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Title: Animal portraiture
Author: Richard Lydekker
Artist: Wilhelm Kuhnert
Release Date: July 5, 2023 [eBook #71126]
Language: English
Credits: Alan, Aaron Adrignola and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANIMAL PORTRAITURE ***
ANIMAL
PORTRAITURE
[Illustration]
ANIMAL
PORTRAITURE
BEING
FIFTY STUDIES
BY
WILHELM KUHNERT
ACCOMPANIED BY A SERIES OF
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
BY
R. LYDEKKER
F.R.S.
[Illustration]
London
FREDERICK WARNE & Cº.
& New York
(All rights reserved)
COPYRIGHT, 1912
BY
FREDERICK WARNE & CO.
FOREWORD
Wilhelm Kuhnert is the greatest animal-painter of our day. There has
never been a more excellent colourist or more skilful draughtsman of
shape and action; and there is none with a more masterly touch or more
unmistakable individuality. There is no misunderstanding his intention.
The lifelike likeness of the animal set in its local atmosphere is his
predominating endeavour. His range is of the widest, and his subjects
all come alike to him; he has no preference for any particular group or
family, but draws them all, vertebrate and invertebrate, with power,
truth, and sympathy.
With a knowledge of the very soul of the animal such as few possess,
his pictures are replete with insight into character and its vivid
expression, and fascinate even those who may not adequately appreciate
their wonderful accuracy. “We who have travelled,” as Mr. G. J.
Millais remarks, “do not need to be told that his studies from nature
are correct. His lions, elephants, zebras, and antelopes are so real
that we feel we are gazing at them on the plains of East Africa. The
landscapes are simple but intense; sunlight is there, and the trees and
grass are just those that grow in the habitat of these species. Kuhnert
has, as it were, got inside the very skin of African life, and draws
you insensibly within the charmed circle.”
In a gallery his works at once arrest attention by their vigorous
realism. There is life within the frame of whatever he paints. He is
the Frans Hals of animal portraiture.
He was born at Oppeln in Silesia on the 28th of September 1865, and
during his student days at the Academy of Berlin, was influentially
advised to devote himself to animal painting, for which he had
evidently a special gift. He began, however, as a portrait painter, and
from his pictures, particularly those of African life, it is clear
that in that branch of art he would have distinguished himself; but
fortunately, he could not withstand his inclination. From a painter
of portraits of men and women he developed into a portrait-painter
of animals, finding his subjects alive by the countryside and in
menageries and zoological gardens, and then seeking them farther
afield in Africa and Southern Asia, where he worked assiduously in
forest and jungle. Fifty of his characteristic studies are included
in this book, and in them, as in all, the blending of the animal with
the surroundings is remarkable, and the faithfulness with which the
landscape, painted on the spot, has been rendered is apparent at a
glance.
Search as we will we shall find nothing truer to nature than such
triumphs of art as the Polar Bear amid the Arctic ice, the hairy Tigers
by the snowy mountain lake, the slender Flamingoes in the evening
landscape, the Silver Gull sweeping above the ocean waves, the Black
Swans as an idyll of the pool, the Capercaillie posturing in the
morning light, and many other masterpieces herein.
This collection, like that of the Kuhnert Exhibition at the Fine Art
Society’s Gallery in Bond Street, is arranged purely on artistic lines;
no attempt has been made to classify the subjects in zoological order.
It is an album of animal portraiture as fully representative of the
artist as possible. The pictures have been photographically reproduced
in colours from the oil paintings, and the imitation is so exact that
little of the charm of the originals has been lost.
CONTENTS
PLATE PAGE
I. THE LION (_Felis Leo_) 1
II. THE MANCHURIAN TIGER (_Felis tigris mongolica_) 4
III. THE SEAL (_Phoca vitulina_) 6
IV. THE ELK (_Alces machlis_) 8
V. THE CAPERCAILLIE (_Tetrao urogallus_) 10
VI. THE SQUIRREL (_Sciurus vulgaris_) 12
VII. THE ROE-DEER (_Capreolus caprea_) 14
VIII. THE REINDEER (_Rangifer tarandus_) 16
IX. THE DEFASSA WATERBUCK (_Cobus defassa_) 18
X. THE HARE (_Lepus europæus_) 20
XI. THE POLAR BEAR (_Ursus maritimus_) 22
XII. THE MANDRILL (_Maimon mormon_) 24
XIII. THE WOLF (_Canis lupus_) 26
XIV. THE WILD CAT (_Felis catus_) 28
XV. THE RED KANGAROO (_Macropus rufus_) 30
XVI. THE BLUE ROLLER (_Coracias garrulus_) 32
XVII. THE BITTERN (_Botaurus stellaris_) 34
XVIII. THE KAFIR CROWNED CRANE (_Balearica chrysopelargus_) 36
XIX. THE SILVER GULL (_Larus argentatus_) 38
XX. THE GREAT HORNED OWL (_Bubo ignavus_) 40
XXI. THE FLAMINGO (_Phœnicopterus roseus_) 42
XXII. THE NILE CROCODILE (_Crocodilus niloticus_) 44
XXIII. THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON (_Hylobates lar_) 46
XXIV. THE ABYSSINIAN GREEN MONKEY (_Cercopithecus æthiops_) 48
XXV. THE FOX (_Canis vulpes_ or _Vulpes alopex_) 50
XXVI. THE BROWN BEAR (_Ursus arctus_) 52
XXVII. THE PINE-MARTEN (_Mustela martes_) 54
XXVIII. THE LEOPARD (_Felis pardus_) 56
XXIX. THE LYNX (_Felis_ (_Lynx_) _lynx_) 58
XXX. THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS (_Rhinoceros unicornis_) 60
XXXI. THE BISON (_Bos_ (_Bison_) _bonasus_) 62
XXXII. THE GAZELLE (_Gazella dorcas_) 64
XXXIII. THE MOUFLON (_Ovis musimon_) 66
XXXIV. THE RED DEER (_Cervus elaphus_) 68
XXXV. THE BEAVER (_Castor fiber_) 70
XXXVI. THE MARMOT (_Arctomys marmotta_) 72
XXXVII. THE HAMSTER (_Cricetus frumentarius_) 74
XXXVIII. THE DUCKBILL OR PLATYPUS (_Ornithorhynchus anatinus_) 76
XXXIX. THE SPINY ANT-EATER OR ECHIDNA (_Tachyglossus aculeatus_) 78
XL. THE BLACK SWAN (_Cygnus atratus_) 80
XLI. THE BUSTARD (_Otis tarda_) 82
XLII. THE SOMALI OSTRICH (_Struthio molybdophanes_) 84
XLIII. THE PIED HORNBILL (_Buceros bicornis_) 86
XLIV. THE BLUE MACAW (_Ara cærulea_ or _Ara ararauna_) 88
XLV. THE MANDARIN DUCK (_Æx galerita_) 90
XLVI. THE HERON (_Ardea cinerea_) 92
XLVII. THE GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER (_Dendrocopus major_) 94
XLVIII. THE SENEGAL PARROT (_Pæocephalus senegalus_) 96
XLIX. THE GOLDFINCH (_Carduelis elegans_) 98
L. THE RAZORBILL OR AUK (_Alca torda_) 100
THE LION
(_Felis leo_)
The lion, undoubtedly, owes his title of “king of beasts” to the
flowing mane with which his head and fore-quarters are adorned, as
this confers upon him a dignity and grandeur of appearance entirely
lacking in his maneless partner. Without his mane it is, indeed, more
than questionable whether a lion would not be outclassed in style by a
tiger. As it is, however, the lion, at all events so far as appearance
goes, has an undisputed claim to his royal title; the magnificent
mien of his draped head and shoulders, his bold, imperious eye, the
powerful build of his lithe body, and his resounding roar of defiance,
presenting the very ideal of supreme strength and sovereignty.
The tawny coat, which varies in tint from greyish or yellowish brown
to yellow, is evidently intended to harmonise with the dry grasses and
the yellow sand of the semi-desert tracts which form the favourite
haunts of the lion; and this is confirmed by the fact that the newborn
cubs are mottled with dark brown, thus indicating their descent from
a species with a mottled or spotted coat adapted to a different
environment. Indeed, Somali lions frequently retain traces of these
spots, more especially in the female; and in German East Africa there
exists a race of the lion in which both sexes are more or less fully
and distinctly spotted.
In popular estimation the lion is inseparably connected with Africa,
where it formerly ranged from one end of the continent to the other,
although it has long since disappeared from most parts of Tunis and
Algeria, as well as from Cape Colony. As a matter of fact, _Felis
leo_ is as much an Asiatic as an African animal; while in the time of
Xenophon it was probably found so far west as Thrace and Macedonia.
Earlier still, that is to say in prehistoric times, its range included
the greater part of temperate Europe, not excepting the British Isles.
Unlike the tiger, however, the lion never inhabited the countries to
the east of the Bay of Bengal, nor penetrated to the swamps of Lower
Bengal itself, which are unsuited to its habits. Even so late as the
Mutiny, lions were to be met with over a considerable tract in central
India; although they are nowadays restricted to that district of
Kathiawar, known as the Gir, where they survive only by protection. In
the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, as well as in parts of Persia,
lions are still to be met with; but how numerous they are in these
countries is difficult to ascertain.
In Africa lions appear to be most abundant in the British, German, and
Portuguese eastern provinces, in some districts of which they seem
bolder and more prone to attack human beings than in many other parts
of the continent. In Somaliland, where they are smaller and greyer
than usual, their number has been greatly reduced of late years. The
handsomest lions of all are those with dark brown or black manes; but
in some parts of the country, at all events, black-maned lions do not
form a distinct race, as dark and light maned cubs may be found in the
same litter.
Although the skulls of the two species present considerable
differences, a lioness, apart from the absence of stripes, is not
unlike a tiger in general appearance; and it has long been a question
whether the lion or the tiger is the more powerful animal, although
the balance of opinion seems to be in favour of the tiger’s claim to
superiority in this respect. Certain it is, that the lion is much the
more noisy animal of the two; a tiger never roaring in the persistent
manner characteristic of the lion. The impression caused by the lion’s
roar appears to depend greatly on the idiosyncrasy of the listener and
the circumstances under which it is heard. Very noteworthy is the fact
that the roar of the two species is essentially similar in character.
As a rule, lions, when too feeble to capture more active prey, turn
into regular man-eaters much less frequently than tigers; but this may
be in part explained by the bolder nature of many African tribes, as
compared with the natives of a large extent of India; and when a lion
makes himself obnoxious, such tribes have no hesitation in attacking
and destroying the marauder.
Lions in Africa subsist, to a great extent, on the flesh of antelopes
and zebras, or bontequaggas; generally stalking their game in parties
of two or three, but one alone making the fatal spring. When stalking,
a lion stretches out its body to the fullest extent, and crawls so
close to the ground that even in low grass its presence is generally
undetected till too late. Occasionally a party of lions combine their
forces to pull down a large animal like a buffalo. Zebras can defend
themselves only by kicking, but the gemsbok and the sable antelope will
pin a lion with their horns, and sometimes come off victorious.
It has been very generally stated that lions are mainly, if not
exclusively, monogamous, and that they mate for life. It has, however,
been pointed out by Mr. Roosevelt that if this were really the case,
they would almost always be found in pairs, that is to say, a lion and
a lioness together. That they are thus found not infrequently may,
indeed, be freely admitted; but, on the other hand, it is much commoner
to come across a lioness and her cubs, an old lion with several
lionesses and their young, a single lion or lioness, a couple of lions
and lionesses, or, lastly, a small troop, which may be composed either
solely of males or females, or of a mixture of the two sexes. “These
facts,” writes the great American hunter, “are not compatible with the
romantic theory in question.”
[Illustration]
The cubs, generally two or three in number, come into the world, unlike
kittens, with their eyes open, and are then about one-third the size
of a cat. As already mentioned, they are heavily mottled with brown
on a tawny ground, and it is very significant that these markings are
to a great extent intermediate in character between the rosettes of
leopards and jaguars and the stripes of the tiger. A peculiar feature
in which the cubs of lions differ from those of leopards and
jaguars, and thereby resemble those of tigers, is the presence of a
white spot near the summit of the back of each ear. From these facts
it has been inferred, in the first place, that the lion is most nearly
related to the tiger, and, in the second place, that lions, tigers,
leopards, and jaguars are all members of a single group. As regards the
mutual relationships of these species, it is generally believed that
spots represent an earlier and more primitive type of colouring than
transverse stripes, and it is therefore inferred that the stripes of
the tiger, which are very frequently partially split or double, have
been derived from the fusion of leopard-like rosettes into transverse
chains. As the self-coloured coat of the adult lion is evidently a
modern feature, it seems clear that tigers and lions are to be regarded
as the most specialised members of the whole group.
Before the investigations which led up to these modern advanced views
had been undertaken, it was very generally believed, on account of its
self-coloured tawny coat, that the American puma--locally known as
the American lion--was one of the nearest relatives of _Felis leo_.
If, however, beauty be but skin deep, colour is an even less deeply
seated feature among animals; and, as the result of the study of the
markings of young cubs of the puma, it seems certain that this species
has acquired its uniform tawny livery quite independently of the lion.
For newly born puma cubs exhibit a pattern of quadrangular blackish
markings totally different in form and arrangement from those of
young lions, tigers, leopards, or jaguars, and approximating in some
degree to those of the smaller cats. Accordingly, in the opinion of
the investigator to whom we are indebted for these very interesting
views with regard to the inter-relationships of the various members
of the feline tribe, it seems highly probable that the puma may be an
overgrown self-coloured representative of the group of smaller cats
typified by the ordinary domesticated species and its wild relatives.
A remarkable feature connected with the tuft at the tip of the tail of
the lion is the frequent presence of a horny spur or claw, the function
of which is still unknown, although it is certain that it is not
employed, as was once thought to be the case, to goad the animal into
fury when the tail is lashed against the flanks. It has been asserted
that this spur is found only in the Indian lion; but this is as
erroneous as the statement made by the same writer that it represents
the last joint of the vertebræ of the tail to which the blood is unable
to obtain access. A very similar structure exists in one member of the
kangaroo tribe, known as the spur-tailed wallaby, in which, however,
the spur is common to both sexes and quite constant in its development.
Menagerie lions, it may be mentioned, generally display a greater
luxuriance and profusion of mane than their wild relatives; while it
is in the former alone that any marked development of long hair on the
under surface of the body is noticeable. The reason for this is, of
course, too obvious to require explanation, more especially when it is
borne in mind that lions inhabiting open plains with grass-jungle have
larger manes than those which have to get their living in a country
overgrown with thorn-bushes.
THE MANCHURIAN TIGER
(_Felis tigris mongolica_)
The tiger is, and apparently always has been, an essentially Asiatic
animal, although it enters south-eastern Europe in the Caucasus, whence
its range extends eastwards through Persia, Afghanistan, and India,
to Java and Sumatra, while northward it is found through China and
Mongolia to Korea and Amurland. Very noteworthy is its absence from
Ceylon, which seems to indicate that its original home was central
Asia, and that it is a comparatively recent immigrant into southern
Asia.
Four local races of the tiger are recognised by naturalists, namely,
the typical Indian tiger, the Persian tiger (_F. tigris virgata_), the
Javan tiger (_F. t. sondaica_), and the Manchurian or Siberian tiger
(_F. t. mongolica_ or _longipilis_). As regards splendour of coat, the
finest of these races is the Manchurian tiger, which differs from the
Indian race by the great length and woolliness of its winter coat and
the larger extent of white on the face, under-parts, and the inner side
of the limbs. It also appears to be a more stoutly built animal, and
attains a very large size. Its skin commands a very high price. From
both these races the Persian tiger, which is probably the one found in
the Caucasus, differs by the copious fringe of long hair on the cheeks,
throat, and under-parts; while it is also of inferior bodily size. The
Javan and Sumatran tiger, which may be the same as the one inhabiting
the Malay countries, differs from all the other three by the light
areas on the head, body and limbs being of small extent, ill-defined,
and dirty or buffish white in colour instead of pure white. In size it
is always relatively small, and appears to be the smallest of all. The
degree of development of the dark stripes appears to vary individually;
but the Persian race seems to be the most fully striped of all, and
shows in perfection the characteristic looping, or splitting of the
stripes.
The striped coat of the tiger seems designed to break up the outline of
the body, and thus to render the animal as inconspicuous as possible.
That it is not, as was once thought, a special adaptation to match the
surroundings of the animal in the jungles of Bengal, will be evident
from what is stated above as to the distribution of the tiger and its
comparatively recent entry into India.
Information is still required with regard to the habits of the
Manchurian tiger, which has only of recent years been hunted by
European sportsmen, or exhibited alive in zoological gardens. It
appears, however, that these northern tigers prey on almost all the
animals of their native country, from the largest to the smallest. In
summer they will overpower and kill such fierce animals as bears, while
in times of scarcity during the long winter they may be driven to prey
on mice and rats. To capture their victims they frequently resort
to the drinking-places of the latter, and in summer they likewise pay
constant visits to the salt-pans where the wapiti and other deer come
to lick the salt.
[Illustration]
Each pair of tigers generally frequents the same lair, which in
mountainous districts is concealed amid rocks, while in the plains the
requisite shelter is afforded by reed-brakes. In winter the tigers may
be completely snowed up in their retreats. As in India, the tigress
is reported to separate herself from the tiger a short time before
giving birth to her young; these being born in some dense thicket or
rocky cleft, their number varying from two to four. At birth they are
about the same size as lion-cubs, but are marked in the same fashion
as their parents, although clothed in more woolly coats. In India it
is generally stated that the female keeps apart from the male while
the cubs are young, although both parents have been seen with their
offspring. Like lions, tigers associate for the greater part of the
year in pairs, and are strictly monogamous.
Whether old tigers in Siberia turn man-eaters, after the fashion of
their brethren in India, does not appear to be known; but in much of
their range it is probable that they do not resort to this mode of
livelihood, on account of the sparseness of the population. It appears,
however, that throughout northern China and Siberia the natives regard
the tiger with much the same superstitious awe as do the natives of
Hindustan. All the Siberian natives consider the tiger as a being of
high nature, although the Tunguses look upon it as an evil spirit which
has come under the influence of the Shamans, or sorcerers.
Fossil bones from the New Siberian Islands indicate that the Manchurian
tiger once ranged beyond the Arctic Circle.
THE SEAL
(_Phoca vitulina_)
Of all mammals except whales, dolphins, and sea-cows, the true seals,
of which the common British species is the typical representative,
are those which have become most completely adapted to an aquatic
existence. This is shown by the spindle-shaped form of the body, the
total absence of external ears, the conversion of the fore-limbs into
flippers, and the backward direction of the hind pair, which are also
flipper-like, and lie parallel to the short tail to form an efficient
rudder-like organ.
Seals are evidently descended from land Carnivora, and possibly from
that long extinct group the Creodontia. When fully developed, their
cheek-teeth consist of a single middle cusp, flanked by a smaller one
in front and behind; and there are no teeth specially corresponding
with the scissor-like pair characteristic of the modern land Carnivora.
This fact, unless the teeth are degenerate, is all in favour of the
direct descent of seals from creodonts.
From the true seals of the family _Phocidæ_ the eared seals, or
_Otariidæ_, differ by retaining small external ears, as well as by the
fact that the hind-flippers are not permanently turned backwards; this
latter feature being also distinctive of the walrus (_Odobænidæ_). In
addition to being the most specialised of the aquatic Carnivora, the
true seals are also the most widely distributed, inhabiting nearly all
seas, and being likewise found in the Caspian Sea and in Lakes Aral and
Baikal. Although seals go on land nightly to sleep, and likewise spend
a considerable amount of time in the day on the shore or on ice, while
the females give birth to their young on land, none of the _Phocidæ_
regularly leave the water for a period of several weeks during the
breeding-season, after the fashion of their eared cousins. Neither do
any of them yield commercial sealskin, which is a product of certain
members of the eared groups. Commercially, they are therefore valued
only for their hides and oil, for the sake of which vast numbers are
annually slaughtered.
Seals are adepts in swimming and diving, and have the power of closing
their nostrils and the apertures of their ears while under water,
although they are unable to remain beneath the surface for anything
like so long as whales and dolphins. The food of the common seal, as
well as most other kinds, consists chiefly of fishes, for capturing
and holding which their sharply cusped teeth are admirably adapted.
Graceful and active as are their movements in water, on land they are
comparatively awkward and ungainly; progression being effected by means
of the limbs, accompanied by sudden flexures of the body, so that it
in some degree partakes of the nature of hopping. To land, seals shoot
themselves out of the water by a strong and sudden movement of the
hind-limbs. When once on land, they may remain there for days and even
weeks together, till compelled by hunger to return to the sea.
[Illustration]
The senses of the seal are highly developed. The eye, for instance, is
full and globular, and thus specially adapted to catch every ray of
light when the animal is in the water. It is noteworthy that seals can
shed tears under the influence of excitement, and especially when in
pain. And the idea of the ancients that these animals are attracted by
music and singing appears to be founded on fact.
Their usual cry is a sharp bark, but when angered they give vent to
dog-like snarlings. Seals always associate in parties, which may
comprise hundreds of individuals. The young, which are beautiful little
creatures, are tenderly and affectionately nurtured by their parents,
who protect them from danger by every means in their power.
Young seals have a coat quite different from that of the adult; this
baby coat in the case of the second British species, the grey seal
(_Halichærus grypus_), being wholly white. In colour, the common seal
varies greatly, the coat being sometimes yellowish and sometimes light
grey with blackish mottlings and marblings. The so-called grey seal is
generally much darker in colour, but is best distinguished from the
common species by its greatly superior size and its relatively larger
and blunter teeth.
All seals are polygamous, which leads to fights among the males for
the possession of the females; but in other respects they are gentle
and affectionate, easily tamed if taken young, and displaying great
capacity for education. As a rule, only a single cub is produced at a
birth, but there may be twins.
THE ELK
(_Alces machlis_)
Although the elk can claim an easy superiority in the matter of size
over all the other members of the deer tribe, it certainly cannot be
accorded a high position in the scale of beauty. For, truth to say, it
is an ugly and ungainly creature, with disproportionately long legs,
and huge head terminating in a broad, flabby, and almost trunk-like
muzzle. By the sportsman, however, it is held in high estimation, owing
to the magnificent trophies formed by its great spreading antlers,
which in Alaskan specimens may have a span of as much as six feet. And
when the build of the elk is considered in relation to its mode of
life, we see that what appears ugly and ungainly to our eyes is merely
adaptation to a particular mode of life. For in summer the elk spends
much of its time wading belly-deep in marshes and lakes in search of
the water-plants which form a large proportion of its food at this
season; and in this pursuit its long limbs must obviously be of the
greatest advantage, while the broad and mobile muzzle is specially well
adapted for gathering in the floating leaves and stalks. Possibly the
almost wholly hairy extremity of the muzzle is another adaptation to
the same end. The elk typifies the wading type among mammals just as
much as does the flamingo among birds.
Like many other mammals of northern Europe, the elk has a circumpolar
distribution, although most Transatlantic naturalists regard its
American representatives in the light of a distinct species rather than
as local races.
In common with the brown bear, the elk attains its maximum stature
in Alaska, where it towers to a height of close on seven feet at the
shoulder. At one time an inhabitant of the British Isles, the elk
is still found in many parts of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and
is abundant in Scandinavia; from these countries its range extends
eastward through Poland and Russia, and thence across the whole of
Siberia. On the other side of Bering Strait it reappears in Alaska,
whence it ranges through British Columbia to Maine and other parts of
the United States. The differences between the elk (or moose, as it is
there called) of the United States and the typical elk of Scandinavia
are so slight that it requires an expert to distinguish between the two.
It is, however, very noteworthy that certain Scandinavian elk never
develop the huge expansions, or “shovels,” which form the most
characteristic feature of the antlers of the species, but carry only
five simple tines; and in east Siberia this simpler type of antler
seems to be very prevalent.
[Illustration]
A peculiar feature of the bull elk is the curious hairy appendage
hanging from the throat, known to hunters as the “bell.”
Elk are polygamous, like the majority of the deer tribe; and in the
breeding season the two sexes learn each others’ whereabouts by means
of a loud “call” or bellowing, which in some districts, at any rate,
appears to be uttered by males and females alike. The call can easily
be imitated with the aid of a horn or trumpet, and by this means many a
fine old bull is lured to his destruction. Elk are adepts in concealing
themselves in the thickets to which they resort during the daytime.
In winter, when they are compelled to subsist on bark and twigs,
especially those of the birch, these giant deer experience very hard
times; and in North America a bull and two or three cows often form
what is called a “yard” in the forest, by constantly trampling down the
snow over a certain area, and thus keeping themselves from being snowed
up. The female gives birth to one or two calves at a time, which are
even more ungainly-looking than their parents.
It should be added, that in America the term “elk” is misapplied to the
wapiti, while in Ceylon it is bestowed on the sambar deer.
THE CAPERCAILLIE
(_Tetrao urogallus_)
For the greater part of the year capercaillie, the largest
representative of the grouse family, passes its time concealed in the
depths of the forests, where it manages to find sufficient food even in
the most severe winters; and it is only for a short period in spring
that it makes its appearance, during the breeding-season, in the open.
Its home is in the great forests of continental Europe and northern
Asia, more especially those in which fir and pines predominate;
abundant under-wood, which affords a good supply of berries, open
glades, patches of sand, and pure water are, however, essential to the
well-being of this magnificent bird. The capercaillie, or auerhahn
as it is called in Austria and Germany, ranged in former days from
the British Islands to the north-eastern portion of Turkestan, the
Altai Mountains, and Lake Baikal; but by the middle of the seventeenth
century it had already become scarce in Britain, where it became
extinct a century later. In recent years the bird has, however, been
reintroduced into Perthshire, Forfarshire, and a few other Scottish
counties. In the Urals, north-eastern Siberia, and Kamchatka the
typical capercaillie is represented by nearly allied species, or
races. In Scandinavia the auerhahn ranges as far north as latitude
70°, but gradually becomes smaller and scarcer as the pine-woods tend
to disappear; and it is the vast pine-forests of central Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Poland that form the great centre of its habitat.
Although its large size constitutes a sufficient means of recognising
the cock capercaillie, which measures as much as thirty-five inches in
length, from all other kinds of grouse, the species is distinguishable
from its near relative, the blackcock, by the evenly rounded tail;
while the blackish head and neck, with a patch of bare vermilion skin
above each eye, the pale horn-colour of the beak, the green band
across the breast, and the slaty brown back form other unmistakable
characteristics. The female presents somewhat more resemblance to
an overgrown greyhen (the female of the blackcock), but here again
the rounded tail and superior size constitute decisive points of
difference; while the general colour is more distinctly chestnut.
Additional peculiarities of the hen capercaillie are to be found in the
presence of a rufous patch at the base of the neck, and in the white
tips to the black greater wing-coverts. In length the hen measures
about 10 inches less than her partner; while her weight is only from 5
to 6 lb., against from 13 to 16 or 17 lb. in the cock.
[Illustration]
The food of the cock capercaillie consists principally of the leaves
and young shoots of the Scotch pine; and during the breeding-season
these appear to form its sole nutriment. At other times he also
consumes the leaves of deciduous trees, together with cranberries,
whortleberries, juniper-berries, and grass, and sometimes a few insects
or worms. On the other hand, the hens, which spend much more time on
the ground than the cocks, and the young feed largely upon ants and
other insects, worms, etc.; this being especially the case with the
young birds.
The capercaillie is a polygamous bird, and in the spring--sometimes
while the snow is still thick on the ground--each cock takes up a
position on a tall pine, and commences his nuptial performance or
_spel_, as it is called in Norway. This _spel_ usually lasts from
early dawn to sunrise, and is repeated from sunset till dark; but the
time varies somewhat according to the state of the weather and the
temperature. During this amatory performance the cock stretches out
his neck, raises and spreads out his wings like a fan, ruffles his
feathers, and assumes an appearance which has been compared to that of
an angry turkey. A call, which has been expressed by the words _peller,
peller, peller_, is uttered with continually increasing rapidity, and
concludes with a gulp and an indrawing of the breath, when the bird
throws up his head, closes his eyes, and appears to be in a paroxysm of
passion.
At the sound of the cock’s call all the hens in the neighbourhood rush
to the place, uttering cries somewhat like the croak of a raven; and
when they have assembled on the ground below the cock descends from his
perch to join the party.
In Scotland, capercaillie-shooting takes place from 10th August till
20th December; but in some parts of the Continent, as in Poland, for
instance, the calling-season is the time for this sport, which is so
highly esteemed, that in Hungary and Poland a tablet is fixed in the
shooting-lodges to commemorate the death of each bird.
THE SQUIRREL
(_Sciurus vulgaris_)
Of all the smaller animals inhabiting the forests of Great Britain and
the Continent, none is better known, more graceful in its actions,
or more charming in its appearance than the squirrel, the typical
representative of a vast family of rodents, second in number only to
the members of the mouse tribe, and having an almost cosmopolitan
distribution, although unknown in Australia. The European species, like
the great majority of its immediate relatives, is completely arboreal
in its habits, and frequents for choice dry and shady forests where
there is abundance of tall trees. Its range includes practically the
whole of Europe and a considerable portion of northern Asia; but, as
might be expected, there is considerable local variation in the matter
of colour in different parts of this extensive area, and the British
squirrel differs markedly from the typical Swedish representative of
the species. There are, moreover, especially in the British race,
seasonal changes of colour, which render its appearance very different.
During the winter months the British squirrel (_Sciurus vulgaris
leucurus_) is a foxy coloured rodent, with long tufts of hair to the
summits of the ears and the tail practically the same colour as the
body. In the spring the long winter coat of the head and body is
exchanged for a shorter summer dress and the ears lose their tufts; but
the hairs of the tail are not changed, and consequently become dirty
white, owing to the bleaching effect of light on their colour. This
dirty white or cream-coloured tint of the tail in summer is absolutely
characteristic of the British squirrel; and it may be added that even
in winter this appendage is much less red than in many continental
squirrels, being in fact reddish brown.
In the typical squirrel (_S. v. typicus_), of southern Norway and
Sweden, the body in summer has a brownish red coat very similar to that
of the British race; but the tail is red, and does not bleach when the
hairs are old and worn. In winter the body-coat is soft greyish brown
in colour, with traces of the summer tint along the middle line of the
back and on the limbs. We now come to the subject of our illustration,
which shows the German race of the squirrel (_S. v. rutilans_) in its
winter coat. In this variety the colour is bright red at all seasons,
although there is a tinge of light smoky grey along the flanks in
winter; the tail being at all seasons bright rufous, often rather
darker than the body. There is, however, a brown phase of this race;
and all continental squirrels exhibit a more or less marked tendency
towards individual melanism.
[Illustration]
Omitting mention of several other red or reddish races of the species
met with in various parts of the Continent, reference may be made to
the Grecian squirrel (_S. v. lilæus_), in which the tendency to
blackness is general if not universal; the general colour being brown,
passing into blackish on the hind half of the back and the outer sides
of the limbs. This, however, by no means exhausts the colour range of
this extremely variable species, for in northern Russia and Siberia we
find squirrels (_S. v. argenteus_ and _S. v. sibiricus_) in which the
general colour of the winter coat is light French grey, with the long
ear-tufts black. It is these grey squirrels which are used in such
numbers to form the linings of ladies’ cheap cloaks; but perfect skins,
to say nothing of the living animal, are scarcely ever seen in England.
For the reception of their young, squirrels build a well-constructed
nest, or “drey,” which is oval in shape, and made of fibres and leaves
with a lining of moss; its usual position being the fork of a large
tree or a hole in the trunk. The fibres are neatly and intricately
interwoven; and when the nest is placed in a fork, the entrance is
usually made to open near to one of the branches, with the colour of
which it agrees very closely. In this comfortable home the female
brings forth three or four young, usually in June, which are tended by
both parents, with whom they remain till the following year.
Although squirrels are stated to make an occasional meal of birds’
eggs, they are in the main strict vegetarians, feeding chiefly upon
pine-cones, nuts, beech-mast, bark, buds, and young shoots. Where they
are unusually numerous, as in certain parts of Scotland, they are
stated to inflict considerable damage on young larch-plantations. When
feeding, squirrels sit up and grasp the food in their fore-paws, with
which they hold nuts while these are pierced by the chisel-like front
teeth. Long flying leaps from tree to tree are frequently taken by
these active rodents.
