Read Ebook: The Naturalist in La Plata by Hudson W H William Henry

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 405 lines and 102847 words, and 9 pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

A WAVE OF LIFE,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME CURIOUS ANIMAL WEAPONS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FEAR IN BIRDS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PARENTAL AND EARLY INSTINCTS.

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

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

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

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

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet