Kitabı oku: «The Haunters of the Silences: A Book of Animal Life», sayfa 7
The Little Tyrant of the Burrows
ALONG the edge of the woodland he found the young, green turf of the pasture close and soft. As he paused for a moment with his long, trunk-like nose thrust into it, his fine sense could detect nothing but the cool tang of the grass-stems, the light pungency and sweetness of the damp earth below. With a savage impatience of movement he jerked himself a foot or more to one side, and again thrust his nose into the turf. Here he evidently detected something more to his taste than the sweetness of grass and earth, for he began to dig fiercely, biting the matted roots apart, and tearing up the soil with his powerful little fore paws. In a few seconds he dragged forth a fat, cream-coloured grub about an inch and a half in length, with a copper-coloured head. The grub twisted and lashed about, but was torn apart and eaten on the spot. The victor ate furiously, wrinkling his flexible snout away from his prey in a manner that gave him a peculiarly ferocious, snarling expression.
Nearly six inches in length, with a round, sturdy body, short tail, very short, sturdy legs, and fine fur of a clouded leaden gray, this fierce and implacable little forager might have been mistaken by the careless observer for an ordinary mole. But such a mistake on the part of any creature not larger than a ground-sparrow or wood-mouse or lizard would have resulted in instant doom; for this tiny beast, indomitable as a terrier and greedy for meat as a mink, was the mole-shrew.
Having devoured the fat grub, and finding his appetite still unappeased, the shrew at once resumed his vehement digging. His marvellously developed nostrils had assured him that a little farther on beneath the turf were more grubs, or well-conditioned earthworms, or the stupid, big red-brown beetles called "May-bugs." In a few seconds only his hind quarters were visible among the grass-roots. Then, only a twitch of his short tail, or a kick of his hind claws. At this moment a broad, swift shadow appeared overhead; and a hungry marsh-hawk, dropping like a shot, clutched with eager claws at the mouth of the burrow. That deadly clutch tore up some grass-roots and some fresh earth, but just failed to reach the diligent burrower. Tail and hind legs had been nimbly drawn in just in time, as if forewarned of the swooping peril; and the hawk flew off heavily, to resume his quartering of the pasture.
Unruffled by his narrow escape, the shrew went on with his burrowing. He ran his gallery very near the surface, – in fact, close under the roots of the turf, where the grubs and beetles were most numerous. Sometimes he would dip an inch or more, to avoid a bit of difficult excavation; but more often he would press so closely to the surface that the thin layer of sod above him would heave with every surging motion. The loose earth, for the most part, was not thrust behind him, but jammed to either side or overhead, and so vigorously packed in the process as to make strong walls to the galleries, which zigzagged hither and thither as the moment's whim or the scent of some quarry might dictate.
In the absolute darkness of his straitened underworld the shrew felt no consciousness of restriction. His eyes tight closed, the thick earth pressing upon him at every point, he felt nevertheless as free as if all the range of upper air were his. The earthy dark was nothing to him, for the nerves of his marvellous nose served all the purposes of sight and hearing. It was, indeed, as if he heard, felt, smelled, and saw, all with his nose. If the walls of the narrow tunnel pressed him too straitly, he could expand them by a few seconds of digging. In fact, his underground world, limited as it was, for the moment contented him utterly. From time to time he would scent, through perhaps a quarter-inch of earth, a worm or a grub ahead of him. Then he would drive forward almost with a pounce, clutch the prey, and devour it delightedly there in the dark.
Suddenly the earth broke away before him, and his investigating nose poked itself through into another gallery, a shade larger than his own. The fact that the gallery was larger than his own might well have made him draw back, but his was not the drawing-back disposition. His nose told him that the rival digger was a mole, and had but recently gone by. Without a second's hesitation he clawed through, and darted down the new tunnel, seeking either a fight or a feast, as fate might please to award.
In his savage haste, however, the shrew was not discriminating; and all at once he realized that he had lost the fresh scent. This was still the mole's gallery, but there was no longer any sign that its owner had very lately traversed it. As a matter of fact, several yards back the shrew had blundered past the mouth of a branching tunnel, up which the mole, ignorant that he was being pursued, had taken leisurely way. The pursuer stopped, hesitating for a moment, then decided to push ahead and see what might turn up. In half a minute a breath of the upper air met him, – then a star of light glimmered before him, – and he came out at one of the exits which the mole had used for dumping earth.