THE ROE-DEER
(_Capreolus caprea_)
The roe-deer, or roebuck, as it is commonly called, is the smallest
European representative of the deer family, or _Cervidæ_, and belongs
to a small group confined to Europe and northern Asia. So far as
external characters are concerned, roe-deer differ from more typical
_Cervidæ_, such as the red deer and the fallow deer, by the simpler
structure of the relatively small antlers of the bucks, which rise
nearly vertically from the head, and carry only three points; the
basal, or brow, tines of the red deer being absent. As a distinctive
character, common to both sexes, may be mentioned the absence of a tail.
The summer and winter dresses of the species, as in so many of the
deer of the temperate zone, are strikingly different; the summer coat
being bright foxy red, while in winter the general colour of the fur is
olive-brown. At the latter season, at any rate, there is a conspicuous
white patch on the rump, which serves as a guide to the hinder members
of a family or party when fleeing from danger. The beautiful fawns are
marked with a comparatively small number of longitudinal rows of white
or yellowish spots and streaks upon a rufous ground; this indicating
that the roe is descended from deer of which the adults were similarly
spotted in summer. The black moustache-mark on the muzzle, and the
white tip to the chin, are other features of these elegant little deer.
The bucks attain their full development in the third year, when the
antlers, which commence as simple spikes, first acquire their third
tines. Adult bucks usually shed their antlers about Christmas, and the
new ones, which increase in size, although not in complexity till the
sixth year, are in most cases fully developed by the end of February.
The fawns, of which there may be either one, two, or three at a birth,
usually make their appearance in the world in May, at any rate in the
British Isles.
The favourite haunts of roe-deer are woods and forests on the plains,
where under-wood is abundant, from which they issue forth at evening
to graze in meadows and corn-lands. On the Continent these deer are,
however, also found in forests on the lower mountains, as well as
on the spurs of the higher ranges. As a rule, they associate for
the greater part of the year in small family parties; such parties,
according to continental writers, usually consisting of a buck with two
or three does and their fawns, although it has been stated that roe are
strictly monogamous. When put up in covert, they generally start off at
a gallop with enormous flying leaps, but their speed is not great. They
are also excellent swimmers, and can likewise climb rocks to a certain
extent. Their food comprises grass, herbs, berries, and the young
shoots of bushes and trees; ivy-leaves, where they are to be obtained,
forming a favourite article of diet.
[Illustration]
The range of the roebuck extends from the British Isles to Spain and
Italy in the south and to southern Scandinavia in the north, while
eastwards it stretches across Poland and the south of Russia at least
as far as the Caucasus. In the Altai and certain other parts of Siberia
it is, however, replaced by a much larger, paler-coloured species
with more thickly haired ears, commonly known as the Siberian roe
(_Capreolus pygargus_), of which a local race inhabits the Tian Shan
range. Still farther east, in Manchuria and Mongolia, we come upon a
smaller and redder species, the Manchurian roebuck (_C. manchuricus_,
or _bedfordi_), which is more like the European roe, the red coat being
exchanged for one of olive-brown or grey in winter.
In former days roebuck were doubtless distributed all over Great
Britain; but by the middle of the eighteenth century they appear to
have been killed off everywhere, except in the highlands of Scotland.
Later on, with the increase of game-preservation, they have reasserted
themselves, and spread over the lowlands of southern Scotland, as well
as parts of the north of England. In North Wales they were reintroduced
into Vaynol Park in 1874; and they have likewise been turned down in
the Blackmoor Vale of Dorsetshire, where they are now once more wild.
In height, a good roebuck will stand fully 26 inches at the shoulder;
while in weight he will turn the scale at 60 lb., if in first-rate
condition. On the Continent these deer are generally hunted by means
of beating the woods, where the guns are stationed along the tracks by
which the roe pass to their feeding-grounds. Roe-venison, which is in
best condition during winter, is generally regarded as inferior to that
of either the red or the fallow deer.
THE REINDEER
(_Rangifer tarandus_)
The reindeer, the ren of the Swedes, is by far the most valuable member
of the deer tribe, as it furnishes the Laps and many of the tribes of
northern Asia not only with food, raiment, and leather, but likewise
serves as a beast of draught and burden to transport them and their
food across the inhospitable regions which form their home. Reindeer
are likewise in all probability the most numerous in individuals of
any of the _Cervidæ_, occurring in vast herds on the high _fjells_ of
Scandinavia, while in many parts of North America, where they are known
as caribou, they are met with in countless thousands, if not indeed in
millions.
But it is not only in these two respects that reindeer are worthy of
special notice, for they are the only members of the deer tribe in
which antlers are carried by both sexes, those of the females being,
however, considerably smaller than those of the males; while they
are further remarkable for the early period of life at which these
appendages make their first appearance. Then, again, the antlers,
as is well shown in the illustration, are quite unlike those of any
other deer; generally having the two pairs of front tines more or less
branched and unsymmetrical, while the main beam sweeps backwards and
then forwards in a bold curve, frequently giving off a single back-tine
at the middle of the arch, and always carrying a number of tines on the
hind edge of the upper portion.
Reindeer have a circumpolar distribution, except that they are
naturally absent from Alaska; and in the former respect therefore agree
with elk, although their range extends much farther north, and is
proportionately curtailed in the south.
In all respects these deer are admirably adapted to a climate of
intense severity and a life for months at a time amid snow and ice.
Their coats are of great thickness and density, the hairs growing so
close together as to produce a structure recalling much elongated
velvet-pile. In the stags the throat is further protected by a fringe
or ruff of long hair; and in both sexes the main pair of hoofs is very
large and deeply cleft, so as to afford as big a surface as possible to
prevent sinking deeply in the snow, while further support is afforded
by the unusually large size of the small supplemental pair of hoofs.
With these powerful hoofs, reindeer in winter scrape away the snow
to uncover the reindeer-moss (_Cladonia rangiferina_), which at this
season forms their main or only food-supply. In summer, however, they
eat grass and herbage, as well as the buds and young shoots of dwarf
birch.
[Illustration]
The typical representative of the species is the Scandinavian reindeer,
the one represented in the illustration, which occurs in both the
wild and the domesticated condition. It is a comparatively small
animal, with relatively short limbs, and the antlers rounded, and not
displaying, as a rule, any very excessive development in the width of
one of the lower pair of front tines. In Siberia other and larger,
but still imperfectly known, races occur; while in Arctic America
the species is represented by two very distinct types, more or less
connected by a number of intermediate races.
The recently described Finnish race of the reindeer (_Rangifer tarandus
fennicus_), now nearly extinct, is a larger animal than its Swedish
representative.
Of the two chief American types, the most northern is the so-called
Barren-ground reindeer or caribou (_R. t. arcticus_), in which the
antlers are rounded and of great length, with the basal front tines
far removed from those of the terminal extremity; while the woodland
reindeer (_R. t. caribu_), on the other hand, has the antlers short,
flattened, and with the tines crowded together, very large, and often
much branched. In some of these American reindeer one of the lower pair
of front tines often attains an enormous width, or depth, and is much
branched.
There is likewise great racial variation in the matter of colour
among American reindeer, the lightest being the Newfoundland _R. t.
novæ-terræ_, while the darkest is _R. t. osborni_ of the Cascade
Mountains, in which the greater part of the body is chocolate, or even
blackish brown.
Reindeer, alike in the Old World and in America, are accustomed to
undertake long seasonal migrations in search of food, travelling
southwards in autumn, and returning to the northern part of their range
in summer. Moreover, in many districts they are compelled to retire
in summer from the open plains to the shelter of mountain forests
on account of the attacks of various insects, more especially the
reindeer-fly. Here it may be mentioned that the latter insect is found
in certain continental localities far south of the present range of
the reindeer, where it has doubtless existed since the time when that
animal had a wider distribution. In their migrations, several thousands
of reindeer frequently collect in herds of from two hundred to three
hundred head, which travel one after another in long lines, each led,
it is reported, by an old cow, and the whole forming a very forest of
antlers. They swim the widest rivers with ease.
THE DEFASSA WATERBUCK
(_Cobus defassa_)
To one of the handsomest of the larger South African antelopes the
old Dutch colonists gave the name of wasserbok, the equivalent of the
English waterbuck, on account of its partiality for the neighbourhood
of water, although it has subsequently been discovered that several
more or less nearly allied species are equally aquatic in their habits.
This typical waterbuck, which is about the size of an average mule,
and is known to naturalists by the name of _Cobus ellipsiprymnus_,
is characterised by the iron-grey colour of the long coarse hair of
the head and body, and the presence of a large elliptical white ring
(whence the specific name _ellipsiprymnus_) on the buttocks. The tail
is comparatively long, and terminates in a blackish tuft, while the
lower portions of the legs are likewise blackish. The ears are large
and rounded; and the bucks carry a handsome pair of sublyrate, light
brown horns, ringed from the base nearly to the tip.
At first this was the only waterbuck known, but as the country
was gradually opened up a second species was discovered, whose
range is now known to extend from Angola and German East Africa to
Abyssinia, Senegambia, and Nigeria. This is the defassa or sing-sing
waterbuck--for it has different native names in different parts of
its range--the _Cobus defassa_ of naturalists, and the subject of the
accompanying coloured Plate. From the true or typical waterbuck it is
distinguished by the redder (or in the case of one race blacker) colour
of the coat, and the substitution of a comparatively small white patch
for the large elliptical ring on the rump. There are several local
races of this species, such as the typical defassa of Abyssinia and the
sing-sing of West Africa, differing to a certain extent in colour; the
most marked of these being the Angolan _C. defassa penricei_, which is
blackish grey.
Waterbuck are very generally found in the neighbourhood of rivers and
lakes, where they feed amid the swamps of reeds and papyrus, but are
by no means restricted to such situations, and may indeed be met with
in dry and rocky localities. Sometimes, like hartebeests, they will
climb the white-ant hills in order to obtain a good view of their
surroundings and see whether all is safe.
They are gregarious antelopes, usually associating in parties of from
three to a score or more; and it is noteworthy that when on the move
the troop is invariably led by an old cow, and never by a bull. When
danger is declared, the whole herd makes off in a resounding gallop
for the nearest water in hope of finding safety by swimming. The flesh
of both species of waterbuck is coarse and pervaded by a strong and
unpleasant taste, so that it is almost uneatable by Europeans.
[Illustration]
In Uganda, where defassa waterbuck are still comparatively numerous,
the calves, of which there is usually one at a birth, are born from
about the middle of December to the latter part of February. The male
calves do not develop their horns till they are about eight months
old, by which time the animals are approximately half-grown. At all
times shy and difficult to approach, waterbuck are specially wary when
they have calves with them. Unlike so many antelopes and nearly all
deer, when they take to flight at the approach of danger they scarcely
ever turn round, after galloping a certain distance, to gaze at the
intruder; and this absence of curiosity saves many of them their lives.
