that it kills its prey and devours it. So do the great
majority of creatures on earth. The next objection is that
it catches it in a net; but for every fly the spider catches
the fisherman will take a thousand fish, also in a net, and no
one imputes it to him as harm. The fisherman, indeed, is
regarded with a sort of special affection by the community.
He is spoken of as the hardy fisherman, the honest fisherman,
and, at any rate in his case, the fact that he catches
his fish in a net is not considered in any way reprehensible.
Then, it is urged against the spider that, having set its net,
it hides from view, and, having enticed the fly into its
bower, rushes out and devours it. But how about man?
The fly-fisher casts cunningly devised and tempting lures
over the fish, while himself keeping, as far as possible,
hidden from view. The trawler arms himself with glittering
imitations of fish, studded with deadly hooks; the wild-duck
gunner paddles up noiselessly in a punt, and shoots down
his birds while feeding; or hides himself in a bower, and
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
brings them down as they pass unsuspectingly overhead.
Man uses craft, and skill, and cunning to capture his prey
of all sorts, and exults in his success. He would laugh to
scorn the accusation that he was a lurking assassin, and yet
he assumes a tone of lofty moral superiority towards the
spider, who uses the gifts nature has bestowed upon him not
for sport or amusement, but for existence. No spider is
recorded as having employed a large body of his friends
to drive up two or three thousand half-tamed flies to be
slaughtered by him as a form of amusement. We have no
doubt that such spiders as may be engaged about their
business, within view of slaughter so perpetrated by human
beings, must quiver in their webs with righteous indignation.
Let us, then, have no more maudlin sentimentality about
the cruelty of the spider. It obtains its food by the chase,
and in so doing exhibits a skill, a dexterity, and a patience
unsurpassed by any living creature.
.pi
The spider has a wonderful power of adaptability to
circumstances. The great fat-bodied spider of our gardens
is necessarily slow-moving, and therefore builds its web
and waits. There are others less burdened by nature who
are fierce and active, who hunt their prey on a sunny wall
as a dog might hunt a rabbit, quartering the ground with
restless activity, and pouncing upon the prey with the
spring of a tiger. Some for preference build thick webs in
dark corners, festooning cornices with filmy drapery, to the
annoyance of good housewives. Others, tiny creatures
these, will throw out a few threads, and, floating upon them,
allow themselves to be wafted vast distances through the
air. There is the water spider, who, long before man
invented the diving bell, dwelt below the water, building its
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
nest there like a thimble, open at the bottom, and then
laboriously carrying down little globules of air and releasing
them beneath it, until the water is expelled, and it can dwell
in the little silver bell it has prepared for itself. Then,
too, there is the spider who builds for itself a box in
the ground with a hinged lid as skilfully contrived as any
of man’s inventions, and, holding this tightly down, can
defy the efforts of any foe likely to assail it. Not even the
ant shows a wider intelligence, a more perfect aptitude for
using the tools with which nature has provided it, and a
greater power of adapting itself to circumstances than does
the spider, and yet, while the ant and the bee are held up
as examples to our children, the spider is passed over as an
objectionable creature, of no account.
The spider is capable of being tamed, and has before
now been made a pet of by prisoners, who have so domesticated
it that it would come at their call, take food
from their fingers, and come to treat them with absolute
fearlessness, if not affection. It is not to be pretended
that the spider possesses no bad qualities. Were it otherwise,
it would stand on a far loftier level with man. With
individuals of its own species it is exceptionally quarrelsome,
and will not only kill, but eat a conquered adversary. It
is, undoubtedly, an advanced socialist. So long as its
supply of the viscid fluid from which it constructs its web
holds out, it will build its house and defend it against all
comers. But when this is exhausted, it immediately adopts
radical principles, and upon the theory that there is no right
in property, proceeds at once to rob a neighbour of the
fruits of its labour, and to instal itself in the property from
which it has ejected the owner. It is a little singular that
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
the socialists have not adopted the spider as the badge and
emblem of their creed, in recognition of the identity of their
principles.
Unhappily, a far darker blot than this rests upon the
character of the female spider, who is much larger and
more powerful than the male. She is an excellent mother,
and will defend her bag of eggs with her life; but she is a
mournful example of the working of the rights of women
carried out to the fullest extent. This can never occur in
the human race, because, fortunately for man, he is the
stronger. Were it otherwise, we may be sure that that
section of females who clamour for equality would be
content with nothing less than absolute supremacy. The
female spider lives up to this. Being the stronger, she does
not argue with her husband, but when she has no further
use for him she simply kills him and eats him. Looking at
the matter from man’s point of view, we are unable to find
any justification for this conduct. Our escape from the fate
of the male spider is largely due to the fact that our females
are less strong than we: indeed, in spite of physical weakness
they not unfrequently hold us in subjection, and occasionally
rule us with a rod of iron. Metaphorically, they may
devour us by their extravagance; but they have, happily,
no ability to carry out to the fullest the methods of the
female spider. The spider, it must be owned, stands
almost, if not altogether, alone in the commission of this
crime of uxoricide. So strange an exception is this to the
general rule of nature, that one is driven to suppose that
the female spiders must, perhaps in remotely distant times,
have suffered from terrible treatment and ill usage at the
hand of the males, and that having in course of ages
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
attained to greater strength than is possessed by their
mates, they now revenge upon them the wrongs of their
far back ancestors. We do not assert that this is absolutely
the true explanation of their conduct; but it is clear that
some events of an altogether exceptional kind must have
occurred in the history of the spider to bring about so
unexampled and unnatural a state of things among the two
sexes, and to embitter to such a degree the female against
the male. It is lamentable to have to record so evil a
trait in the character of one of the most intelligent and
intellectual of insects, but it would be unfair to other and
less highly gifted creatures were we to pass it over in
silence.
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=GNAT
THE GNAT.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
HAD the gnat been endowed with as great a power
of making itself obnoxious as its first cousin the
mosquito, it would have been the subject of anxious inquiry
and investigation by man. As it is, it attracts but slight
attention, and lives and dies in undisturbed obscurity. In
this respect it closely resembles what are called the working
classes among man. The noisy spouter, the obnoxious
demagogue, the troublesome striker attract attention; the
vast patient herd live and die almost unnoticed. There
is no reason for supposing, however, that the gnat takes the
neglect of man to heart, fond as he undoubtedly is of man’s
companionship. In this respect he stands almost, if not
quite alone among created things, for the attentions paid
to man by the flea, the bug, and the mosquito are strictly
selfish. Gnats, however, appear to be purely disinterested
in their attentions, and to regard the doings of man with
pleased and curious interest. They will attend him in
his walks, flying in a cloud over his head or a pace or
two in front of him; while their interest in him when
engaged in fishing, sketching, or other pursuits is unbounded.
They do not, like the midge, interfere with him
in any other way, but keep at a respectful distance. A
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
young couple strolling through a lane as the shades of
evening are falling are a spectacle specially attractive to
gnats. They will frequently on such occasions form themselves
into filmy clouds, rising and falling in rhythmical
measure, expressive of satisfaction and goodwill.
.pi
The summer evening gnat must not be confused with
a cousin of his which occasionally infests low-lying and
marshy neighbourhoods. This bears both in point of
size, appearance, and habits, a much closer relation to the
mosquito than to the gnat, and it may, indeed, be termed
the English mosquito. It is many times larger than the
gnat which is the subject of our remarks, has dark limbs
and body, a stinging proboscis, and a bare head. The gnat
is scarce more substantial than a cobweb, and has upon
its head a lovely plume. It is silent, or, at least, if it
utters a sound, its vibrations are too rapid for the ears of
man to detect.
The life of the gnat, although short, would seem to be
more full of pleasure and enjoyment than that of any other
creature. Other insects that consort together in large
numbers do so for mutual convenience or protection. Multitudes
are needed for the various work of the bee, wasp,
and ant cities. Caterpillar communities dwell together,
partly because they were born so, but probably more because
the web, their common work, is a protection against
their enemies, and specially against their most deadly foe,
the ichneumon. The aphis feed crowded in close herds,
but their power of locomotion is so small that they live
and die where they were born. Gnats, however, congregate
simply to enjoy the companionship of their friends. Their
gatherings are great balls and dances. Flying in a soft
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
cloud scarce more palpable than steam, and ever changing
in form, they rise and fall in constant motion, and it is
impossible to doubt that this action partakes, to some
extent, of the character of a dance. A faint, low hum
accompanies the motion, caused partly, perhaps, by the
beating of the innumerable gossamer wings, partly by the
whispered conversation or song from innumerable throats.
Naturalists have puzzled themselves in vain for any explanation
of the object of these dancings. The natural one,
that it is the outcome of a joyous and happy disposition,
an exercise expressive of pleasure and happiness, is too
simple to be received with approval by the scientific mind.
Man does not so rejoice in his existence. He has not
such unbounded satisfaction in the companionship of multitudes
of his fellows, nor throughout all nature is there any
parallel to the great gatherings and dancings of the gnats.
Flies, indeed, do join in sportive chases and flights, but
these are engaged in by few individuals only. Flights of
starlings and some other gregarious birds approach more
nearly to the gnat assemblies, and are also frequently
marked by rhythmical fallings and risings; but they are
comparatively short outbursts of playful joyousness, and
not comparable with the constant and prolonged dances in
which the gnat spends the greater portion of its existence
as a perfect insect. Well may the gnat be transparent,
for it is doubtful whether it takes any solid food from the
time of its emergence from its pupa case to that when,
its existence terminated, it drops lifeless on the surface of
a stream. It drinks, however, and a dewdrop is sufficient
to afford refreshment to thousands.
The gnat’s life, like that of most insects, is a dual one;
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
but unlike most others, the first—and much the longest
portion—is spent in the water. The female gnat selects
some quiet and sheltered piece of water, a stagnant pool
for preference, and lays her eggs upon its surface. In form
they may be compared to long small-bore bullets, pointed
at the upper end. They are placed closely together and
adhere lightly to each other, and when the tiny mass is
examined through a magnifying glass it presents the appearance
of a honeycomb studded with tiny points. If no
accident befall it, the little raft floats until the young ones
are ready to take to the water; then the lower ends of the
tiny tubes open and the larvæ swim away. Their life in
the water resembles that of most other aqueous creatures.
They feed upon organisms even more diminutive than
themselves, and are the prey of the smaller water beetles
and tiny fish. The gnat larva obtains the animalculæ on
which it feeds by means of two ciliated organs on the
head. These are in constant motion, and create a current
by which its food is drawn into its mouth. But, though
an inhabitant of the water, the gnat even in this stage is
obliged to breathe, and therefore frequently ascends close
to the surface, where it draws in the air through a little
tube situated at the apex of the body.