At this point the shrew seemed to decide that he had had enough of underground foraging. He stuck his head up through the opening, and looked over the green turf. The opening was close to a pile of stones in the fence corner, which promised both shelter and good hunting. Having hastily dusted the loose earth from his face and whiskers, he emerged, ran to the stone heap, and whisked into the nearest crevice.
On a warm gray stone near the top of the pile, gently waving its wings in the sunshine, glowed a gorgeous red-and-black butterfly. The intensity of its colouring seemed to vibrate in the unclouded radiance. Suddenly, from just beneath the stone on which it rested, slipped forth the shrew, and darted at it with a swift, scrambling leap. The beautiful insect, however, was wide awake, and saw the danger in good time. One beat of its wide, gorgeous wings uplifted its light body as a breath softly uplifts a tuft of thistledown. The baffled shrew jumped straight into the air, but in vain; and the great butterfly went flickering off aimlessly and idly over the pasture to find some less perilous basking-place.
Angered by this failure, the shrew descended the stone heap and scurried over to the fence, poking his nose under every tussock of weeds in search of the nest of some ground-bird. Along parallel with the fence he hunted, keeping out about a foot from the lowest rail. He found no nest; but suddenly the owners of a nest that was hidden somewhere in the neighbourhood found him. He felt himself buffeted by swift, elusive wings. Sharp little beaks jabbed him again and again, and the air seemed full of angry twittering. For a few moments he stood his ground obstinately, wrinkling back his long snout and jumping at his bewildering assailants. Then, realizing that he could do nothing against such nimble foes, he drew back and ran under the fence. He was not really hurt, and he was not at all terrified; but he was distinctly beaten, and therefore in a very bad temper.
Since his return to the green upper world ill luck had persistently followed his ventures, and now his thoughts turned back to the burrows under the grass-roots. He remembered, also, that mole which had so inexplicably evaded him. Keeping close to the fence, he hurried back to the stone heap, on the other side of which lay the entrance to the burrows. He was just about to make a hurried and final investigation of the pile, on the chance that it might conceal something to his taste, when his nose caught a strong scent which made him stop short and seem to shrink into his skin. At the same instant a slim, long, yellow-brown animal emerged from the stones, cast a quick, shifting glance this way and that, then darted at him as smoothly as a snake. With a frantic leap he shot through the air, alighting just beside the mouth of the burrow. The next instant he had vanished; and the weasel, arriving just a second too late, thrust his fierce, triangular face into the hole, but made no attempt to squeeze himself down a passage so restricted.
The shrew had been terrified, indeed; but his dogged spirit was by no means cowed or given over to panic. He felt fairly confident that the weasel was too big to pursue him down the burrow, but presently he stopped, scraped away the earth on one side, and turned around to face the menace. Small though he was, the weasel would have found him a troublesome and daring antagonist in such narrow quarters. When he saw a glimmer of light reappear at the entrance of the burrow, he understood that his big enemy was not going to attempt the impossible. Reassured, but still hot with wrath, he turned again, and went racing through the black tunnel in search of something whereon to wreak his emotions.
Now as the fates of the underworld would have it, at this moment the lazy old mole who owned these burrows was returning from his tour of investigation. He came to the fork where the shrew had gone by an hour before. The strong, disagreeable, musky smell of the intruder arrested him. His keen nose sniffed at it with resentment and alarm, and told him the whole story, there in the dark, more plainly than if it had passed in daylight before his purblind eyes. It told him that some time had gone by since the intruder's passing. But what it could not tell him was that the intruder was just now on his way back. After some moments of hesitation the long, cylindrical, limp body of the mole scuffled out into the main tunnel, and turned toward the exit. Its movement was rather slow and awkward, owing to the fact that the fore legs were set on each side of the body, like flippers, which was an excellent arrangement for digging, but a very bad one for plain walking.
The mole had not advanced more than a yard or so along the main tunnel when again that strong, musky smell smote his nostrils. This time it was fresh and warm. Indeed, it was startlingly imminent. Elongating his soft body till it was not more than half its usual thickness, the mole doubled in his tracks, intent upon the speediest possible retreat. In that very instant, while he was in the midst of this awkward effort to turn, the shrew fell upon him, gripping and tearing his soft, unprotected flank.
The mole was not altogether deficient in character; and he was larger and heavier than his assailant. Seeing that escape was impossible, and stung by the pain of his wounds, he flung himself with energy into the struggle, biting desperately and striving to bear down his lighter opponent. It was a blind smother of a fight, there in that pitch-black narrow tunnel whose walls pressed ceaselessly upon it and hemmed it in. From the smother came no sound but an occasional squeak of rage or pain, barely audible to the lurking spiders among the grass-stems just overhead. The thin turf heaved vaguely, and the grass-blades vibrated to the unseen struggle; but not even the low-flying marsh-hawk could guess the cause of these mysterious disturbances.
For several minutes the mole made a good fight. Then the indomitable savagery of his enemy's attack suddenly cowed him. He shrank and tried to draw away; and in that moment the enemy had him by the throat. In that moment the fight was ended; and in the next the invader was satisfying his ravenous appetite on the warm flesh which he craved.
When this redoubtable little warrior had eaten his fill, he felt a pleasant sense of drowsiness. First he moved a few feet farther along the tunnel, till he reached the point where it was joined by the smaller gallery of his own digging. At this point of vantage, with exits open both ways, he hastily dug himself a little pocket or side chamber where he could curl himself up in comfort. Here he licked his wounds for a minute or two, and carefully washed his face with his clever, hand-like fore paws. Then with a sense of perfect security he went to sleep, his watchful nose, most trusty of sentinels, on guard at the threshold of his bedchamber.
While he slept in this unseen retreat, among the short grasses just above his sleep went on the busy mingling of comedy and tragedy, of mirth and birth and death, which makes the sum of life on a summer day in the pastures. Everywhere the grass, and the air above the grass, were thronged with insects. Through the grass came gliding soundlessly a long, smooth, sinuous brown shape with a quick-darting head and a forked, amber-coloured, flickering tongue. The snake's body was about the thickness of a man's thumb, and his back was unobtrusively but exquisitely marked with a reticulation of fine lines. He seemed to be travelling rather aimlessly, doubtless on the watch for any small quarry he might catch sight of; but when he chanced upon the fresh-dug hole where the shrew had begun his burrowing, he stopped abruptly. His fixed, opaque-looking eyes grew strangely intent. With his head poised immediately over the hole he remained perfectly rigid for some seconds. Then he glided slowly into the burrow.
The black snake – for such he was called, in spite of his colour being brown – had an undiscriminating appetite for moles and shrews alike. It was of no concern to him that the flesh of the shrew was rank and tough; for his sense of taste was, to say the least of it, rudimentary, and to digestion so invincible as his, tough and tender were all one. He had learned, of course, that shrews were averse to being swallowed, and that they both could and would put up a stiff fight against such consummation. But he had never yet captured one in such a position that he could not get his coils around and crush it. What he expected to find in the burrow which he entered so confidently was a satisfying meal, followed by a long, safe sleep to companion digestion.
As he trailed along the winding of the tunnel, his motion made a faint, dry, whispering sound. This delicate sound, together with his peculiar, sickly, elusive scent, travelled just before him, and reached the doorway of the little chamber where the shrew was sleeping. The sleeper awoke, – wide awake all at once, as it behoves the wild kindreds to be. Instantly, too, he understood the whole peril, and that it was even now upon him. There was no time for flight. To do him justice, it was not flight he thought of, but fight. His little heart swelled with rage at this invasion of his rest. Experienced fighter that he was, he fully understood the advantages of his situation. As the head of the invader stole past his doorway, he sprang, and sank his long, punishing teeth deep into the back of the snake's neck.
With this hold the advantage was all his, so long as he could maintain it; and he hung to the grip like a bulldog, biting deeper and deeper every minute. Fettered completely by the narrowness of the tunnel, unable to lash or coil or strike, the snake could only writhe impotently and struggle to drag his adversary farther down the burrow toward some roomier spot where his own tactics would have a chance. But the shrew was not to be dislodged from his point of vantage. He clung to his doorway no less doggedly than he clung to his hold; and all the while his deadly teeth were biting deeper in. At last, they found the backbone, – and bit it through. With a quiver the writhing of the big snake stopped.
Victor though he was, the shrew was slow to accept conviction of his victory over so mighty an antagonist. Though all resistance had ceased, he kept on gnawing and worrying, till he had succeeded in completely severing the head from the trunk. Then, feeling that his triumph was secured, he turned back into his chamber and curled up again to resume his rudely interrupted siesta.
Having thus effectually established his lordship of the burrows, this small champion might have reasonably expected to enjoy an undisturbed and unanxious slumber. But Fate is pitilessly whimsical in its dealings with the wild kindreds. It chanced at this time that a red fox came trotting down along the pasture fence. He seemed to have a very vague idea of where he was going or what he wanted to do. Presently he took it into his head that he wanted to cross the pasture, so he forsook the fence and started off over the grass; and as luck would have it, his keen, investigating nose sniffed the sod just at the point whereunder the sleeping shrew lay hidden. The turf that formed the little fighter's ceiling was not more than half an inch in thickness.
The smell that came up through the grass-roots was strong, and not particularly savoury. But the red fox was not overparticular just then. He would have chosen rabbit or partridge had Mother Nature consulted his wishes more minutely. But as it was he saw no reason to turn up his sharp nose at shrew. After a few hasty but discreet sniffings, which enabled him to locate the careless slumberer, he pounced upon the exact spot and fell to clawing the sod ferociously. His long nails and powerful fore paws tore off the thin covering of turf in less time than it takes to tell of it, and the next instant the shrew was hurled out into the sunlight, dazzled and half stunned. Almost before he touched the grass a pair of narrow jaws snapped him up. Without a moment's delay the fox turned and trotted off up the pasture with his prey, toward his den on the other side of the hill; and as the discriminating sunlight peered down into the uncovered tunnel, in a few minutes flies came to investigate, and many industrious beetles. The body of the dead snake was soon a centre of teeming, hungry, busy life, toiling to remove all traces of what had happened. For Nature, though she works out almost all her ends by tragedy, is ceaselessly attentive to conceal the red marks of her violence.
The Ringwaak Buck
DOWN through the leafy tangle the sunlight fell in little irregular splotches, flecking the ruddy-brown floor of a thicket on the southward slope of Ringwaak. In the very heart of the thicket, curled close and with its soft, fine muzzle resting flat on its upgathered hind legs, lay a young fawn.
The ground, covered with a deep, elastic carpet of dead spruce and hemlock needles, was much the same colour as the little animal's coat. The latter, however, was diversified with spots of a lighter hue, which matched marvellously with the scattered splotches of sunlight – so marvellously, indeed, that only an eye that was initiated, as well as discriminating, could tell the patches of shine from the patches of colour or distinguish the outlines of the fawn's figure against the blending background. There was neither sound nor movement in the thicket. A tiny greenish-yellow worm, which had let itself down from a branch on a yard or more of delicate filament, hung motionless and crinkled, seeming to have forgotten the purpose of its descent. Not a breath of wind disturbed the clear, balsamy fragrance of the shadowed air, and the fawn appeared to sleep, though its great liquid eyes were wide open.
During the brief absence of its mild-eyed mother the little animal was accustomed to maintaining this voiceless and unwavering stillness, which, combined with its colouring, made its most effective concealment. Enemies, hungry and savage, were all about it, searching coverts and pursuing trails. But the eyes of the hunting beasts seem to be less keen than we are wont to imagine them – certainly less keen than the eyes of skilled woodsmen – and an unwinking stillness may deceive the craftiest of them. Whether because its mother had taught it to be thus motionless, or because it was coerced by instincts inherited from ten thousand cautious ancestors, the fawn obeyed so absolutely that even its long, sensitive ears were not permitted to twitch. Its great eyes kept staring out in vague apprehension at the wide, shadowy, unknown world.