The calves, if taken young, are easily tamed.
Waterbuck are the biggest members of a large genus, all the
representatives of which are confined to Africa south of the Sahara;
the smaller species being known as kobs. A well-known species is
Buffon’s kob (_Cobus coba_), a nearly uniformly rufous antelope, with
blackish fronts to the fore-legs, of the approximate size of a fallow
deer, and inhabiting tropical Africa from the west coast to Uganda.
Somewhat larger are the puku (_C. vardoni_) and the lechwi (_C.
leche_), first discovered by Livingstone in the Zambesi district; both
these being foxy-coloured antelopes, without black leg-markings. In the
Lake Mweru district of Barotseland there exists another kind of lechwi
in which the adult males become blackish brown. And much farther north,
in the swamps of the White Nile and the Sobat, we meet with two other
members of the genus, the white-eared kob (_C. leucotis_) and Mrs.
Gray’s kob (_C. maria_), in which the old bucks are likewise nearly
black, with the exception of the ears, certain portions of the head
and throat, and the under-parts, which are white. These black kobs are
highly specialised species; although less specialised than the sable
antelope, in which the adults of both sexes are black.
THE HARE
(_Lepus europæus_)
For many years the true or brown hare was known scientifically as
_Lepus timidus_, but as that name was originally bestowed by Linnæus
on the blue hare of Sweden, it has been transferred to that species.
Perhaps less confusion would have resulted had it been allowed to
continue as the technical designation of the species with which it was
so long associated.
No one, of course, can mistake a hare for any other animal, and
therefore anything in the way of description would be superfluous. It
is, however, important to point out the characters by which the brown,
or English species, is distinguished from the blue hare, which is found
in Scotland and Ireland.
The brown hare, then, is specially characterised by its relatively
large size, its very long ears, which exceed the head in length, the
presence of a distinct white streak above each eye, and of a rusty
red area on the thigh and generally another on the flank; additional
characteristics being the black upper surface of the tail and the
black tips to the ears. The general colour of the thick soft fur is
rufous tawny, mingled with black above and white beneath, the dark
area extending, however, to the throat and chest; there is but little
difference between the summer and the winter coat, although the latter
is always somewhat the lighter. Length of limb, especially in respect
of the hind pair, is a structural characteristic of the hare.
The range of the brown hare includes the whole of central Europe, and
a small portion of western Asia; its northern limits in Europe being
formed by the lowlands of Scotland, southern Sweden, and southern
Russia, while in the south it extends to northern Italy, southern
France, and Spain. Nine local races of the species are recognised, of
which the British is known as _L. europæus occidentalis_.
Compared with the brown species, the blue or mountain hare, now known
as _L. timidus_, is a smaller animal, with the ears, hind-legs, and
tail shorter, the head smaller and more rounded, and the colour
frequently bluish or brownish grey above in summer, without any rufous
or brown on the flanks, but with black tips to the ears, and the under
surface of the body white. The upper surface of the tail may be either
dark or white; and as a rule the fur, with the exception of the black
ear-tips, turns white in winter. The range of this species extends
from Ireland and Sweden to the Alps, the Altai Mountains, the Caspian
district, and Japan. It is represented by numerous races, of which
three occur in the British Isles. Of these, the Irish hare (_L. timidus
hibernicus_) has the ears shorter than the head, and the tail wholly
white; the coat may turn white in severe winters. In the Scottish hare
(_L. t. scoticus_), on the other hand, the ears are nearly as long as
the head, the upper side of the tail is dusky in summer, and the
whole coat, exclusive of the ear-tips, turns white in winter.
[Illustration]
The brown hare is essentially an animal of the open country, and more
especially bare fields and fallows, with which its colour harmonises
in a wonderful degree. And there is abundant need for this protective
resemblance, as the hare has a host of enemies, against whom it has
constantly to be on guard, and from whom its sole hope of escape
depends upon its limbs. All the three protective senses, hearing,
sight, and smell, are highly developed; the long ears detecting every
audible sound, while the full, large, round eyes, with widely distended
pupils, catch the smallest rays of light at night, when the hare is
most active. It has been stated, indeed, that the eyes remain open
during sleep, as the eyelids cannot be completely closed; but this is
incorrect.
Hares pass most of the day in a lair or “form,” which is a smooth place
between tussocks of grass or other covert, but they may live out in the
open. The females produce at least two litters during the year, the
number of leverets in which usually varies from two to five, although
it is stated there have been as many as eleven. The young are born
quite active and with their eyes open; those which come into the world
in spring being capable of breeding the same autumn. The mother remains
with her offspring only for the first five or six days after their
birth, and then leaves them to shift for themselves.
The young hares of each litter remain together till half-grown, when
they disperse; in fifteen months they attain full size, and their
average duration of life is seven or eight years. Owing to their long
hind-legs hares run much better uphill than downhill.
THE POLAR BEAR
(_Ursus maritimus_)
Living amid eternal ice and snow, the polar bear, which is equalled
in bodily size only by some of the huge brown bears of Alaska and
Kamchatka, evidently owes its white, or in some instances pale
cream-coloured, coat to its surroundings; this white livery, like that
of the polar hare, being worn throughout the year. The species is
always alluded to simply as the polar bear, although its full title
should be the north polar bear; the Antarctic, so far as we know at
present, having no land mammals.
In its native haunts the polar bear is found alike on the ice-bound
coasts and islands, and on the ice-fields themselves, where it obtains
much of its food, this being captured both on land and in the water.
Indeed, this great carnivore is fully as much at home in the sea as on
_terra firma_, and is capable of swimming long distances at a stretch.
In former days it is probable that the polar bear ranged considerably
farther south than is the case at the present day, when it is but
rarely seen even in the south of Greenland. The species, like Arctic
animals generally, has a nearly circumpolar distribution, and has
been divided into a number of local races. These are at present
distinguished by skull-characters, but if a sufficient series of skins
were available in museums for comparison, there would probably be found
local differences in the colour, length, and character of the fur.
Polar bear skins are, however, of great commercial value, so that no
collection contains a large series of specimens. Moreover, the exact
locality of most of the skins offered for sale by furriers is unknown.
Against the intense cold of its Arctic home the white bear is well
protected by its long and dense coat, as well as by the thick layer of
fat underlying the skin. By means of the hairy covering of the soles
of the feet--which in other bears are naked--the animal is enabled to
obtain a firm foothold on the ice; upon which, as well as on land, it
is a swift and long-winded runner. As special adaptations in the bodily
form to swimming and diving, may be mentioned the thin, compressed
body, the long neck, the small ears, and the long pointed head, which
offer the least possible resistance to progression in water. The strong
limbs, with broad paws and webs between the toes, form efficient oars
when swimming; while the oily nature of the fur keeps the water off
the body. The white bear is, in fact, as admirably adapted to a life
among the Arctic ice as is the lion to the deserts of Africa; and both
animals may be regarded as the absolute rulers of their respective
domains.
[Illustration]
In the pursuit of its prey the polar bear displays great craft and
ingenuity. When it spies a seal sleeping by a hole in the ice, or on
the edge of an ice-floe, if it succeeds in approaching undetected, it
glides swiftly and silently into the water, swims a certain distance
under the surface, and then rises to observe the situation of its
victim. In this manner, by alternate dives and risings, it progresses
till within a short distance, when it makes a final dive, to rise near
the sleeping seal, which it generally manages to capture. In summer
these bears are almost complete vegetarians, subsisting on grass,
berries, lichens, moss, and sea-weed. At other seasons their chief food
consists of the flesh of seals, walruses, and the smaller cetaceans,
such as the white whale and the so-called blackfish. In some districts
they capture fish of various kinds, and more especially salmon. In
addition to the above, numbers of the smaller polar mammals, such as
the Arctic lemming, are caught and eaten; while the young and eggs of
various sea-birds, especially auks and guillemots, also form a portion
of the diet.
White bears are seldom seen in numbers except where the carcases of
whales have been left to rot by the whalers; and generally these
animals go about in pairs, accompanied by one or two cubs, which the
female will defend with her life.
Only when driven by hunger will the white bear venture to attack human
beings. Sealers, who were formerly much afraid of them, nowadays attack
the bears armed only with lances, and kill large numbers.
In the far north white bears disappear for the most part during the
long Arctic winter, and it is believed that many hibernate, especially
as they have occasionally been found in holes. In the winter lair the
female gives birth to her tiny, short-haired, and blind cubs, which are
usually one or two in number, although triplets occasionally occur.
THE MANDRILL
(_Maimon mormon_)
The mandrill is a highly specialised and at the same time extremely
hideous West African representative of the dog-faced baboons, nearly
all of which are confined to Africa south of the Sahara, although
one species is a native of southern Arabia. All these baboons have
the long straight muzzles from which the group derives its name, and
all except the subject of the accompanying Plate are more or less
uniformly coloured animals, with, in most cases, comparatively long
tails. The mandrill and its ally and compatriot the drill are, however,
distinguished from all their relatives by the reduction of the tail to
a mere stump; while old males of the former are further characterised
by the presence of large fluted swellings on the sides of the muzzle
and the brilliant colouring of these and the other bare parts in this
region, while a nearly equal brilliancy is developed in the naked
patches on the rump.
To the female mandrill, who, as shown in the Plate, lacks the nasal
swellings and brilliant hues of her lord and master, this style of
decoration may, and probably does, appear beautiful, but to ourselves
it is simply hideous and repulsive, as are the manners and ways of
this monstrous ape. The nature of the colouring of the old males is
sufficiently indicated in the coloured Plate; but it may be mentioned
that the scarlet area on the muzzle has the appearance of vermilion
sealing-wax, while the ultramarine of the lateral swellings is suffused
in the flutings with shades of violet, more especially when the animal
is under the influence of excitement. Indeed, when in this condition,
all the colours are intensified and heightened.
In size the male mandrill may be compared to a short-bodied mastiff,
while in strength and ferocity it has few equals, so that it is rightly
dreaded by all the natives of West Africa. The female is a much smaller
and much less powerful animal.
The mandrill, which is one of the shyest of all apes, inhabits the
rocky parts of mountain forests in the Gold Coast, Guinea, and the
adjacent districts of West Africa. Its food consists of fruits, bulbous
plants, grass, and various other herbage, birds’ eggs, and all small
animals that it can capture.
When captured young, the mandrill is sufficiently amiable, and for a
time it remains tame and amenable; but, in the case of males at any
rate, in the course of a few years its naturally evil disposition
asserts itself, and it soon becomes one of the most vicious and
disgusting brutes in creation. Indeed, there is not a good word to
be said in its favour. In confinement the rage of the old males is
something frightful, and it takes but little to excite them to
this frenzied condition, when they shake the bars of their cages, and
endeavour to rush upon the objects of their aversion. Little wonder
that the West Coast natives dread the mandrill more than they do the
lion.