At the end of about fifteen days this state of its existence
is completed, and it assumes the pupa state. It is now
doubled up, and somewhat rounded in form, but it is, nevertheless,
still active; it still breathes, drawing in the air by
two little tubes, situated now on the anterior part of the
body. When the perfect insect is formed inside the pupa
case, the air contained within the latter causes it to float
on the surface. The gnat breaks through the upper side
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
and stands upon the skin it has quitted, which serves as
a little raft until it has attained sufficient strength to fly.
This is the most critical moment of the gnat’s existence;
the fluid in which it has lately existed would now be fatal
to it, and the tiniest ripple caused by a breath of wind, or
the passage close by of a fish or water beetle, before the
gnat has gained strength to fly, would upset the boat and
drown its occupant.
Man has not been able to solve the problem whether
thought as well as life is continuous during the three stages
of existence of the gnat, or, indeed, in those of any other
insect; and knows not whether the gnat has any remembrance
of the very different existence it passed beneath the
surface of the water over which, in its perfect state, it
delights to disport itself. The fact that all insects deposit
their eggs in situations unsuitable for their own existence,
but suitable for that of the larvae, is no proof for or against
the theory, since it may be the result of blind instinct only.
Whether man will ever be able to place himself sufficiently
en rapport with the lower creation as to be able to solve
this and many other problems must be left to future ages
to determine. So far, able as he is to acquire with more or
less difficulty the languages of all other varieties of man, he
has failed signally in comprehending that of even the birds
and animals with whom he is most in contact. The dog and
the horse are in this respect distinctly his superior, and the
former, when admitted to close companionship, unquestionably
understands at least the gist of his master’s words. As
it is not the custom of the gnat to waste its strength by
travelling ahead in a straight line, we have no means of
determining the actual rate of speed at which it can fly.
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
That it is very great is certain. A swarm of gnats caught
in a heavy rain-shower will continue their gyrations apparently
undisturbed, their sight and movement being so
quick that they are able to dodge the raindrops in their
descent; and at the termination of the storm, however
heavy, their numbers will be apparently undiminished.
This would seem to show an amount of speed and activity
relatively unrivalled in any other living creature.
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ANT
THE ANT.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE ant has been so thoroughly exploited by Sir John
Lubbock and others, that it is altogether unnecessary
to enter upon any description of its customs and habits. It
may at once be assumed that, for its size, it is the most
intelligent of all created beings. Were each particle of the
brain of man animated by a vigour and sagacity equal to
that which vivifies the tiny speck of brain matter in the head
of an ant, imagination altogether fails to picture the result,
or to appreciate even faintly the wisdom and power that
man would in that case possess. But even as matters stand,
we may with advantage learn much from the ant, especially
from the more highly organised tropical varieties, in which
we may include the termite, popularly known as the white
ant, although in reality belonging to another family. Here
we see regular communities dwelling together, governed by
their own laws and customs, and exhibiting the spectacle of
a nation acting in accordance with natural laws. It must be
painful to republicans to find that in the great majority of
communities of what we are pleased to consider inferior
creatures, the monarchical principle distinctly prevails. In
ants, bees, and wasps, the most completely organised of
such communities, there is a natural head, not elected or
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
chosen by vote, but born to the purple. Among animals
that congregate for mutual protection and convenience, such
as horses, stags, and elephants, there is always a leader; but
in this case he assumes the position by right of superior
strength, valour, and sagacity. No scientific man has been
able to discover in his election to the post any trace of the
process known in the United States as lobbying. There
is neither intriguing nor currying for popular favour—the
strongest and bravest assumes the position by right of his
strength and bravery, and may be termed a natural dictator.
These communities are evidently inferior in order and perfection
to those of the first class.
.pi
Thirdly, come creatures of duller brain, of which the
sheep may be taken as a type. And here we come to
nature’s example of a republic, the dull level of equality
and fraternity, where none are superior to others, and there
is no emulation, no gradation of rank, and no rising of one
individual above the rest. One cannot doubt, with these
examples before us, that Nature has very clearly pointed
out that in all highly organised communities the monarchical
system is that best adapted for securing order and progress,
and for the general benefit of the whole; that for those in a
less advanced stage of progress a dictatorship is the preferable
form of government, while among those of the lowest
type of intelligence a republic serves the purpose as well
as any other system.
In the ant nation, which stands at the head of such communities,
the monarchical principle is carried out to the
fullest extent. We have the Queen, the ruler and mother
of the whole; her courtiers, who attend upon her; the
military class, who may be considered as the nobles, who
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
do not labour personally, but furnish the fighting and
are ready to die in defence of their country. The overseers,
generally larger and more intelligent than the mass
of workers, direct the operations, chastise the indolent, see
that all is done with order and regularity, and generally
supervise and control the operations. These may be taken
as the type of the middle class, the merchants and manufacturers.
Then there are the nurses, who take charge of
the eggs, feed the young, transport the pupæ into the sun,
and carry them back into the recesses of the city when rain
threatens; while below them are the bulk of the community,
the labourers and masons, the huntsmen, and the
cowherds who tend the insects from whom the ants obtain
a supply of natural honey. Lastly, there are the slave
population, captives in war, who are the servants of the
whole community. The result of this perfect combination
of labour is the erection of edifices, by the side of which
man’s greatest efforts are in comparison utterly dwarfed and
puny.
One reason of the great success of the ant communities,
and of the perfect order and regularity with which they conduct
their operations, is that strikes and labour combinations
are unknown to them, and all classes are content to do
their allotted work contentedly, willingly, and zealously. It
must be painful to members of peace societies to know
that they are warlike in the extreme, and that among them
the principles of universal brotherhood have made absolutely
no progress. The bravest knight of the days of early
romance, riding out to attack the giants, was but a poor
creature by the side of the warrior ant, who will do battle
fearlessly with the largest and strongest animal that may
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
venture to disturb the peace of his city, and, having once
fixed his hold upon his foe, will suffer himself to be torn
limb from limb without relaxing his grasp. Advantage is
taken of this extraordinary tenacity of grip by some primitive
peoples, who, if suffering from severe cuts, draw the
edges of the wound together and then apply ants, who fix
their jaws one on each side of the cut. The bodies of the
insects are then nipped off, but the heads retain their grip,
and form a perfect suture until the wound is completely
healed.
Well it is for man that the scheme of Nature did not
bestow upon the ant bulk as well as wisdom, valour, and
industry. Had the ant been only of the size of the domestic
cat, he would have been absolutely Lord of Creation.
The fishes alone would survive. A single ant hill would
furnish an army infinitely more numerous and formidable
than the hosts of Tamerlane or Attila. The earth would
shake under their tread; forests would fall before the power
of their jaws; the elephant himself would be unable to
resist their onset. Even now all smaller animals fly in
terror at the approach of an ant army, and if overtaken fall
victims to their furious assaults. Such an army, were the
individuals no larger than mice, would yet be irresistible.
Among the many reasons man has for gratitude to Providence,
not the least is that the ant was not endowed
with bulk in addition to its other gifts. To attain to the
full power of its intellect, it requires a warm climate, differing
in this respect from man, who suffers intellectually
both from the extremes of heat and cold. The ant of
temperate regions bears the same relation to the tropical
ant that the savage of the tropical zone bears to the civilised
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
communities of more temperate climes. The ant of the
villa garden and the red ant of the woods are but very
ignorant savages compared with the termite, for while the
one inhabits caves and tunnels in the ground, and the other
rough huts, thatched with the spines of the fir, the white ant
dwells in a palace far larger in proportion to its size than the
abodes of the most powerful monarchs of the human race
to that of their inhabitants.
It is not only man who may with advantage take lessons
from the ant; the domestic hen would do well in one
respect to imitate it. The white ant lays eighty-six thousand
eggs a day throughout the season—an amount that may
well cause the hen to be ashamed of her miserable total of
three or four eggs a week. It is by no means improbable
that the partiality of all birds for the pupæ of ants is less
due to a gastronomic liking for them, than to spite at the
superior fecundity of the ant. There would be a great
future opened to the farmer if our scientific men could but
discover some method of producing a bird which would be
a combination of the domestic hen with the ant, uniting the
size and tranquil habits of the one with something of the
fecundity of the other. We should not demand the full
tale of eighty thousand eggs a day; but even were that
amount divided by a thousand, the result would still be
satisfactory. The collection and packing of the eggs would
furnish employment to the juvenile rural population, and
eggs would become the commonest and cheapest of all
diets. There is a book already in existence that gives
instructions for cooking eggs in a hundred different ways.
Doubtless many fresh methods would be discovered in
preparing the abundant and nourishing food that would
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
be thus placed at the service of humanity. There would
be the additional advantage, that the problem, now so much
mooted, of our raising eggs sufficient for our consumption
without dependence upon foreign sources, would be in this
way finally solved. Whether such a much-to-be-desired consummation
is to be arrived at by the inoculation of the hen
with the blood of the female white ant, or by some other
method, is a point that must be left to scientific men. It is
only necessary for us to indicate a subject of research towards
which their studies and investigations may be directed,
with the certainty that, if successful, they would be of real
utility to the human race.
.bn 186.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=BEAVER
THE BEAVER.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE beaver is one of the animals that appear fated
to die out under the encroachment of man. It has
already all but if not quite, disappeared in Europe, and is
rapidly dying out in America, although its final extinction
has been greatly delayed by the substitution of silk for
beaver skin in the manufacture of hats, whereby the value
of the beaver has greatly decreased. In some respects the
beaver is the most human of animals. It constructs houses,
fells trees, and builds dams, and although it dwells in
communities, each family has its own abode, separate and
distinct from that of others. The sagacity of the beaver,
and its resemblance to man in its actions and gestures,
naturally cause it to be held in considerable veneration by
the Indians, and it shares with the bear the first place in
their esteem, although this feeling in no way prevents
them from killing it when opportunity offers. It may
be remarked parenthetically as somewhat singular that the
Indians, although they have had the beaver always among
them, have never taken to the wearing of high hats. It was
for its flesh that they hunted it; this was considered one of
their greatest dainties. Whether the beaver entertains the
same admiration for the sagacity of man as the latter does
for that of the beaver, is a point that has not been
determined. There can, however, be no doubt that it
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
regards him as a very formidable foe, and that it takes as
many precautions to avoid his attacks as it does against
those of its chief four-footed foe, the wolverine. It is to
avoid the latter that it builds its houses with their entrances
well below the level of the water, so that it can go in
or out without fear of capture by the way. Against man
it adopts another method of defence. It digs holes or
caves in the banks of the river below the water level, and
here it takes refuge when man attempts to break into its
house—in this respect following the example of many
primitive peoples, who abandon their dwellings and seek
refuge in almost inaccessible caves at the approach of a foe.