Suddenly into the limpid deeps of the little watcher's eyes came a flash of fear, like a sharp contraction in the back of the pupils. A stealthy-footed, moon-faced, fierce-eyed beast came soundlessly to the edge of the thicket and glared in searchingly. The fawn knew in some dim way that this was a deadly danger that confronted him. But he never winked or moved an anxious ear. He hardly dared to breathe. It was almost as if a hand of ice had clutched him and held him still beyond even the possibility of a tremor. For perhaps a full minute the huge lynx stood there half crouching, with one big, padded fore paw upheld, piercing the gloom with his implacable stare. He could discern nothing, however, except spaces of reddish-brown shadow, scored with the slim, perpendicular trunks of saplings, and spattered thicket with spots of infiltering sunlight. But the fawn, though in full view, was perfectly concealed – for he had that gift of fern-seed which, as the old romancers feign, makes its possessor invisible. No wandering puff of wind came by to tell the lynx's nose that his eyes were playing him false. At last the uplifted fore paw came softly to the ground and he crept off like a terrible gray shadow. For two or three seconds the fawn's sides moved violently. Then he was once more as still as a stone.
It chanced that on this particular occasion the mother doe was long away. The fawn got very hungry, as well as lonely, which strained his patience to the utmost. Nevertheless, he remained obedient to the law which shielded him, while the forest, which seems so empty, but is in reality so populous, sent its furtive kindreds past his hiding-place. From time to time a dainty, bead-eyed wood-mouse scurried by; or a brooding partridge, unwilling to be long absent from her eggs, ran hither and thither to peck her hasty meal; or a red squirrel, with fluffy tail afloat, would dart swiftly and silently over the ground, dash up a tree, and from the top chatter shrill defiance to the perils which had lain wait for him below. All these things the fawn's wide eyes observed, unconsciously laying the foundations for that wisdom of the woods upon which his success in the merciless game of life would depend. Once a large red fox, wary, but self-confident, trotted quietly across one end of the thicket, within ten feet of the fawn's nose; and once more that inward spasm which meant fear contracted the depths of the little watcher's eyes. But the fox was sniffing with his narrow, inquisitive snout at the places where the partridge hen had scratched, and he never saw the fawn.
With all its advantages, however, this invisibility had certain defects of its own. About five minutes after the fox had gone there came a swishing of branches, a pounding of soft feet, a mysterious sound of haste and terror, at the back of the thicket where the fawn could not see. He did not dare to lift his head and look, but waited, quivering with apprehension. The next moment a furry bulk landed plump upon his flank, to bounce off again with a squeal of terror. In an uncontrollable panic the fawn bounded to his feet, and stood trembling, while a large hare, elongated to a straight line in the desperation of his flight, shot crashing through the screen of branches and disappeared. As the fawn shrank away from this incomprehensible apparition – which, as far as he knew, might return at any instant and thump him again – a thin, snarling, peculiarly malignant cry made him turn his head, and as he did so a small, dark-furred beast, the hare's pursuer, sprang upon him furiously and bore him down. For the first time he experienced the pang of physical anguish, as fierce teeth, small, but sharp, tore at the tender hide of his neck, feeling the way to his throat. He lay helplessly kicking under this onslaught, and bleated piteously for his mother.
At that same moment, and just in time, the mother arrived. Her eyes, usually so gentle, were aflame with rage. Before the fisher – for such the daring little assailant was – could do more than turn his narrow, snarling face to see what threatened, and while yet the first sweet trickle of blood was in his throat, a knife-edged hoof came down upon his back, smashing the spine. He squirmed aside and made one futile effort to drag himself away. A second later he was pounded and trampled into a shapeless mass.
The fisher being small and his fangs not very long, the fawn's wounds were not serious. He picked himself up and crowded close against his mother's flank. Tenderly the doe licked him over as he nursed, and then, when his slim legs had stopped trembling she led him away to another hiding-place.
This experience so jarred the little animal's nerves that for a week or more his mother could not leave him alone, but had to snatch such pasturage as she could get near his hiding-place. His confidence in the tactics of invisibility had been so shaken that whenever his mother tried to leave him he would jump up and run after her. The patient old doe got thin under these conditions; but by the time her little one had recovered his nerves he was strong enough to follow her to her favoured feeding-grounds, and thereafter her problems grew daily less difficult. The summer passed with comparatively little event, and by autumn, when his mother began to develop other instincts, and occasionally, in the companionship of a tall, wide-antlered buck, seemed to forget him altogether, he was a very sturdy, self-reliant youngster, in many ways equipped to take care of himself. Ignored by the tall buck, whom he eyed with vague disfavour, he still hung about his mother, pasturing with her usually, and always sleeping near her in the thickets. But his first summer had supplied him with the most important elements of that knowledge which a red deer's life in the wilderness of the north demands.