[Illustration]
Information is still required as to the habits of the mandrill in a
state of nature; and it does not appear to be known whether these apes
associate in large droves, after the manner of the ordinary dog-faced
baboons, or whether they go about in pairs.
Here it may be mentioned that the name mandrill apparently signifies a
man-like baboon, although there is little approximating to the human
type in either the physiognomy or the general appearance of this
hideous creature; the name drill being an old English word, of which
one signification denotes an ape or baboon. By the Germans the mandrill
is known as the forest-devil, which is perhaps a more appropriate
designation; while by one of the older English naturalists it was
termed the rib-faced ape, in allusion to the fluted, melon-shaped
swellings on the sides of the muzzle.
The drill (_M. leucophæus_), which is likewise West African, but
appears to have a more extensive range in that part of the continent,
is a smaller animal than the mandrill, with only small swellings on
the face of the old male, which is uniformly black. The bare patches
on the rump are, however, bright red; but the tail, which is carried
bent forwards over the rump in a similar manner, is hairy on all sides,
instead of having its lower surface bare, as in the mandrill. The
limbs, moreover, are longer and more slender than in the mandrill; and
in fact in all these particulars the drill tends to form in some degree
a connecting link between the former and more ordinary baboons.
THE WOLF
(_Canis lupus_)
As the lion or the tiger forms the supreme development of the feline
stock, so the wolf constitutes the culminating branch of the canine
line. Each of these animals represents indeed the acme of perfection of
which its particular type is capable; but in regard to specialisation
the members of the cat tribe stand on a much higher plane than those
of the dog family. In the cats we find the face much shortened and
rounded, the number of cheek-teeth reduced both at the front and the
back of the series, the pair of cutting-teeth in each jaw consisting
almost entirely of scissor-like blades, and the claws retractile and
protected by large horny sheaths.
In the dog tribe, on the other hand, the long face and numerous
cheek-teeth of the more primitive extinct Carnivora are retained, the
pair of cutting-teeth are by no means wholly blade, and the claws are
non-retractile and devoid of sheaths.
Equally marked differences in the matter of habits are likewise
characteristic of the two groups. Cats, as a rule, hunt their prey
singly or in couples, stalking it stealthily by the aid of sight, and
then making a sudden rush or spring upon the victim. Most members of
the _Canidæ_, on the contrary, associate in large packs, which hunt
their victims by scent, and pull them down by their combined strength.
Apart from the brown bear, which is of a less active and less
carnivorous disposition, the wolf is the largest member of the
Carnivora which has been indigenous to central and northern Europe
during the historic period; and it plays in the folk-lore of that
portion of the continent a part very similar to that taken by the tiger
in the legends and mythology of the natives of India. The superstition
of the “werwolf” and the familiar story of _Little Red Ridinghood_
bear striking testimony to the prominent position held by the wolf in
folk-lore.
The wolf, which is in fact the ancestor of many domesticated breeds
of dogs, is the largest representative of the _Canidæ_, although the
typical wolf of northern Europe is much exceeded in point of size by
those of certain other countries, the largest of all being the huge
black wolf (_Canis lupus pambasileus_) of Alaska, which is almost as
tall as an ordinary bear, and has a head of enormous proportions.
Although many modern naturalists divide it into distinct species, the
wolf has a circumpolar distribution, and in Asia ranges as far south
as the Himalaya and the north-western frontier of India. From Great
Britain, Denmark, and Holland the wolf has long since disappeared, and
it has likewise been exterminated in northern and central Germany.
But wolves still remain in Spain, in the districts of France adjacent
to Germany, and in Poland and Russia, as well as in other parts of
eastern Europe, while they are abundant throughout central and northern
Asia. In the colder parts of their habitat, as in Tibet, where a black
phase is common, these fierce Carnivora develop a thick under-coat
of fur. With such an extensive range in the Old World, it would be
only natural to expect that wolves should present considerable local
variation in colour and size; and as a matter of fact this is actually
the case, although the various local races are still imperfectly known.
[Illustration]
In North America the species is represented by the grey, or timber,
wolf (_C. lupus occidentalis_), as well as by the aforesaid black
Alaskan race. As regards colour, the ordinary American wolf is dark
grey, becoming almost black on the back, with dusky patches on the
shoulders and hips; but there is also a more rufous phase. The coyote,
or prairie-wolf, is a distinct species, _C. latrans_.
In Europe the favourite haunts of the wolf are wild and retired
situations both in the plains and mountains; during spring and summer
wolves go about for the most part singly or in pairs, but in winter
they collect in parties or large packs, and when driven to desperation
by hunger are the terror of the peasantry or the traveller, not only in
Russia but even in some districts of France and Germany.
The food of the wolf includes all animals that it can capture and
overpower, as well as carrion, and even vegetable substances. Large
game and domesticated animals form its chief victims, but in cases of
necessity, rats, mice, frogs, and even cockchafers are not disdained.
In pursuit of their prey wolves are practically untiring. The female
gives birth during the spring, in some sequestered situation in the
forest, to from three to nine cubs, which she nurses and tends with
wonderful affection and care.
THE WILD CAT
(_Felis catus_)
Savage as a wild cat is a proverbial expression; and although in
attitudes of repose, like the one selected for the coloured Plate,
the ferocity of look may temporarily disappear, there are few animals
fiercer or more bloodthirsty than _Felis catus_. Indeed, a wild cat
brought to bay or caught in a trap is a perfect fiend incarnate.
The wild cat and the lynx are the only feline Carnivora indigenous at
the present day to central and northern Europe; and of these two the
lynx has long since disappeared from the British Isles, and has become
very scarce throughout the greater part of the Continent, but is still
common in Scandinavia and Russia. The wild cat, on the other hand,
survives in most European countries, and is far from uncommon in the
Alps and many parts of France and Germany, although in Great Britain
its sole remaining refuges are among the highlands of Scotland, and
even there it has been suggested that many of the so-called wild cats
are hybrids, or domesticated cats run wild. Eastward, the range of the
wild cat extends at least as far as the Altai, where its representative
has a larger and more woolly coat than the typical western race.
In Africa the place of the European wild cat is taken by a closely
allied but somewhat less strongly striped species known as _Felis
ocreata_, of which the northern race was protected and held sacred by
the ancient Egyptians in Bubastis and other cities. That the European
and the African wild cats have given rise to the domesticated cats of
the greater part of the Old World may be considered certain, although
there is some difference of opinion as to the respective shares taken
by the two wild species in the production of the tame breeds. Among
the ordinary house-cats of western Europe, the type coming nearest to
the wild ancestor is the one with black transverse stripes on a grey
ground. The true tabby, on the other hand, that is to say the type
in which the dark markings take the form of broad longitudinal or
obliquely longitudinal bands arrayed in a ring-like or spiral manner
on the flanks, is unlike either of the two wild cats, and it has been
suggested that it may have had a totally distinct ancestry.
By choice the wild cat, which for most of the year lives alone,
frequents large, thick, and sequestered pine-forests, where it selects
rocky situations as affording the best hiding-places. In addition to
clefts in the rocks, it chooses, however, for its lair the burrows of
the fox or the badger, or holes in large tree-trunks, while it will
sometimes make its abode in thick bushes.
[Illustration]
In regard to food, the wild cat preys chiefly upon rats, mice, and
small birds, but it also kills larger animals, such as pheasants,
hares, rabbits, and squirrels, while it occasionally ventures to attack
the fawns of roe-deer and red deer, springing on their backs, and
tearing open the arteries of the neck. There is an old monkish Latin
line that “_catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas_” (the cat
loves fish, but does not like to wet its feet); but this applies only
to the domesticated breed, for when dwelling near streams or lakes
the wild cat will capture both fishes and water-fowl. Like many other
animals, it will often kill more than it can devour, as if from the
very love of slaughter.
The male and female live together only during the pairing-season, and
while the kittens are unable to look after themselves. At other times
each individual has its own particular haunt, from which, however, it
makes long excursions into the surrounding forest or the neighbouring
plains; such foraging expeditions often lasting for days together. In
winter it frequently deserts the forest to take up its abode in old
uninhabited buildings or other safe places of refuge.
In some sheltered situation the female gives birth in spring to five or
six kittens, very similar to those of domesticated cats, and likewise
born blind.
When captured, wild cats, whether old or young, are impossible to
tame; and it is for this reason that the species is so seldom seen in
menageries. As already mentioned, it has been suggested that many of
the cats found wild in Scotland are hybrids between the wild species
and the tame breed, but there is no evidence that such interbreeding
takes place; and such of these animals as are not true wild cats seem
to be individuals of the domesticated breed which have reverted to the
wild state, and have thereby assumed to some extent the characters of
the ancestral type.
THE RED KANGAROO
(_Macropus rufus_)
Little wonder that when Captain Cook and his companions first beheld
kangaroos bounding over the plains of Australia they were overwhelmed
with astonishment, and regarded them as the most extraordinary animals
in the world. They are, indeed, unlike any other creatures, and form
the supreme development of the terrestrial and herbivorous section of
the marsupial type, being admirably adapted to their environment, and
occupying in Australia the place held in other countries by cattle,
sheep, antelopes, deer, and hares. For there are kangaroos of all
sizes, ranging from the gigantic species, with its 6 foot stature,
forming the subject of the present notice, down to the diminutive
kangaroo-rats, no larger than rabbits.
That kangaroos, like all marsupials, bring forth their young in an
exceedingly imperfect and helpless condition, it is almost unnecessary
to mention; as is the fact that the females carry them in the pouch not
only till they are able to take care of themselves, but, on occasion,
till a much later period. Not that it is to be assumed from this that
the young of all marsupials are carried in the maternal pouch; this
being in some cases undeveloped, and the offspring in such instances
merely clinging for a time to their mothers’ nipples.
For a long time it was generally considered that marsupials were
survivors of the ancestral stock which gave rise to the ordinary, and
so-called placental, mammals; but this is now known to be a mistaken
view, and marsupials and placentals are evidently divergent branches
from a common ancestral stock. In Australia marsupials have developed
almost as many different modifications as have the placentals in
other parts of the world; and at first sight there seem few external
characters in common to such diverse types as the leaping, bipedal,
herbivorous kangaroo, and the cursorial and carnivorous Tasmanian wolf.
When, however, the two animals are observed more closely, we may note
a curious resemblance in the form of their heads, and, above all, by
the great, thick tail, passing almost imperceptibly into the body; both
these features proclaiming their comparatively near relationship and
descent from a common ancestor.
Among the external characteristics of the kangaroo tribe may be noted
the somewhat deer-like head, the short fore-limbs, each armed with five
toes, and used in progression only when the animal is grazing, and
the enormous length and strength of the hind-legs, in which one toe
is greatly developed at the expense of the rest, and serves not only
to aid in progression, but forms an offensive weapon of great power
and effectiveness. In the sitting posture, as represented in the
illustration, the body is supported on a tripod formed by the massive
tail and the hind-legs; the whole of the lower portion of the latter,
corresponding structurally to the human foot, being then applied to
the ground. When, however, the animal is leaping, as shown in the
background of the picture, the hind part of the foot is raised and the
body supported by the toes; the tail thumping on the ground at each
leap.