.if h
.il fn=p180.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Beavers]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
.pi
As might naturally be expected, the sagacity of the
beaver has been exaggerated by report. It was said to
be acquainted with the art of pile driving, and to use its
tail after the fashion of a mason’s trowel, in plastering and
smoothing the exterior and interior of its house. These
myths have been dissipated by more accurate observation.
The beaver has no natural means of pile driving. Were it
to endeavour to drive down a thick pile with its tail, it would
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
injure that organ to a degree altogether incommensurate
with the downward impulse it would impart to the pile,
and great as its sagacity may be, it has not been able to
invent a pile driver worked either by mechanism or by
steam. Its dams are formed from the trunks and arms
of trees floated down to a shallow point in the stream;
here they lodge, others are piled upon them, the boughs
interlaced, and stones and clay from the bottom are heaped
upon them, until the whole forms a solid mass, capable
of resisting the stream even in flood. Where the flow of
water is but small, the dam is constructed in a straight line
across it; where it is liable to be swollen greatly by rain,
it is built in a concave form, so as to break the force of the
current. Man himself could not better appreciate the
necessities of the situation. In streams where the supply of
water is constant it is unnecessary for the beaver to build
dams, as the purpose of these is only to maintain the
water at a level sufficient to cover the entrance of their
houses. Even in these cases the beaver often miscalculates
the length of the wolverine’s fore leg, and the latter will lie
for hours patiently awaiting the passage in or out of a
beaver, and then grasp it under water. That the beaver
should allow the wolverine this opportunity detracts somewhat
from its character for foresight.
The houses themselves are built much after the fashion
of the dams, except that timber forms a smaller proportion of
the mass, which is composed principally of mud and stones.
Sometimes, especially when circumstances restrict the space
available for house building, two or more families will
live under the same roof, but each abode has its separate
entrance, and privacy is thus preserved.
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
The beaver bestows no pains whatever upon the furnishing
of its house, the interior of which is as bare as that of an
Arab tent. There is a platform raised above the level of
the water, where the beaver and his family can dry and comb
their fur, they being more particular in the latter respect
than the human female of the present day, whose tastes lie
wholly in the direction of disorder and fuzziness. The
habits of the beaver when at home have not been
sufficiently studied to enable them to be described with
any accuracy, the beaver having a marked objection to such
investigations. That they are sociable in their habits is
evident by the way in which they will congregate on the roofs
of their houses, but whether they visit each other and
have entertainments analogous to afternoon tea is unknown.
It may be considered probable, however, that the females
meet and compare notes as to their families and domestic
arrangements; but, as it does not appear that any of the
beavers stand to each other in the relation of master and
servant, one of the most fruitful topics of gossip must be
wanting. The beaver is not, like the otter,—the quadruped
whose habits most closely resemble its own,—a fish-eater,
but like its distant cousin, the vole, feeds entirely upon
vegetables, its favourite diet being the stalk of an aquatic
plant which in appearance resembles a cabbage stalk; it
will, however, eat almost anything in the way of vegetables.
In captivity its tastes become modified, and it will, like the
dog, accommodate itself to circumstances, and eat meat,
pudding, or anything else that its master may be taking.
It is very easily tamed, and becomes extremely affectionate
and attached to those around it.
As may be expected, nature in making the beaver a
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
builder furnished it with teeth of extraordinary hardness
and wonderful cutting powers. These are composed of an
extremely hard coat of enamel, the rest of the tooth being
of a comparatively soft substance, whereby a cutting,
chisel-like edge is obtained: the enamel growing as fast
as it is worn away by use, a sharp edge is constantly maintained.
So excellent a cutting instrument is it, that the
Indians in the days before iron was at their disposal
used to fix beaver teeth in wooden handles with which
to cut bone and fashion their horn-tipped spears. The
beaver can cut down trees of ten inches in diameter.
It sits upon its branches like a squirrel while performing
the work, and always makes one side of the cut a good deal
higher than the other, by which means it is able to make
the tree fall in any desired direction with an accuracy as
great as that of the cleverest woodman.
It is a pity that the beaver has not been domesticated in
this country, for a colony at work would be a most interesting
feature in a park, and the young would furnish most amusing
pets. Like many other animals, beavers when at work
always place one of their number on guard, and the approach
of danger is indicated by a loud-sounding flap of the broad
tail. This tail, as the beaver climbs over its house in the
course of construction, doubtless aids in smoothing down
the surface, and they occasionally give a flap with it, but
there is no reason for believing that it is used by them for
the absolute purpose of plastering. It is much to be regretted
that so interesting an animal is rapidly disappearing from
the face of the earth.
.bn 191.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=SQUIRREL
THE SQUIRREL.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.6 0.65
AMONG quadrupeds there is none that appears to
enjoy its life more heartily, and to exhibit so much
playful gaiety of disposition, as the squirrel. It is the
type of liberty and freedom, of an airy joyousness, bound
down neither by rule nor method, an incarnation of
Bohemianism, and an existence free from labour, care, and
restraint. The bird may have as joyous a life during the
summer, but in winter its lot, if it tarry in northern climes,
is a hard one indeed, while if it migrate south it has a
long, arduous, and perilous journey to undertake, a journey
to which countless thousands fall victims. The squirrel is
free from these vicissitudes. In summer he frisks and frolics
among the foliage of the woods, and during winter he sleeps
away the time, snugly ensconced in the hollow of a tree,
waking up only occasionally to feed upon the hoard of
nuts or grain that he has providently stored away in
anticipation of that time.
.pi
That the squirrel, with its pretty ways, its alertness, its
activity, its bright eyes, soft coat, and bushy tail, has not
become one of man’s greatest pets is due to the squirrel
itself. However tame and affectionate it may become—and
it is capable of becoming both in a high degree—it is given to
sudden alarms, and will then on an instant make its teeth
meet in the hand that holds it, the effect being similar to
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
that which would be produced by four small chisels being
driven into the flesh. It may be assumed that the squirrel
has no direct intention of giving pain, but the result unfortunately
does not depend upon the intention, and even
a ferret requires no more careful handling than does a
squirrel. This peculiarity of the squirrel has militated to
prevent any close affection and friendship between it and
man, and has been the main reason for man’s allowing it to
go its own way and to enjoy its life in its own fashion.
.if h
.il fn=p185.jpg w=600px
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
.in 10
.ti -4
[++ Illustration: Squirrel]
.in 0
.sp 2
.if-
In this country the squirrel does not multiply to an extent
that would render it a scourge and a nuisance where it
abounds. It may do some damage by gnawing young shoots
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
and buds of the trees, and the woodman may therefore be
compelled to wage war against it, but the farmer does not
reckon it in the list of his enemies, and upon the whole the
squirrel lives its life unmolested. This is not so in the
Western States of America, where the squirrel is among
the most troublesome of the farmer’s foes, causing terrible
depredations among his crops. The variety there is not
attired in the warm brown coat of its British cousin, but is
striped black and grey like a tabby cat, and is a good deal
larger than the English variety, with a magnificently large
and bushy tail. So numerous are they in some parts, that
upwards of a hundred thousand have been killed in the
course of a year on a single estate.
Nature has been extremely bountiful to the squirrel in
the matter of his allowance of tail, no other quadruped
approaching him in this respect. The tail of the kangaroo
may be as long in proportion, but from the hair being short
and smooth it makes but little show, and is altogether lacking
in the dignity of that of the squirrel; it is, too,
extremely deficient in grace, being held out stiffly in rear,
while the squirrel manages his as gracefully as a grand
dame of the court of Louis XIV. managed her train. It is
greatly to the credit of the squirrel that, adorned as he is by
this exceptionally fine and bushy appendage, he does not,
like the peacock, the turkey, and the bird of paradise, put
on side in consequence; but except for the pains he takes
in cleaning it and keeping it in the best possible condition,
he seems to place no store on this his chief personal
adornment. It is not quite clear what was the object of
nature in thus endowing the squirrel, as we have been
taught every organ has its special functions, and if one is abnormally
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
enlarged it is because such enlargement was either
essential to the safety of the individual, acted as a protection
against his foes, or enabled him more easily to procure his
food. But it is not very clear that any of these objects are
served by the tail of the squirrel. He has few enemies, and
although undoubtedly a long tail adds to the quickness
with which an animal can turn, the squirrel has less
occasion for extraordinary speed in this respect than have
many other creatures who need it to elude the pursuit of
their foes. But given the length of tail, its bushiness is
probably an advantage to the squirrel, as it adds so very
greatly to its bulk as to much reduce its specific gravity,
and thus enables it to drop from bough to bough with
almost the lightness of a descending feather. In point of
speed, the squirrel is for its size probably the swiftest of
quadrupeds, its movements being so rapid that the eye can
hardly follow them, and for a short distance it would need a
very swift dog to overtake it. With so many advantages
in the way of speed, activity, and grace, in addition to those
of its very handsome appearance, it is surprising that the
demeanour of the squirrel affords no indication whatever
that it has a particularly good idea of itself.
It is brimful of life, fun, and overflowing vitality; it delights
in testing its powers, and exercises itself to the fullest
for the mere pleasure of the thing. Kittens and puppies
similarly amuse and enjoy themselves, but no other animal
maintains through life the same love of hard exercise for its
own sake as does the squirrel. Although so gay and sprightly,
the squirrel is—unlike some bipeds of similar disposition—an
excellent husband, faithful, domesticated and constant.
He and his wife pair not for a season only, but generally for
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
life. After choosing a suitable home in the hollow of a tree,
they snugly establish themselves there, bring up their families,
store it with nuts and grain for the winter, line it with dry
moss, and convert it into one of the most cosy of abodes.
The squirrel is gifted with a large share of curiosity; he
takes a lively interest in all that is going on around him,
and appears to be particularly interested in man. When
walking or driving through districts in the United States
where the squirrel abounds, scores of these little creatures
will leap up on to fallen trunks of trees, rails, or other
vantage points by the side of the track, and watch the
coming passenger, and will not move until he is within a
few paces of them, unless, indeed, he is armed with a gun,
in which case they, as well as birds, soon come to understand
that he is dangerous. The squirrel, like the rat, is
excellent eating, although even where he abounds many
persons have as great a prejudice against eating it as the
ordinary English farmer would have against that real
delicacy, a rat pie. Hunters, however, who shoot it for
its skin highly appreciate its flesh, their only regret being
that there is not more of it. The squirrel should never be
kept in captivity; it is as gross an act of cruelty to confine
it as it is to cage a skylark. If it is a punishment to
man to be kept in a cell, how great must be the pain to a
creature so restless, so full of life and activity, so happy and
joyous in its freedom, as the squirrel. The result, as might
be expected, is that, however well its wants may be attended
to, in the great majority of cases it speedily pines and dies.