The courses of the varied knowledge which the wild creatures must carry in their brains in order to survive in the struggle would seem to be threefold. The first, and most important, source is doubtless inherited instinct, which supplies the constant quantity, so to speak, or the knowledge common to all the individuals of a species. The second appears to be experience, which teaches varying lore, according to variation in circumstance and surrounding. In the amount of such knowledge which they possess the individuals of a species will be found to differ widely. But, after instinct and experience have accounted for everything that can reasonably be credited to them, there remains a considerable and well authenticated residuum of instances where wild creatures have displayed a knowledge which neither instinct nor experience could well furnish them with. In such cases observation and inference seem to agree in ascribing the knowledge to parental teaching.
Among the lessons learned that summer by the little red buck one of the most vital was how to keep out of the way of the bears. All the forests about Ringwaak Hill abounded in bears; for the slopes of Ringwaak were rich in blueberries, and bears and blueberries go together when the wishes of the bears are at all considered. But the season of blueberries is short, and before the blueberries are ready there are few things more delicious to a bear's taste than a fawn or a moose calf. The bear, however, is not a very pertinacious trailer, nor does he excel in running long distances at top speed. When it is young moose or deer he is wanting, his way is to lie hidden behind some brush-screened stump or boulder till the victim comes by, then dart out a huge paw and settle the matter at one stroke. Such might well have been the fate of the little red buck that summer but that he learned to look with wary eye on every ambush that might hide a bear. To all these perilous places he gave wide berth, sometimes avoiding them altogether and sometimes circling about at safe distances till he could get the wind of them and find out whether they held a menace or not.
Another important truth borne in upon him that first summer was that man, the most to be dreaded of all creatures, was, notwithstanding, capable of being most useful to the deer people. To the west of Ringwaak lay a line of scattered settlements and lonely upland farms. Along the edge of the forest were open fields, where the men had roots and grains which the deer found very good to eat. Often the little red buck and his mother would break into one of these fields and feast riotously on the succulent crops. But at the first glimpse, smell, or sound of man, or of the noisy dogs who served man and dwelt with him, they would be off like swift shadows to their remotest retreats. The wise old doe knew a lot about man; and so, however it came about, the little red buck had a lot of useful information upon the same subject. At the same time, through some inexplicable caprice of his mother's, he acquired a dangerous habit that was in no way consistent with his prudent attitude toward man. The old doe had a whimsical liking for cows, and would sometimes lead her fawn into one of the remoter back-lot cow-pastures to feed among the cattle. She neither permitted nor offered any familiarities whatever to these heavy, alien beasts, but for some reason she liked to be among them. The little red buck, therefore, although he knew the cattle were associated with man and cared for by him, got into the way of visiting the cow-pastures occasionally and feeding on the sweet, close-cropped grasses. Fortunately, he learned from the first that milking-time was a time when the pastures were to be avoided.
Yet another lesson the little buck learned that fall one day when he and his mother were crossing the road near the settlement. Two of the village dogs – mongrels neither very keen of nose nor very resolute of temper – caught sight of them, and gave chase with noisy cry. Away through the woods went doe and fawn together, bounding lightly, at a pace that soon left their pursuers far behind. For these pursuers the old doe had no very great respect – at a pinch, indeed, she would have faced them and fought them with her nimble fore hoofs, and she did not want to tire the fawn unnecessarily. When the yelping of the dogs grew faint in the distance she wheeled around a half-circle of perhaps fifty feet in diameter, ran back a little way, and lay down with the fawn beside her to watch the trail. By the time they were both thoroughly rested the dogs came panting by, noses to the ground. As soon as they were well past the two fugitives jumped up and made off again at full speed in another direction. After one repetition of this familiar manoeuvre the dogs gave up the game in disgust. The little red buck had learned a handy trick, but he had learned, at the same time, to take dogs too lightly.