[Illustration]
Kangaroos subsist chiefly on grass and leaves, but also eat buds,
bark, roots, and fruits. Originally they were to be found all over the
habitable parts of Australia and Tasmania, from the coasts inwards, and
while most kinds inhabited the plains, others were to be found in the
mountains. Nowadays, however, they have for the most part been driven
back into the uncultivated lands of the interior, and their numbers
have been greatly reduced. All the larger species associate in large
bands. True kangaroos of the genus _Macropus_ are also found in New
Guinea, while a few of the smaller kinds are natives of the eastern
Austro-Malay Islands.
The great red kangaroo, the subject of the illustration, is the largest
member of the whole group, and takes its name from the dark rusty red
colour of the soft woolly hair of the adult males, that of the females
being a delicate bluish grey. Its home is in the rocky districts of
South and East Australia.
As this species is kept in most Zoological Gardens, opportunities have
been afforded of observing the newly born young. These come into the
world after a gestation of only thirty-nine days, when they are only
about an inch and a quarter in length, and little more than shapeless
lumps of animation. The newborn young is immediately transferred by the
mother, by means of her lips, to the pouch, where it is attached by
its sucking mouth to a nipple. Here it remains for eight months, after
which it returns to the shelter of the pouch, when so disposed, for a
considerable time longer: a fresh offspring being often in the pouch at
the same time.
THE BLUE ROLLER
(_Coracias garrulus_)
Among the birds of brilliant plumage which occasionally straggle to
the British Isles, one of the most gaudy is the blue roller, so called
on account of its roling, or “rolling,” flight. In India this and an
allied species are commonly called the blue jay, while in Poland the
present bird is locally termed the Polish parrot. The roller has,
however, nothing to do with either jays or parrots, but is more nearly
related to the king-fishers.
Although the blue roller is practically an unmistakable bird--certainly
so far as British species are concerned--it may be well to mention that
the head, neck, wing-coverts, and under-parts are bright greenish blue,
the back and shoulders cinnamon-brown, the flight-feathers blue at the
roots and elsewhere black above and wholly deep blue beneath, the upper
tail-coverts deep ultramarine, while the two middle tail-feathers are
dirty brown, and the other feathers of the tail sky-blue, with the tips
of the outer pair, which are somewhat lengthened, black. In size the
bird is rather smaller than a crow.
The normal summer range of the species includes central and southern
Europe, and thence extends through central Asia to Kashmir; while in
winter it embraces India and the greater part of Africa. Northwards
this bird is found as far as Scandinavia, although only occasionally;
but its chief haunts in Europe are Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland,
and southern Russia. It makes its annual appearance in Europe towards
the end of April, and takes its departure, like the cuckoo, not later
than August. In Asia Minor, Persia, Baluchistan, India, and Ceylon
it is replaced, except in winter (when both are found together), by
the closely allied _Coracias indicus_. A third species extends from
the eastern Himalaya through Burma to Cochin China and Siam, a fourth
inhabits Celebes, and quite a number are indigenous to Africa. In
Australasia and the New World these birds are unknown.
Avoiding swampy localities and high mountains, the roller resorts to
dry open districts with thin forest in which birch abounds, and where
hollow oaks or beech are to be found. Here it prefers to dwell at the
edge of the forest, where isolated trees grow in the fields and by the
roadsides, and command a wide view of the country. In harvest-time it
repairs to the sheaves in the cornfields.
The bird is, however, largely insectivorous, and from its perch in
some tall tree sallies forth in search of all kinds of insects and
other invertebrates as well as young frogs, while it will also eat
field-mice. In their season figs afford it a much appreciated feast.
[Illustration]
In habits the roller is shy and unsociable, going about in pairs, and
generally, but not always, shunning the vicinity of human habitations.
Its flight is swift and undulating, and often limited to the passage
from one tree-top to another. In fine weather, however, it indulges
in the habit of tumbling when on the wing, and performs all kinds of
aerial evolutions, sometimes falling from a considerable height almost
to the ground; this last performance generally taking place during the
pairing-season. At that season, when the males are in the company of
the females, the former rise into the air with their characteristic
harsh cry of “rak, rak, rak,” and descend again with a rapidly repeated
“rak, rak, rak.” When at rest, the cry is a high-pitched, frequently
repeated “raker, raker, raker.” It is from these cries that the bird
derives its specified name, and likewise its German title of _blaurake_.
In many parts of Europe the nest is built in the hole of a tree, but
in the south is more generally placed in ruins, under the roofs of
houses, in clefts in walls, or on cliffs and steep banks, in which deep
holes are excavated for its reception. At the proper season it contains
from five to six white eggs, which are brooded in turn by the male and
female, and this so assiduously that it is often easy to capture the
sitting bird with the hands. In laying white eggs, the roller conforms
to the general rule of birds which nest in holes. It is, moreover, an
uncleanly bird, and when the nest has contained young for some time, it
gives out a most disgusting smell, while the young themselves sit in
a mass of filth. Strange that such a beautiful bird should have such
dirty habits!
As regards its mental powers, the roller is evidently highly developed;
but its inherent shyness renders it unsuitable as a cage-bird. In
disposition it is, as already mentioned, unsociable, and it will
frequently quarrel with other birds and its own fellows. On the other
hand, several pairs often nest near together, and its migrations are
made in large companies.
THE BITTERN
(_Botaurus stellaris_)
Before drainage and cultivation had driven away so many of the
marsh-haunting birds, the boom of the bittern was a familiar sound to
the dwellers in the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, and this
handsome bird regularly nested not only in those districts, but in the
Norfolk Broads, as well as in many other counties possessing situations
suitable to its habits. Indeed nests were taken now and then up to the
middle of last century, and even later; but at the present day the
bittern is nothing more than a casual visitor to the British Islands,
in fact, so rare have its visits become, that they are generally
considered worthy of special record.
A near relative of the heron, the bittern does not expose itself
in the open after the fashion of that species, but skulks amid the
shelter of reeds and flags, where its presence is made known only by
the ordinary raven-like croak, or the loud booming of the male in the
breeding-season. From this habit the bittern derives its German name of
_rohrdommel_; and with such surroundings its mottled plumage of light
and dark brown mingled with black is designed to harmonise, as is also
in all probability the greenish hue of its long, spear-like beak, so
admirably adapted to seize and hold the unwary fish or frog that may
come within striking distance.
As this resemblance between the plumage of the bittern and its
inanimate surroundings is sufficiently apparent from the accompanying
Plate, it will be unnecessary to attempt any description of its
colouring. It is, however, important to mention that the bird
appears to be in the habit of increasing the protective power of its
mottled livery, by assuming, probably under the influence of alarm,
a statuesque position amid the reeds, with the body held as erect as
possible, the neck stretched to its fullest extent, and the head and
beak pointing skywards. In this posture it is stated, by those who have
had the good fortune to see it, to be almost invisible amid the upright
brown stems of reeds and bulrushes.
The range of the bittern is very extensive, including the whole
of temperate Europe, northern Africa, and the greater portion of
Asia lying between the Himalaya and the Arctic Circle, as well as
north-western India and Burma. In South Africa its place is taken by
another species, a third kind inhabits Australia, New Caledonia, and
New Zealand, while a fourth is a native of North and Central America,
and a fifth is indigenous to tropical South America. The distribution
of the group is thus almost cosmopolitan, if we except most of the
tropical zone of the Old World; and all the five species are closely
related.
[Illustration]
In Europe at the present day bitterns are still common in Spain,
Holland, many parts of France and Germany, and the swamps of the
Danube and Volga. It should be added that in Africa, India, and Burma
the species occurs only in winter, being to some extent migratory in
its habits.
These shy birds associate in pairs, but in migration time collect in
parties previous to setting out on their travels. The nest, which is
built of reeds and flags, and lined with grass, is well concealed among
the brake in which the pair have taken up their residence, and may be
a floating structure. The eggs, which are from three to five in number
and greenish blue in colour, are incubated solely by the hen, who is
supplied with food by her mate. The chicks remain in the nest until
fully fledged, and display extraordinary cleverness in making their way
among the reeds.
Little comes amiss to the bittern in the way of food, so long as it is
of an animal nature; and its appetite is so great, that it is on the
hunt for prey from sunrise till sunset. Water-rats, field-mice, birds
of all kinds, fish, especially those inhabiting muddy water, snakes,
lizards, leeches, worms, and insects and their larvæ are alike devoured
by these voracious birds.
The usual cry of the bittern is, as already mentioned, a hoarse,
raven-like croak; and it is only during the breeding-season that
the male utters the resounding boom, which has been compared to the
bellowing of a bull, and on a still night may be heard at a distance
of a mile or more. How this wonderful sound is produced is not yet
definitely known.
A wounded bittern is most dangerous to approach, as it will strike with
unerring aim at the eye of the gunner who approaches to seize it; and
the formidable beak is likewise employed, and generally with success,
to repel the attack of any fox bold enough to approach its owner.
It should be added that during the hot summer of 1911 a pair of
bitterns bred in the old Norfolk haunts of the species.
THE KAFIR CROWNED CRANE
(_Balearica chrysopelargus_)
The crowned cranes of Africa, of which there are three species,
constituting by themselves an exclusively African genus, are some of
the handsomest members of a beautiful and stately group of birds; the
fan-like array of bristly feathers on the head, which constitutes the
so-called “crown,” conferring on these cranes a regal appearance which
is lacking in their smooth-headed relatives.
Of the three species, one (_Balearica pavonina_) is a native of
north-eastern Africa, ranging southwards into West and Equatorial
Africa; the second, forming the subject of the accompanying Plate and
sometimes known as _B. regulorum_ instead of by the designation here
used, is a southern bird, ranging from the Cape to the Zambesi and
Loanza valleys; while the third (_B. gibbericeps_) hails from East
Africa.
As regards the distinctive features of these three cranes, the northern
species is greenish black above and dark grey below, with most of the
feathers of the sharply pointed lanceolate type; the neck is delicate
pearl-grey; the secondary quills are chestnut, and the wing-coverts
partly white and yellow; the twisted bristly feathers forming the crown
are yellow and white with black tips; a bare area on each side of the
face is white above and pink below; and black down clothes the throat.
This species has a very small wattle on the throat; but in the Kafir
crane this wattle, as shown in the Plate, is much larger and mainly red
in colour. The southern species is further characterised by the greyer
tone of the plumage of the upper-parts, and the white cheek-patch, with
only a margin of crimson above. In the East African _B. gibbericeps_
this cheek-patch becomes much larger than in either of the other two
species, extending backwards nearly to the nape of the neck.