If kept at all, it should be in a roomy aviary, enclosing
shrubs and parts of trees of a sufficient size to enable it
to indulge to some extent in its natural habits.
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=FLEA
THE FLEA.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
WHILE great pains are devoted to the breeding of
horses, cattle, and sheep among animals, to that
of several kinds of birds, and to the propagation of fish, the
flea has been left to shift for itself, and has managed to
thrive. Whether the flea was, in the first place, an inhabitant
of all terrestrial portions of the globe, or whether,
starting from a common centre, it speedily spread itself
over the earth, is a point which has not been decided;
but the habits of the flea admirably fit him as a traveller;
he is a natural stowaway, and being able to subsist for a
long time without nourishment, he can perform the longest
journeys without inconvenience among the other belongings
of the traveller to whom he has temporarily attached himself.
At the same time, he manages if possible to become
the personal attendant and companion of his fellow-voyager
for the time being, and to carry, as it were, his food as well
as his lodging with him. So constant are these migrations,
so assiduous are fleas in their attachment to man, that it
is computed that even if they started as distinct nationalities
constant intermixture must have so leavened them that
the whole race is now practically homogeneous, and speak
a language common to all. Although partial to comfort,
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
and occasionally taking up his abode in the warm and cosy
dwellings of the rich, the flea is by no means particular, and
makes himself equally at home in the tent of the Arab, the
hovel of the Mexican, the snowhouse of the Esquimaux,
the cottage of the Spaniard, or the hut of the Persian. He
will exist in the sand, and wait patiently for the chance
passage of something he can devour; but his preferences
lie in the direction of crowded tenements, and the dirtier
and more untidy the better. The flea rivals the dog in his
affection for man; he will cling to him to the last, and
anger and even execrations do not shake his attachment.
He is of a lively disposition, and there is nothing that he
enjoys more than being hunted, entering thoroughly into
the spirit of the thing, showing himself occasionally to inspire
his eager pursuer with hope, and then disappearing
into air. With other creatures it is generally safe to infer
that they will leap forward. The flea, however, is bound by
no rules, and can spring backward, forward, or sideways
with equal ease. The power of his hind legs is prodigious,
and it is well for man that he prefers to remain small, for
a flea who took into his head to grow even as large as a cat
would be a very formidable creature. It has been calculated
by an American man of science that if the mule had the
same proportionate power in his hind legs as has the flea,
he could kick an ordinary-sized man 33 miles 1004 yards
and 21 inches. Mankind has therefore good reason for
congratulating itself upon the fact that the flea has not, in
the course of his career, had any ambition in the direction
of size, and that the smallest and most active only survived
in the struggle for existence.
.pi
The habits of a flea have not been sufficiently investigated
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
to enable us to state with certainty whether he uses his
hind legs as weapons in his contests with other insects;
but it is to be presumed that he does so, for why otherwise
should Nature have endowed him with so much power in
these limbs? If the ordinary mode of progression of the
flea were, like that of the grasshopper, by a succession of
springs, the prodigious size of his hind legs would be accountable;
but, upon the contrary, the flea is essentially a
runner, and the speed with which he can make his way
through the thick fur of a cat or the hair of a dog is
wonderful. It does not appear, indeed, that he ever does
take to jumping except when inclined to drive human beings
on the search for him into a state of frenzy.
As it cannot be reasonably supposed that Nature gifted
the flea with such abnormal saltatory powers merely that
he should be a cause of bad language among the human
kind, some other explanation must be sought for. The
Darwinian theory, that living creatures develop by the
survival of the fittest such powers as may be most useful to
them, fails altogether here, unless it be supposed that the
flea’s legs have developed only since he made his acquaintance
with man. In the earlier periods of his history, when
he lived in the hair or fur of animals, he could have had
no occasion whatever to jump. Unfortunately, the early
historians, in dealing with the flea, are silent as to the
length of his leaps, and we have, therefore, no means of
estimating the rate at which he has progressed in this
accomplishment during the last two or three thousand years.
Yet, doubtless, he was present at the Siege of Troy, dwelt
in the tent of Achilles, and stirred Ulysses to occasional
wrath; it would have been well, then, had Homer turned
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
for a moment from recording the struggles of the Greeks
and Trojans, and given us a little solid information respecting
the flea of those days.
Although abundant everywhere, he is found to be most
prolific and numerous in the East. Upon this point all
travellers are agreed. Some put it down to the fact that he
loves heat; others to his partiality for dirt; while others
again go back to the days of the Flood for the explanation.
While other animals went into the Ark in pairs, it is
morally certain that the flea went in his thousands; and as
the four men in charge of all the animals can have had but
little time to attend to the flea, and as, so far as is known,
insecticide powder was not invented in those days, the flea
doubtless multiplied prodigiously during the long voyage.
Not knowing what was going on outside, the colony would
be taken by surprise when the animals suddenly quitted the
Ark; and vast numbers must have been left behind; these
must, after the departure of man and the animals from the
mountain on which the Ark rested, have shifted for themselves
as they best could. Some would have early started
on their travels, others would have clung to the Ark until it
fell to pieces; but in time, at any rate, they must have
scattered over the East, and there, being poor travellers
except when carried, they and their descendants have
remained ever since. It would be rash to say that this
is the only plausible theory. Doubtless others can be
advanced; but, taking it altogether, it certainly appears the
most probable explanation of the abundance of the flea
in Asia, and it may be said in Russia also, and other
contiguous countries.
The flea is capable of being tamed, and of affording
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
amusement to man by various little tricks. The first step
in the process is to restrain his natural inclination to jump.
This is done by placing him in a low, flat box with a glass
lid. The flea, supposing that he has an open space overhead,
jumps, strikes the glass with great violence, and falls
half-stunned. This discourages him, but, unable to account
for the phenomenon, he tries again and again, until at last,
after some days, he arrives at the conclusion that there is
something altogether wrong with the atmosphere, and that
jumping must be abandoned. After this the rest is easy.
He can be taught to drag a little carriage, to sit on the box,
to fire a tiny cannon, or to perform other feats. He never,
however, recovers thoroughly from the effect of his terrible
blows against the glass. His heart and his spirit appear
to be alike broken. Like a caged eagle he mopes out his
life, and seldom lives more than a month or six weeks after
his education is completed.
His is, in fact, the true gipsy spirit. Free, he will make
himself happy under any circumstances, and although he
may have his preferences, can get on anywhere. He
loves the young and the tender, but does not despise age.
Free, he is joyous, lively, and daring: a captive and
chained, he pines and dies. It is a pity that no one will
do for him what Sir John Lubbock has done for the ant.
Such an investigator would no doubt be able to rehabilitate
the flea in public estimation. Although he may be forced
to live in dirty places, he is himself perfectly clean,
taking great pains to clean himself with his hind legs, as
does the fly. He is clad in shining armour, which is
wonderfully tough and strong; his eyes are lively and
prominent. Even in his most joyous moments he is never
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
noisy; his attentions to man are unwearied, and the gentle
irritation thereby caused affords means of occupation and
excitement to the lazy mendicant, the indolent native of the
South, and the contemplative Oriental, and rouses them
from the lethargy in which they might otherwise sink.
Fully and properly understood, the flea might take high
rank among the benefactors of man.
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=MOSQUITO
THE MOSQUITO.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
THERE is nothing in the appearance of the mosquito
to excite alarm even in the most timid breasts, no
sign of his almost diabolical nature, or of his power of
making himself obnoxious. And yet he is endowed with
a subtlety, a malice, and a fiendish thirst for blood unparalleled
save in the leech. The mosquito is found in
almost every climate and country, sounding his trumpet
as vehemently by the shores of the Arctic Sea as beside
a sluggish stream on the Equator, the British Islands being
almost alone in their happy immunity from its presence; and
among all the varied blessings for which a Briton has cause
to be thankful there is scarcely one so peculiar and so
marked as the absence of this creature. It is probably seen
at its worst in the north of Russia, Norway and Sweden,
and in some of the Northern States of America. In these
countries it is hardly safe to leave a horse out at night, for
although we may safely discredit the legends that horses
have been carried off bodily by mosquitoes, these animals
have undoubtedly been killed by the poisonous bites of
their innumerable foes. It is the methods of the mosquito
rather than the injury it inflicts that drive men to madness.
It is not that they are greatly grudged the drop or two of
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
blood they extract, and the pain and inflammation of the
wound, though often considerable, are not very much more
so than those of our own midnight assailants, the bug and
the flea. If they would but come and have their meal
in peace and quiet, man might bear it. It is their shrill
trumpeting, their approaches and departures, and the long
and agonising suspense that precedes the moment when,
their investigation complete, they fix on what appears to
them the most penetrable point, settle, and begin their meal,
that cows the spirit of the bravest man. Heroes who
would face the spring of an infuriated tiger, and lead a
column to the cannon’s mouth, will quail and cover their
head with the sheet when they hear the shrill challenge of
the mosquito.
.pi
Man has endeavoured by many means to defend himself
from this persecutor. He has rubbed himself with medicaments,
and has hung up boughs of shrubs to which it is supposed
that the mosquito has an objection. He has invented
pastilles, whose smoke, it was hoped, would lull his foe into
a lethargy; but at all these and similar measures the mosquito
laughs. The only resource affording even a partial protection
is the mosquito curtain. In theory this device is
excellent. Man enclosed within a curtain of gauze ought
to be unassailable. Unfortunately the practice does not
follow the theory. However secure the curtains, however
great the pains bestowed in seeing that no mosquito was
present when the man was tucked up inside them, we
doubt whether history records a single example of complete
success having attended the arrangement. Do
what man will, the mosquito will be there. Its favourite
plan is to be beforehand with a man, and to hide somewhere
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
until man has entered his muslin tent. Every
effort will, it knows, be made to dislodge it; the curtains
will be shaken, towels will be flapped here and there, every
nook and corner will, as it seems, be examined, but the
mosquito will manage in one way or other to evade the
search. But even in the exceptional cases where it is routed
out, the mosquito knows that it is but for a time. If there is
a hole in the curtains, be it only the size of a knitting-needle,
it will find it and get through; and in the event of the
curtains being absolutely new, it is sure to find some point
at which the tucking up has been imperfectly done. But
most of all it relies upon entering with the would-be sleeper.
The latter is well aware of this. He listens first for the
sound of wings, but at this moment the mosquito is discreetly
silent. Then he untucks a small portion of the
curtain, his attendant flaps a towel wildly, and under cover
of this he plunges hastily through the orifice, which is at
once closed behind him. Then, in spite of a thousand
similar experiences, the man flatters himself that this time
he has evaded the mosquito, and lies down to rest. Stronger
and stronger grows the hope as the minutes pass on, and at
last it almost blooms into certainty as he finally turns over
and composes himself for sleep. Drowsiness steals over him,
when, just as consciousness is leaving him, the mosquito
sounds a triumphant bugle-blast close to his ear. Then the
ordinary man sits up in bed as if he were shot, and swears.
This is, unfortunately, all but universal. The best and
most patient of men have found it absolutely impossible to
avoid using bad language at this crisis. There is a shout
for the attendant, a light is brought and placed on a table
near the curtain. Then the battle begins in grim earnest, the
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
man against the mosquito; the one silent and watchful,
his arms outside the sheet ready for instant action, the
other, agile, ubiquitous, intent on exasperating and not on
attacking its victim, now resting for a time in a corner, then
making a rapid dash at the nose or ear, then disappearing
again, and lying silent for some minutes. Occasionally,
very occasionally, the man is victor, and with a rapid clutch
will grasp and annihilate the mosquito as it passes by his
face. In the vast majority of cases the man’s watchfulness
is in vain. Hours pass, and Nature asserts herself. The
mosquito has had amusement enough, and now, meaning
business, remains quiet until its victim dozes off. Not until
he is sound asleep will it this time move. Then it settles
lightly upon him, inserts its delicate proboscis in one of the
pores of his skin, pours in a tiny drop of venom to dilute the
blood, and then having drunk till its body has swelled to
many times its original size, heavily flies away, and fastens
itself to the curtain, where it falls an easy victim to the
vengeance of the sleeper in the morning. Such is the conflict
when one mosquito has found an entrance. When, as
is more usual, half a dozen have entered, it is, as may be
imagined, still more dire and disastrous; and the sleeper
in the morning wakes with perhaps an eye closed, and his
face swollen and disfigured by bumps almost beyond
knowledge.
The existence of the mosquito can be accounted for only
upon the ground that he was sent as a special trial to man’s
temper, but in that case Nature evidently miscalculated the
amount of self-control that man possesses. A trial can
hardly be considered as a trial when the result is certain,
and the breakdown of man’s temper under the attacks
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
of the mosquito is universal and complete. It would
have been enough had the mosquito been endowed with
activity, craft, and voracity. The trial would have been
in that case ample, but exceptional men might have
passed through it unscathed. It was the addition of the
trumpet that settled the matter. No such exasperating
sound is to be heard on earth. Good resolutions crumble
to nought before it. The most patient and the most stoical
of mortals are as much moved by it as their weaker
brethren, and the native of the Arctic Circle and he of the
Equator alike in their respective languages utter words of
despair and profanity. We may hope, however, that science
has not yet spoken its last word, and that some future
Pasteur or Koch may discover a bacillus capable of creating
a contagious and fatal disease among mosquitoes, and that
by this means man may be relieved of a burden almost too
heavy for him.
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=COW
THE COW.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.6 0.65
ALTHOUGH the cow is always with us, we know but
little about her beyond her likes and dislikes in the
matter of food. We have, indeed, by dint of long perseverance,
transformed the wild cow into an eating machine—a
vehicle for the conversion of feeding stuffs into milk
and meat. Her brain is to us a sealed book, which so far
no sage has made it his business to open. No one, however,
can doubt that the cow does a great deal of thinking. In
this respect it is among beasts as is the owl among birds.
No one can watch a herd of cattle ruminating tranquilly,
without being impressed with the conviction that they are
thinking deeply. Whether they are meditating over the
legends that have been handed down to them of the time
when they wandered wild and free on mountain and moor,
or are wondering why man busies himself in supplying them
with the food most to their liking, while he requires no
active service in return, as he does from the horse, we
know not.
.pi
The eye of the ox is soft and meditative; it has not
inspired modern poets, but the ancients recognised its
beauty, and the Greeks could find no more complimentary
epithet for the Queen of the Gods than to call her ox-eyed.
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Such an eye should certainly indicate a philosophic mind,
and it is in this direction that we must regard it as probable
that the cow’s ruminations are directed. We may credit
her with having arrived at a conclusion to her own satisfaction
as to the points that have engaged the attention of a
Darwin or a Spencer, but one can scarce conjecture that
the cerebral organisation of the cow was beforehand with
man in the discovery of the steam-engine or the electric
telegraph. The Arabs and the Orientals, with their deep
knowledge of the occult, were evidently impressed with the
idea that the cow’s brain is so stored with knowledge that
it would be a danger to mankind were she able to put her
thoughts into words. This is shown by the fact that, while
in their legends the gift of speech is frequently bestowed on
horses, storks, and birds of many kinds, there is no instance
of a cow being so favoured. It may be said that the dog is
similarly omitted; but the dog is an animal looked down
upon in the East. It is there never admitted to the intimacy
of man, and, having been habitually repressed, has
not acquired the traits of character that distinguish it in
Western countries. But in whatever light the matter is
looked at, it cannot be doubted that it is unfortunate for
the world that so profound a thinker as the cow is unable
to communicate her conclusions to man.
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The cow, as distinct from the bull, is in its wild state a
timid animal, and it is somewhat singular that although she
has lost much of that timidity, she largely inspires the feeling
among the female sex. Next to the mouse, the ordinary
woman fears the cow. The dog, a really more alarming
animal, she is not afraid of; the horse inspires her with no
terror; but the sight of two or three cows in a lane throws
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her off her balance. On such an occasion a woman will perform
feats of activity quite beyond her at ordinary times: she will
climb a five-barred gate, or squeeze herself through a gap
in a hedge, regardless of rents or scratches, with as much
.bn 210.png
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speed and alacrity as she would manifest in leaping on a
chair in the presence of that ferocious animal the mouse.
We believe that this unreasoning terror has its origin in
the pernicious nursery legend of the cow with the crumpled
horn. It is true that that animal is related to have suffered
the maiden all forlorn to milk her, but she afterwards tossed
the dog; and it is the pictorial representations of her while
performing this feat that have impressed the juvenile mind.
The mere fact that there are few precedents for a woman
being tossed by a cow goes for nothing, nor that the animal’s
disposition is peaceable in the extreme; it can, therefore, be
hardly questioned that the timidity excited in the female
mind by the cow must be founded upon some lost legend
of antiquity. It may be that Eve had trouble in her first
efforts to procure lacteal fluid from the cow, or that the
specimen chosen to perpetuate the race in the Ark was
rendered savage and dangerous from its long imprisonment
there; but no legend that would give favour to either theory
has come down to us.
In her wild state the cow is compelled to take considerable
exercise in order to obtain a sufficient amount of sustenance;
the domesticated animal, having no need to do so, has
developed habits of laziness. She has become constitutionally
averse to exertion; but Providence, by sending the fly, has
done much to counteract the effects of this tendency. It
has been calculated by mechanical engineers that the amount
of energy required to switch away flies with a cow’s tail is
equivalent to that which would raise a weight of seven
pounds one foot. Intelligent observers estimate that upon
a hot day when the flies are troublesome, a cow will switch
her tail thirty times in the course of a minute, thus
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expending an amount of energy per hour sufficient, if otherwise
employed, to lift nearly six tons’ weight one foot from
the ground; so that, considering the number of cows in Great
Britain, it is clear that an amount of power in comparison
to which that of Niagara is as nothing is being wasted.
The thoughtful agriculturist will surely perceive that as an
expenditure of energy means loss of flesh and decreased
production of milk, it would be to his interest to envelop
his cattle in mosquito curtains during the summer months.
The cow is best seen in a state of repose. Either as lying
down or standing in the shade of a tree, dreamily chewing
the cud, and vaguely wondering whether beet or turnips
will form the staple of her supper, there are few animals
more taking to the eye. She can walk, too, without forfeiting
our respect, but she is a lamentable spectacle when
she runs. The poetry of motion does not exist in the case
of the cow, and yet it is clear that she takes the greatest
pains about her running, and puts her whole heart into it;
personally, then, she is not to blame in that the result is,
as an exhibition, a failure. The fault lies in nature rather
than in the individual. In the course of the Darwinian
process of transforming, let us say a mole into a cow, it
was clearly in the creature’s mind that the day would come
when she would be milked. Each of the countless generations
required to bring her to her present form kept
this contingency steadily in view, and practised kicking
sideways. The result is, so far as the milkmaid is concerned,
a superb success, and the cow is able to kick sideways
in a manner that excites the envious admiration of
the horse; but, as was to be expected, with the acquisition
of the sideway motion the cow’s leg lost the power possessed
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so pre-eminently by the horse and mule of delivering a
good, fair, square kick backwards; and even in running,
what may be called the side action predominates over the
fore and aft. Doubtless the cow knew her own business,
and deliberately sacrificed gracefulness of action to the joy
of being able to kick over a milkmaid. The lover of grace
may regret that it should be so, but has no right to complain
of the cow pleasing herself. The original mole probably
foresaw that her far-off descendant would be a creature
of few active enjoyments, and of a steady and tranquil
nature, and considered that she was perfectly justified in
making some sacrifice in order to enable the cow of the
future to enjoy at least one piece of lively fun.
On the whole, however, the cow may fairly claim to be
an eminently worthy and respectable animal, and to be of
great importance to man. Some may feel inclined to say,
of vital importance; but this may be disputed. It is due
in a great degree to the attention that man has bestowed
upon her that she has developed her capacity for putting
on flesh, and her abnormal secretion of milk. Had man
not found her ready to his hand, and foreseen her capacity
in this direction, he might have turned his attention to the
mastodon, which in that case would now be grazing in vast
numbers among the woods planted for his sustenance, and
would be affording mountains of flesh and tuns of milk,
while mastodon butter might have been able to hold its
own against margarine and other fatty compounds. The
cow deserves great credit for developing herself into her
wild type from some wandering germ or other, but for her
progression to her present status she has to thank the care
and attention she has received from man.
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.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=OCTOPUS
THE OCTOPUS AND CUTTLE FISH.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.6 0.65
ALTHOUGH dignified by the name of a fish, the
cuttle fish has nothing in common with the finny
inhabitants of the sea, save that its existence is passed
beneath the surface of the water. It stands alone, apart
from all living creatures, with scarcely a point of resemblance
to any of them, its nearest relations being, perhaps, the sea
anemones—those lovely inhabitants of pools among rocks.
Nature would seem to have created the octopus in an idle
moment, in order to show how she could diverge from her
regular course, and turn out a creature with a multiplicity of
arms, without body or legs, and with its head in the middle
of its stomach. As usual, she succeeded to perfection, but
was so horrified with the monster she had made that she
threw it into the sea, and endowed it with a diabolical disposition.
The octopus resembles an ogre dwelling in its
cave, conscious that its distorted shape will not bear the
light, and stretching out its arms studded with suckers to
grasp and draw down to its mouth any living thing that
passes within its reach. The cuttle fish varies in size from
the squid, beloved by gourmands who dwell on the shores of
the Mediterranean, to the monster octopus who throws his
arms round boats and drags them to the bottom. Some,
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indeed, in the Indian seas, are reported to grow to a size
that renders them formidable even to ships, wrapping them
in its embrace and dragging the sailors from the deck or
shrouds. Even allowing for exaggeration, there can be little
doubt that enormous specimens are occasionally met with,
and that these would be formidable to small vessels. Bodies
have been cast ashore whose arms have measured thirty
feet in length, and these could well pluck a sailor from the
deck of a ship. On our own shores they are, happily, never
met with of formidable size, but comparatively large ones
are encountered not far south; for it may be taken that the
desperate struggle described by Victor Hugo in “The Toilers
of the Sea” was at least not considered by him to be impossible,
and that he had heard from fishermen of the
existence of creatures as large as the one he described. The
octopus appears almost insensible to pain, and the hacking
off of one or more of its tentacles does not seem to cause it
any inconvenience. Its body—or rather its stomach—is its
only vital part, and even this must be almost cut into pieces
before it will relinquish the hold it has obtained of a prey.
The beak of a parrot is the last thing one would expect to
find in the centre of these waving tentacles, and Nature
apparently placed it there as the crowning effort in the work
of construction of this monster.
.pi
Among birds, beasts, and fishes we may seek in vain for
a prototype of the octopus. To find one we must go to
man, and we shall find that, in his way, the professional
money-lender bears a close resemblance to this creature.
The waving arms, that by their resemblance to great seaweeds
lull a passing fish into a sense of security, are represented
in the case of the money-lender by flattering and
.bn 215.png
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unctuous advertisements, which, catching the eye of the
unwary, persuade him that money is to be had for asking,
upon terms to suit all pockets; but, as in the case of the
octopus, once the suckers catch hold, there is no escape;
nearer and nearer the victim is drawn, in spite of his
struggles, to the parrot mouth that will tear him to pieces,
and swallow up him and his belongings. The analogy is
in all ways extremely close, and yet the man who would
shudder at the thought of entering a cave in the depth of
whose waters the octopus is lurking, will enter the professional
money-lender’s den with an unmoved countenance
and an even pulse. Happily, there is every reason for
supposing that the fish which form the staple of the diet of
the octopus suffer less in the process of destruction than
does the victim of the money-lender. Fish are certainly
almost, if not entirely, insensible to pain, and there is no
reason to suppose that they are gifted with strong powers of
imagination; it may therefore be believed that although a
fish may struggle to escape from the grip of the tentacle, it
feels none of the horror that seizes a human victim when
once grasped by one of the larger species, and that its doom
is hidden from it until the savage beak seizes it, and at once
puts an end to its existence.
While man can to a certain extent enter into the feelings
of a large proportion of the animal creation, it is beyond
his power to imagine himself an octopus, or to get himself
en rapport with its thoughts. Has it any higher impulses?
Is it naturally cruel, or does it view its own methods and
conduct from a strictly business point? Does it persuade
itself that it is an estimable character? Is it in its own
private circle affectionate and domesticated? Has it the
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power of discussing passing events with its congeners, and
exchanging views as to the flavour of the various fish that
form its diet, or as to advantageous spots for ambush? We
can answer none of these questions. It certainly has but
a small chance of leading a higher life. The subterranean
world it sees around it is full of strife and destruction.
“The large fish eat the smaller fish, and so on ad infinitum.”
It only plays the same game as those around it, but by
different methods, and there is no reason, because those
methods are repugnant to us, that the octopus should be
of the same opinion. Man is singularly intolerant in such
matters. He himself kills the creatures he requires for food
either by knocking them on the head, by cutting their
throats, or by shooting them. Fish he captures either
with nets or with a hook which sticks into their mouth or
throat. And yet he criticises severely the methods of the
animal creation. He dislikes the spider because like a
fisherman it catches its prey in nets. He shudders at the
cat because it plays with its victim just as the angler does.
He is shocked because the octopus lies in wait for its prey
and lassoes it as it passes. There is, in fact, no pleasing
man, and he is shocked at all methods of killing, even at
that most closely resembling those which he himself
employs in slaying the creatures on which he feeds. We
fear that there is a great deal of humbug about human
susceptibilities.
Some of the cuttle fish are large manufacturers of ink.
These, instead of anchoring themselves to the bottom,
float near the surface, and their chance of obtaining food
would be small were it not for their power of ejecting ink,
and thus clouding the water and veiling themselves from
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sight—a habit which also affords them a method of escape
when themselves attacked by the shark or other formidable
enemy. This method is not unknown to man, and several
well-known instances might be adduced of public men
who, after having by loose assertions brought a formidable
opponent down upon them, escape under a cloud of misleading
words, phrases, and explanations that explain
nothing, and retractions that leave the matter as it was
before. Seeing that the peculiar variety of ink secreted
by the cuttle fish is of a very valuable kind, it is somewhat
remarkable that no enterprising manufacturer has as yet
taken the matter in hand and established an aqueous farm
for the breeding and rearing of cuttle fish. Indian ink and
sepia are both so valuable that such an enterprise ought to
pay handsome profits, and if the oyster can be cultivated,
why not the cuttle fish? It would, of course, be necessary
that the retaining walls of the gigantic aquarium indicated
should be impervious to the passing of cuttle fish even in
their earliest stage. Otherwise the proprietors would be
liable very speedily to be indicted as a nuisance by the
lodging-house keepers and owners of bathing machines of
the nearest sea-side watering places. But this could doubtless
be effected, and then no argument could be adduced
that the cuttle fish should necessarily be a nuisance to their
neighbours that would not equally apply to the wild beasts
at a menagerie. In the latter case one occasionally breaks
out and causes consternation, and, possibly, damage, and
even if an octopus should do the same there could be no
very valid ground for complaint. As the squid when cooked
furnishes a somewhat gelatinous food not altogether dissimilar
to calf’s head, it is probable that the flesh of the
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larger varieties might be utilised for the manufacture of
mock turtle, and another source of revenue would, therefore,
be open to their breeders. It is clear from these remarks
that the cuttle fish has not hitherto received the careful
consideration that it deserves, and the dislike we feel for
its form and habits has blinded us to the benefits that might
with culture and domestication be derived from it.
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.sp 4
.h2 id=BACILLUS
THE BACILLUS.
.hr 20%
.ni
.dc 0.2 0.65
HAD the learned Linnæus been informed that there
existed a creature of which he had taken no
account, which exercised a much larger influence upon the
fortunes and happiness of man than any of those which he
so laboriously arranged and classified, he would have smiled
the smile of incredulity. But just as it is but within the
present century that mankind has awoke to the enormous
power and usefulness of steam and electricity, so it is only
within the last ten or fifteen years that he has attained to
the knowledge of the existence of the demon bacillus, who
has sprung at a bound into the position of man’s deadliest
enemy. Secretiveness must be assigned the first place
among the characteristics of the bacillus. Since man first
appeared upon earth this scourge must have carried on
its deadly work, and heaped up a hecatomb of victims in
comparison to which those who have perished by war or by
famine are but an insignificant handful; and yet man has
pursued his way in the blindest ignorance of the very
existence of his indefatigable enemy.
.pi
Even yet comparatively few people are aware of the
personal peculiarities of the bacillus, or could describe with
any approach to accuracy the difference between the allied
.bn 220.png
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tribes, each of which represents some form or other of
disease or death, and the scientific men who are so actively
busying themselves in counteracting its work are very chary
of describing its personal peculiarities. When these are
more generally understood it will probably lead to a revolution
in art. The artist of other days who wished to convey
to the beholder that the personage depicted was in imminent
peril of his life could find no better means of doing so than
by placing behind him a shadowy figure with a death’s
head and skeleton arms holding a dart. This childish representation
can no longer be tolerated, and the artist of
the future will have only to depict hovering over the principal
figure a bacillus, and the beholder will at once understand
not only that death is impending, but will be able to
distinguish from the characteristics of the bacillus whether
it will take the form of consumption, typhoid, small-pox, or
other disease. This will be of vast utility in the painting of
historical personages, as no questions can arise centuries
later as to the cause of their death, the disease of which they
died being clearly indicated by the accompanying bacillus,
which, of course, will in future be appended to every
posthumous portrait.
It is mortifying to human vanity to reflect that for some
sixty centuries, at the shortest computation, man has been
taking all sorts of pains to protect himself against minor
dangers, in absolute ignorance of the bacillus fiend in his
midst. Against the wild beast and the snake he has waged
open warfare. He has covered himself with armour to
protect himself from the weapons of human foes. He has
furnished his ships with lifeboats, he has placed trap-doors
in the roofs of his houses to afford an escape in case of
.bn 221.png
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fire, and has invented the safety lamp as a protection for
those who work in mines. He has muzzled the dog in
order to escape the fabulously remote
risk of hydrophobia, and he
has laid down strict regulations to
diminish the chances of his being
blown up by explosives. He has
fenced himself in by sanitary regulations
to preserve himself against the
evil effect of foul smells, and has
flattered himself that by these and many other precautions
he has done what he could to ensure
for himself prolonged life. And yet
all this time the bacillus has been
carrying on his work unsuspected,
laughing, in whatever passes as his
sleeve, as he yearly sweeps away his
tens of millions of victims. It has,
in fact, been a new and terrible
illustration of the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
Proud man, who slays the whale for
its oil, and the elephant for its ivory,
has been slain by his invisible foe,
the bacillus; and, like a soldier
brought down by a long range
bullet, has not even had the satisfaction
of knowing who was his
slayer.
.if h
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Cholera Bacillus
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[Illustration: Cholera Bacillus (Natural Size).]
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Small-pox Bacillus
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[Illustration: Small-pox Bacillus (Natural Size).]
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Typhoid Bacillus
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[Illustration: Typhoid Bacillus (Natural Size).]
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The microscope has long since discovered to him the
existence of innumerable creatures, invisible to the naked
eye; he has learnt that the water he drank teemed with animated
.bn 222.png
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atoms; that many of the rocks were composed solely
of their minute skeletons; that a layer of them reposed on
the depth of ocean; that countless numbers of them were
borne with the floating dust in the air. Some of these
discoveries caused him wonder and admiration, others a
certain sense of uneasiness and disgust; but when he discovered
that neither he nor his ancestors had suffered any
material inconvenience from imbibing these countless hosts
in their drinks, or inhaling them in the atmosphere, he
ceased to trouble himself about them, and went on his way
regardless of their existence. The case has been wholly
changed by the discovery of the bacillus, and man stands
aghast alike at the terribly destructive and deadly nature of
his foe, and at his own impotency to guard himself against
its attacks. His feelings resemble those of the solitary
traveller who finds that the forest through which he is
passing is swarming with desperate and determined enemies,
who are bent upon taking his life.
It needs no great powers of prevision to perceive that the
discovery of the bacillus must lead to an enormous revolution
in our methods of life. It is not man’s nature to
submit passively to tyranny and oppression; and now
that we are beginning to form some idea of the number
and deadly nature of our foe, we shall assuredly embark
upon a prolonged and desperate warfare with him. Inventors
will, in the first place, devote all their energies to
discovering a means of defence against his attacks. We
may expect that just as our ancestors clad themselves in
armour to protect themselves against human weapons,
so in the future we shall wear some sort of covering,
composed, perhaps, of extremely thin and flexible glass, to
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
prevent the bacillus coming in contact with our skin; or we
may paint ourselves on emerging from our baths with some
compound which may be discovered to be lethal to him.
The passages to our lungs will doubtless be defended by
a respiratory apparatus that will filter him out of the air
as it passes in. While thus we endeavour in every way to
defend ourselves against his attacks, we shall take the
offensive against him when he succeeds in eluding these
precautions, and effecting an entrance. Unfortunately, at
present the bacillus shows himself to be almost invulnerable;
but, like Achilles, he has a weak spot in his heel. While
able, so far as is at present known, to defy all drugs and
poisons with which he can be attacked while dwelling in
the human frame, he has none of the hardihood of the
cannibal, and is unable to support a diet consisting of
infusions of his own relations. A boiled decoction of his
children or cousins is fatal to him. It is upon this line
that our combat with him is likely, at any rate for a time,
to be fought out.
This discovery has thrown a lurid light upon many ancient
and Eastern legends. These have hitherto been entirely
misunderstood or not understood at all. Saturn was, we
know, to be destroyed by his children; and Arab stories
abound with instances where princes and rulers having been
warned that their offspring would be the cause of their
death, the children were accordingly confined in towers and
prisons to prevent the fulfilment of these prophecies.
Hitherto, such tales have appeared mere fables, originating
in human fancy; but it can now be seen that the Ancients
and the Orientals alike had some kind of prevision of the
bacillus, and that this creature was pre-figured in the legends
.bn 224.png
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of Saturn and of the Arabian rulers. This is another proof,
were it needed, of the vast store of knowledge possessed in
former times by the Orientals. It is impossible, at this
early stage of the conflict between man and the bacillus, to
form any very definite opinion as to the side with which
victory will finally rest; but, judging from the past, there is
good ground for belief that man will in the end come out
conqueror. In legendary tales man, valiant, fearless, and
determined, always proved himself the victor, though opposed
by the invisible powers of the air; and from this
we may gather much comfort. It is with invisible powers
that this battle has to be waged; and summoning to our
aid, as we are happily able to do, all the hidden powers of
the good fairies, Chemistry and Electricity, we may venture
confidently to hope for a final victory over the swarming
legions of the bacillus.
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THE END.
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.hr 50%
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Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
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UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF
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[++ Illustration: Seal]
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H. M.
THE QUEEN.
.nf-
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H.R.H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES,
H.R.H. PRINCESS MARY ADELAIDE, DUCHESS OF TECK, ETC., ETC.
THE
VICTORIA LIBRARY
FOR GENTLEWOMEN.
IN COMPLETE VOLS., HANDSOMELY BOUND.
With PORTRAITS and other ILLUSTRATIONS. Crown 8vo, 6s.
Excerpt from Prospectus.
.nf-
.dc 0.2 0.65
A “Gentlewoman’s Library” implies by its title that it will embrace
a wide range of subjects. We shall endeavour to supply good and
wholesome Fiction, also Descriptive Sketches, and Essays on Moral
and Social Questions connected with Women’s Welfare. We shall deal with
Hygiene, Manners, Dress, the Toilette, the Boudoir, Music, and the Cuisine. We
shall sit, as it were, with the Gentlewoman in her Drawing-room, and accompany
her when she goes Abroad. We shall help her to adorn her House and
to entertain Society. We shall cater for her as Wife, Mother, and Daughter.
We shall go with her a-shopping in Town, and follow her into the Country.
In a word, whatever interests the English Gentlewoman will interest us and
our collaborateurs.
We propose that these volumes shall be written and illustrated exclusively
by Gentlewomen—who, in our opinion, must needs be best acquainted with
the wants, tastes, and sympathies of Gentlewomen. Further, we propose that
they shall be handsomely printed and “got up,” so as to be fit for Gentlewomen’s
handling; that they shall be uniform in size (not less than 250 pages
octavo) and price; and that six to eight volumes shall be issued in a
twelvemonth.
Among the volumes which will appear in due succession will be found:
“The Gentlewoman in Society,” by Lady Violet Greville.
“The Gentlewoman’s Book of Health,” by Kate Mitchell, M.D.
Works of Fiction, etc., etc., written for Gentlewomen, by Mrs. E. Lynn-Linton,
Mrs. Alexander, Mrs. Burton-Harrison (Author of “The Anglo-Maniacs”),
Miss M. Betham-Edwards, Miss Emily Faithfull, Mrs. Fenwick Miller,
Miss Iza Duffus-Hardy, Hon. Mrs. Henniker, and others.
“The Gentlewoman’s Book of Sports,” with Illustrations, two vols., edited by
Lady Violet Greville, with Contributions on Riding, Fencing, Shooting,
Driving, Hunting, Fishing, Golf, Lawn Tennis, Gymnastics, Archery, etc., etc.,
by Her Grace the Duchess of Newcastle, the Marchioness of Breadalbane,
Lady Colin Campbell, Lady St. Leonards, Lady Boynton, Mrs. George F.
Stagg, Miss Stewart, Mrs. Samuel Samuda, Mrs. Hilliard, Miss Laura
Caunan, “Diane Chasseresse,” Miss Leale, and others.
“The Gentlewoman at Home,” by Mrs. Talbot Coke.
“The Gentlewoman’s Music Book,” by Miss Oliveria Prescott.
“The Gentlewoman’s Book on Dress,” by Mrs. Douglas.
“Gentlewomen of To-Day,” sketched by other Gentlewomen.
Also works on Gardening, Painting, the Toilette, Art, Needlework, etc.
.nf c
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
.nf-
.ni
has been graciously pleased to sanction the use of the title “The Victoria
Library,” and to order two copies of each volume for the Royal Library.
.nf c
Vol. I.—THE GENTLEWOMAN IN SOCIETY.
By LADY VIOLET GREVILLE. [October 20th.
.nf-
.hr 30%
.nf c
LONDON: HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.
.nf-
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.nf c
George Moore’s New Novel.
VAIN FORTUNE,
By the Author of “A MUMMER’S LIFE,” “A MODERN LOVER,”
“ESSAYS AND IMPRESSIONS,” etc.
In crown 8vo, with Numerous Illustrations by
MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN.
6/-.
.nf-
.in 4
.ti -4
Also a LARGE-PAPER EDITION, crown 4to, limited
to 150 Copies, Numbered and Signed by the Author,
£1 5s. net. [October 15th.
.in 0
.hr 50%
.nf c
TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH.
THE
RESIDENT’S DAUGHTER,
A NOVEL.
.nf-
.in 4
.ti -4
By MELATI van TAVA. Translated from the Dutch by A. Teixeira
de Mattos. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. [In preparation.
.in 0
.hr 50%
.nf c
NEW 2/- NOVELS.
THE DYNAMITARDS:
A TALE OF A.D. 1888.
By REGINALD TAYLER. [Shortly.
A FREAK OF FATE.
By ERNEST F. SPENCE. [Shortly.
.nf-
.hr 50%
.nf c
A SHILLING SHOCKER!
THE BIG BOW MYSTERY.
By I. ZANGWILL, Author of “The Bachelor’s Club,” etc.
Reprinted from the Star. [Shortly.
.nf-
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.nf c
The Whitefriars Library of Wit and Humour.
A New Series of Monthly Volumes designed to supply the Public
with Entertaining Literature by the Best Writers.
Crown 8vo, cloth, with Portrait, 2s. 6d. each.
Vol. I.—ESSAYS IN LITTLE.
By Andrew Lang.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
.nf-
“If it is well to judge by firstfruits (and, generally speaking, the judgment
is right), the new ‘Whitefriars Library’ should compass the very laudable
designs of its projectors. The first monthly volume of the new series may
fairly be said to be aflush with the finest promise. Mr. Andrew Lang’s
‘Essays in Little’ is one of the most entertaining and bracing of books. Full
of bright and engaging discourse, these charming and recreative essays are
the best of good reading. Hard must be ‘the cynic’s lips’ from which Mr.
Lang’s sportive pen does not ‘dislodge the sneer,’ harder that ‘brow of care’
whose wrinkles refuse to be smoothed by Mr. Lang’s gentle sarcasms and
agreeable raillery.... ‘Essays in Little’ ought to win every vote, and please
every class of reader.”—Saturday Review.
“The volume is delightful, and exhibits Mr. Lang’s light and dexterous
touch, his broad literary sympathies, and his sound critical instinct to great
advantage.”—Times.
“‘The Whitefriars Library’ has begun well. Its first issue is a volume by
Mr. Andrew Lang, entitled ‘Essays in Little.’ Mr. Lang is here at his best—alike
in his most serious and his lightest moods. We find him turning
without effort, and with equal success, from ‘Homer and the Study of Greek,’
to ‘The Last Fashionable Novel’—on one page attacking grimly the modern
newspaper tendency to tittle-tattle (in a ‘Letter to a Young Journalist’), on
another devising a bright parody in prose or verse. Mr. Lang is in his most
rollicking vein when treating of the once popular Haynes Bayly, the author of
‘I’d be a Butterfly’ and things of that sort. With Bayly’s twaddling verse
Mr. Lang is in satiric ecstasies; he revels in its unconscious inanity, and
burlesques it repeatedly with infinite gusto.... His tone is always urbane,
his manner always bright and engaging. No one nowadays has a style at
once so light and so well bred.... It is always pleasant, and frequently
delightful.”—Globe.
.sp 2
.nf c
Vol. II.—SAWN OFF: A Tale of a Family Tree.
By G. Manville Fenn.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
.nf-
“Mr. Fenn is an excellent story-teller.”—Athenæum.
“Another volume of the excellently designed ‘Whitefriars Library.’ Both
‘Sawn Off’ and the other story, ‘The Gilded Pill,’ are good examples of
light, entertaining and unsensational fiction.”—Review of Reviews.
“Mr. Fenn has succeeded well in enlivening morality with wit, and in tempering
wit with morality.”—Daily Graphic.
“Mr. Fenn is a favourite writer with the public, and in this volume he is
seen to advantage.”—Daily Chronicle.
“An amusing volume.”—Daily News.
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.nf c
Vol. III.—“A LITTLE IRISH GIRL.”
By the Author of “Molly Bawn.”
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
.nf-
“Mrs. Hungerford never fails to be prettily piquant, and this volume will be
enjoyed quite as much as anything she has ever written.”—Academy.
“One needs scarcely to be reminded that the author of ‘Molly Bawn’ is a
writer of distinct Hibernian wit and verve, but if further proof were required
it would be found in ‘A Little Irish Girl.’”—Daily Chronicle.
“In all respects a delightful story, written in a bright and happy spirit,
and full of amusement and instruction.”—Scotsman.
.sp 2
.nf c
Vol. IV.—THREE WEEKS AT MOPETOWN.
By Percy Fitzgerald. [Ready.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
.nf-
“A clever skit upon life at a hydropathic establishment, in this writer’s
popular vein; the book is amusing.”—Gentlewoman.
“In all senses the writing is uncommonly clever, and the sketches of the
various characters who inhabit a fashionable hydropathic establishment are
drawn with lifelike fidelity.”—Public Opinion.
“Mopetown is a charming place, and the people who go there are very
amusing to read about. Some of the character-studies are perfect miniatures.
There is occasional exaggeration, but never the least unkindness; the book
is healthy and thoroughly refreshing.”—Pictorial World.
“The portrait of the place, and the different types of character that are met,
afford scope for some very pretty descriptive writing, and here Mr. Fitzgerald
shows to full advantage.”—Publishers’ Circular.
.sp 2
.nf c
Vol. V.—A BOOK OF BURLESQUE:
Sketches of Stage Travestie and Parody.
By William Davenport Adams. [Ready.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
.nf-
“Mr. Adams deserves distinct credit for his exhaustive compilation on the
subject of English burlesque.”—Saturday Review.
“A volume which contains a good thing on almost every page.”—Globe.
“This eminently readable volume is a useful and acceptable contribution to
the history of the English Drama.”—Daily Graphic.
“An enjoyable and amusing volume, which is certain to be widely read; the
book sparkles with irresistible specimens of wit and humour.”—Scottish
Leader.
“We find the book genuinely amusing.”—Publishers’ Circular.
“Mr. Adams discourses wisely and well on all our principal native burlesque.”—Referee.
.pm verse-start
“A volume most welcome on table or desk,
Is Davenport Adams’ ‘Book of Burlesque,’
There’s fun at your asking, wherever you look,
And not a dull page, you’ll declare, in the book.”—Punc
.pm verse-end
.sp 2
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
.nf c
GREAT SUCCESS.
THE BOOK OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON.
FIFTH EDITION. NOW READY.
THE BACHELORS’ CLUB.
By I. ZANGWILL.
Crown 8vo. 348 pp. 3s. 6d.
With ILLUSTRATIONS by GEORGE HUTCHINSON.
BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM FIRST PRESS NOTICES.
.nf-
.sp 2
.in 6
.ti -6
St. James’s Gazette: “Some exceedingly clever fooling, and a happy
audacity of whimsical invention.”
.ti -6
Daily Graphic: “A genuine humourist. We own to having laughed heartily,
and appreciated the cleverness and the cynicism.”
.ti -6
Star: “Mr. Zangwill has an original way of being funny. He is full of clever
and witty, paradoxical and epigrammatical, surprises. His book is a
splendid tonic for gloomy spirits.”
.ti -6
Evening News: “Not one in a score of the amusing books which come from
the press is nearly so amusing as this.”
.ti -6
Sunday Times: “Read, laugh over, and profit by the history of ‘The
Bachelors’ Club,’ capitally told by a fresh young writer.”
.ti -6
Globe: “A clever and interesting book. Agreeable satire. Store of
epigram.”
.ti -6
Referee: “A new comic writer. There is a touch of the devilry of Heine
in Mr. Zangwill’s wit.”
.ti -6
Scotsman: “Any one who has listened to what the wild waves say as they
beat the shores of Bohemia will read the book with enjoyment and
appreciate its careless merriment.”
.ti -6
Freeman’s Journal: “Very clever and amusing; highly interesting,
humorous and instructive.”
.ti -6
Pictorial World: “One of the smartest books of the season. Brimful of
funny ideas, comically expressed.”
.ti -6
Man of the World: “Witty to excess. To gentlemen who dine out, the
book will furnish a stock of ‘good things’ upon every conceivable
subject of conversation.”
.ti -6
Granta: “A book of genuine humour. Full of amusing things. The style
is fresh and original.”
.ti -6
Newcastle Daily Chronicle: “Really clever and amusing; brimful of
genuine humour and fun.”
.ti -6
Yorkshire Herald: “A quaint, fresh, delightful piece of humour. Hood
or Douglas Jerrold might have written the book.”
.ti -6
Northern Daily News: “The reader must be very dyspeptic who cannot
laugh consumedly at his funny conceits.”
.ti -6
Sporting Times: “No end of fun. Not a dull line in the book.”
.ti -6
Pelican: “He who holds in his hands the passport to such a region of fun may
snap his hands for a little at fate.”
.ti -6
Judy: “It’s Zangwillian, which is saying a very great deal indeed in its
favour.”
.ti -6
Ariel: “The cleverest book ever written” (Author’s own review).
.in 0
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.nf c
NOW READY. FIFTH EDITION.
THE BOOK OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON.
THE BACHELORS’ CLUB.
By I. ZANGWILL.
Crown 8vo. 348 pp. 3s. 6d.
With ILLUSTRATIONS by GEORGE HUTCHINSON.
BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM LATER PRESS NOTICES.
.nf-
.in 4
.ti -4
Ally Sloper: “We have few genuine humourists, but Mr. Zangwill is
certainly one of them.”
.ti -4
Artist: “The tales are quite as good as the shorter things of Charles Dickens.
The best book of the month.”
.ti -4
Daily Chronicle: “With all his fun he is not a ‘funny man,’ he is a literary
humourist—in all the seriousness of claiming a place in literature.”
.ti -4
Detroit Free Press: “A book almost impossible to review in such a way
as to give the reader an adequate idea of its genius. It must be read to
be appreciated.”
.ti -4
Fun: “On Fame’s drum it will beat rub-a-dub-dub.”
.ti -4
Glasgow Herald: “Would-be wit. The ordinary civilised mortal is not
likely to enjoy it. The skits are rather sombre in their eccentricity.”
.ti -4
Hearth and Home: “Humour is a rare gift, but Mr. Zangwill has it in
abundance.”
.ti -4
Lady: “The author is one entirely born to the motley. His quips are quaint,
his satire delightfully exhilarating.”
.ti -4
Literary World: “Entitles Mr. Zangwill to rank as a genuine humourist.
The book is full of good things.”
.ti -4
Literary Opinion: “Far above the average mechanical stuff that does duty
for humour.”
.ti -4
Lloyds: “Ingenuity of incident is combined with a wealth of reflective
wisdom, that often becomes dazzling in its effect.”
.ti -4
Morning Post: “The author has a manner of touching upon the foibles of
the day, full of playful malice, but quite devoid of bitterness, which is
one of the best gifts of the humourist.”
.ti -4
Observer: “The author has a delightful vein of humour.”
.ti -4
Publishers’ Circular: “We have laughed with genuine enjoyment.”
.ti -4
Review of Reviews: “Much that is genuinely novel and amusing.”
.ti -4
Saturday Review: “We like the stories of ‘Hamlet up to Date,’ and ‘The
Fall of Israfel’ best, but all are amusing, and all coruscate with puns.”
.ti -4
Speaker: “It is impossible to read this book without being delighted with
it. It is full of good things.”
.ti -4
Sporting Times: “No end of fun. Mr. Zangwill never misses the opportunity
of saying a clever thing.”
.ti -4
Sunday Sun: “A funny book by the very funny editor of Ariel.”
.ti -4
Weekly Dispatch: “The history of the Club is told with charming fluency,
whimsical variety, and dramatic power; this delightful and clever book;
Mr. Zangwill has raised expectations that will not be easily satisfied.”
.in 0
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.nf c
BY W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS.
A BOOK ABOUT LONDON:
Its Memorable Places, its Men and Women, and
its History. Crown 8vo. 6s.
.nf-
.nf b
PART I.—Stories of Historical Scenes and Events.
PART II.—Stories of Famous Localities and Buildings.
PART III.—Stories of Crime and Misadventure.
.nf-
.fs 85%
.pi
In this volume an attempt has been made to present in a series of striking episodical
narratives the principal events in London history, and some of the more striking
aspects of London life. Full particulars are given of plots and conspiracies, forgeries
and murders, executions and hair-breadth escapes; and many favourite old
stories, not easily accessible now, are brought forward in a new dress, with all the
light of recent research thrown upon them.
.fs 100%
.sp 2
.nf c
A COMPANION VOLUME. BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
A BOOK ABOUT LONDON.
The Streets of London:
.nf-
An Alphabetical Index to the principal Streets, Squares, Parks, and
Thoroughfares, with their Associations—Historical, Traditional, Social,
and Literary. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
.fs 85%
This work is the result of very extensive labour, and offers, it is believed, a completer
view than has before been attempted of the diverse associations which lend so
profound an interest to the Streets of London. It contains more than a thousand
succinct references to remarkable persons, incidents, and scenes, with illustrative
anecdotes and full explanations gathered from a vast number of authentic sources.
.fs 100%
.sp 2
.nf c
By LADY FLORENCE DIXIE.
NEW WORK FOR THE YOUNG.
ANIWEE;
Or, The Warrior Queen.
.nf-
A Tale of the Araucanian Indians and the Mythical Trauco People.
By the Author of “The Young Castaways,” etc. In large crown 8vo
with Frontispiece. 5s.
.fs 85%
“A story of pure adventure, full of incident, and related with much smoothness
and animation. As a story simply this work appeals to, and will be heartily accepted
by, the boys and girls to whom it may be presented.”—Globe.
“Another pleasant book for the young from Lady Florence Dixie. The boys and
girls—and we hope they are many—who have drunk in delight from her ‘Young
Castaways’ will find their reward in this new story of ‘Aniwee.’”—Echo.
“The story is romantic and interesting enough to delight boys and girls alike, and the
adventures with the Trauco people are as novel as they are thrilling.”—Daily Graphic.
.fs 100%
.sp 2
.pb
\_
.sp 3
.dv class='tnbox' // TN box start
.ul
.it Transcriber’s Notes:
.ul indent=1
.it Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
.it Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a\
predominant form was found in this book.
.ul-
.ul-
.dv- // TN box end