The carriage of these handsome, well-built birds is upright; while
their gait, when they are walking with measured steps, is calm and
stately. These birds can, however, run with great speed, so fast indeed
that a man can keep up with them only with difficulty. The flight is
heavy and slow, with powerful, measured strokes of the wings, and the
neck and legs stretched out. The crest, or crown, is at the same time
depressed. When in flight, a party of cranes always arrange themselves
in wedge-shaped form in order to cleave their passage through the air
with the least possible resistance; a very powerful bird taking up the
position at the apex of the triangle. As in all cranes, the cry is very
loud and resounding; its piercing, trumpet-like notes being due to the
complicated structure of the windpipe, which is arranged in coils, and
consists of more than three hundred bony rings.
[Illustration]
The food of these cranes consists chiefly of various kinds of grain
and other seeds, among which those of durrha or Kafir millet form the
largest portion. The seed-spikes of grass, buds of trees, and fruits,
as well as a certain proportion of insects, are, however, also devoured
by these birds.
Very curious are the attitudes assumed by these handsome birds,
especially when they are surprised or under the influence of
excitement. On such occasions they place themselves in wonderful
postures, bending their bodies up and down, spreading out their wings,
and then joining their fellows in a dance, during which they often
spring a yard high in the air, while all the time their feet are
alternately lifted and put down in regular rhythm.
The daily life of the crowned crane displays great uniformity. At
sunrise the whole flock flies out into the veldt, where its members
search for food at least a couple of hours; then they proceed to the
water to drink, and spend the day in digesting their morning’s meal.
Their favourite resort for the day is a sandbank far out in a river,
where they can stand and preen their feathers or doze without fear of
interruption. At evening the flock returns to its sleeping-quarters in
the forest.
All the graceful habits of these cranes can be studied in Europe,
where the birds flourish in confinement, if given sufficient room.
In captivity they soon learn to associate with the human beings and
animals with whom they are brought into contact, and are specially
keen in discriminating between those who treat them well and those who
dislike their companionship. These cranes are also to be met with in
every Kafir village, while they are likewise frequently tamed by the
European settlers in both South and East Africa.
In Europe the group is represented by the ordinary grey crane (_Grus
cinerea_) and the elegant demoiselle crane (_G. virgo_), both of which
lack the crests of their crowned relatives.
It will be observed that in this notice the name “Kafir” is spelt
with one _f_; this being the proper orthography, as the word is the
Arabic “Kafir,” an unbeliever, this being exemplified in the name
“Kafiristan,” the land of infidels.
THE SILVER GULL
(_Larus argentatus_)
In its adult plumage, with the snow-white head, neck, and under-parts,
the delicate French grey back and wings, and the white-spotted black
tips to the larger flight-feathers, the silver gull, or herring-gull,
as it is more commonly called, is one of the most beautiful members
of a lovely tribe of birds. Indeed, whether swimming calmly on the
surface of the sea, or skimming over the crests of the waves borne on
their long and powerful pinions, and every now and then plunging into
the water to seize a fish or some floating morsel of food, gulls in
general are some of the most elegant and graceful of all birds, their
delicate colouring, in which grey and white, relieved to a greater or
less extent by black or chocolate, generally predominate, thus giving
a refinement to their whole appearance which is wanting in many birds
of brilliant plumage. Were it not that their cries, their tempers,
and their habits are by no means angelic, gulls might well have been
selected as emblems of the angels.
The white and pale grey plumage, replaced in a few species by a wholly
white or cream-coloured livery, is, however, developed only in the
adults; birds of the year having the back and wings thickly mottled
with brown and dark grey, and the tail black, while the head and neck
are wholly brown; the beak, moreover, in the species forming the
subject of the Plate, being black instead of orange. From this we learn
that gulls are descended from birds with relatively dark plumage, which
may perhaps have been dwellers on the land; and if this be so, these
beautiful birds evidently acquired their present type of colouring
only when they took to a life on the ocean wave. In any case, the pale
livery of the adult gull must be regarded as a special adaptation to
its mode of life; such a garb being the one which harmonises best with
the foam-flecked waves of the waste of waters.
The herring-gull closely resembles in colouring the common gull (_Larus
canus_), and like that species is abundant on the British coasts, or,
for that matter, on the Thames at London Bridge or the ornamental water
in St. James’s Park in winter. It is, however, a much larger bird,
attaining a length of about 22 inches in the case of adult males.
This species, moreover, is much less intolerant of heat than the common
gull; and while the former is compelled to wing its way to the more
northern coasts for the breeding-season, the herring-gull, like the
kittiwake, nests by scores on the southern coast of England, wherever
conditions suitable to its habits exist. The kittiwake, it may be
mentioned, differs from other gulls by the absence of the hind-toe,
and is therefore referred to a genus by itself, under the appropriate
name of _Rissa tridactyla_. The only other species likely to be
confounded in the summer plumage, when the black-headed species have
donned their chocolate or black caps, is the greater white-winged gull
(_L. hyperboreus_), which differs by the paler tone of the plumage
generally and more especially by the feature to which it owes its name.
[Illustration]
The herring-gull is a wide-ranging species, met with on both sides of
the North Atlantic, extending eastwards to the White Sea, and in winter
as far south as the Black and Caspian Seas and the Mediterranean.
In America herring-gulls visit in summer the inhospitable coasts of
Labrador and Greenland, but in winter wander south to the genial
climate of the West Indies and Central America, where, in all
probability, they cross the continent to join a closely allied gull
inhabiting the Pacific. In Europe the southern breeding range of this
handsome species seems to be formed by the northern coasts of France.
Herring-gulls, where conditions are favourable, may be found nesting
on the coasts of the British Isles from the south of England to the
Orkneys and the Shetlands, as well as in Ireland, where they are the
most common and most widely spread members of their tribe in the
breeding-season. Sometimes only a few gulls nest in company, but in
other situations large colonies collect for breeding purposes; and it
is noteworthy that the breeding sites are always in the neighbourhood
of the shore and generally on tall cliffs.
Another noteworthy feature of the herring-gull is that the adult
livery is not assumed till the fourth year, in consequence of which an
unusually large number of birds in the speckled dress are always in
evidence.
THE GREAT HORNED OWL
(_Bubo ignavus_)
The great horned, or eagle, owl, the largest European representative
of the nocturnal birds-of-prey, is the typical member of a group
characterised by the relatively small size of the apertures of the
ears, which are not closed by covers, and likewise by the more or less
imperfect development of the disc-like ring of feathers round the eye,
which forms such a conspicuous feature in ordinary owls. The so-called
horns are, it need scarcely be mentioned, tufts of long, somewhat
hair-like feathers growing from the neighbourhood of the ears. These
ear-tufts are common to the so-called long-eared owls, which are,
however, all birds of smaller size, with larger ear-openings, protected
by special covers, and complete discs of feathers round the eyes.
The general appearance of this magnificent bird when in an attitude of
repose, the colour and markings of the plumage of the head, breast,
and under-parts, and the great, staring, red-ringed eyes are admirably
shown in the illustration. When, however, the bird is enraged, the
body is depressed and the plumage ruffled out, while the wings are
half-spread, thus increasing its size and producing a formidable
appearance probably sufficient to overawe a number of would-be
assailants other than man. In length this unmistakable bird measures
as much as 27 inches, so that it is equal in point of size to a small
eagle.
The eagle-owl ranges over the greater portion of Europe, as well as
northern Africa, and much, if not the whole, of northern and central
Asia; and the species breeds as far north as Lapland and as far south
as Gibraltar and Greece. It is true that the eagle-owls inhabiting
the country to the east of the Ural Mountains have been regarded as
a distinct species, under the name of _B. sibiricus_, while the name
of _B. turcomanus_ has been proposed for those from the deserts of
south-western Siberia, Turkestan, and Tibet; but these and others from
Asia north of the Himalaya are so closely allied to the European bird
that they are best regarded in the light of local races of that species.
On the other hand, the American eagle-owl (_B. virginianus_) is a
perfectly distinct species, with a range extending over the whole of
North America, although this bird has likewise been split up into a
number of nominal species. Eagle-owls of various species are also
known from tropical South America, the whole of Africa, Arabia, India,
China, and Japan, so that with the exception of the Malay countries and
Australasia, the group has a practically world-wide range.
[Illustration]
To the British Isles the great horned owl--the _grand duc_ of the
French and the _uhu_ of the Germans--is, nowadays at any rate, merely
an occasional straggler, and then only to the northern parts of the
kingdom, most, if not all of the specimens that have from time to time
been taken in England being birds that have escaped from captivity.
There is, however, a report that these splendid owls once inhabited the
Orkneys.
Eagle-owls thrive well and breed freely in captivity; years ago a
number were kept, for instance, at Arundel Castle, but these, although
long regarded as European birds, were eventually proved to belong
to the North American species. Captive specimens have served to
demonstrate in some degree the great age to which these owls will live;
a female brought from Norway in 1827 having survived for seventy-five
years in an English aviary, and having produced during the last thirty
years of her captivity no less than ninety offspring.
From its large size, powerful beak and claws, and fierce disposition,
the eagle-owl, which is mainly nocturnal in its habits, is a terrible
foe to the smaller animals, preying largely upon rats, mice, moles,
birds, and frogs, while it also attacks and devours larger game, such
as roe-deer fawns, hares, rabbits, hazel-hens, ducks, and geese.
Its haunts are thick forests, especially those in which tints of
rufous grey and black prevail; and in such situations the mottled,
warm-coloured tints of its plumage harmonise both with the bark of the
tree-trunks and the weathered surface of the rocks and cliffs. At even,
with noiseless wings, the eagle-owl issues from its perch to sweep over
the plains in search of prey; or, rising high in the air, utters its
loud screech, and awakes the slumbering birds, which flutter from their
roosts to meet their fate by the relentless talons and beak of the
nocturnal marauder.
The huge nest is generally built in trees, on cliffs, or in old
buildings, but the two or three eggs may be laid in holes on the
bare ground. The eggs are brooded by the female, who is fed during
incubation by her partner.
THE FLAMINGO
(_Phœnicopterus roseus_)
Flamingoes, of which there are several species, present us with one
of the most striking instances of adaptation to a particular mode of
life to be met with in the animal kingdom, more especially as the main
feature in this adaptation is developed in its full perfection only
when the bird is mature and takes to a special diet. In common with
other waders, the adult flamingo has an enormously long neck and legs,
and is thereby enabled to procure its food from depths inaccessible to
most other birds, although it is frequently content to search for food
in the shallows. Its distinctive structural peculiarity is, however,
the sharp downward flexure of the extremity of the beak, and more
especially that of the lower half. Such a beak appears at the first
glance quite unsuited for groping up food from the mud of marshes and
lagoons which form the favourite haunts of these stately birds; but
while thus engaged, flamingoes turn their heads the wrong way up, when
the beak at once becomes a most efficient ladle, admirably adapted for
collecting and holding the small spiral univalve molluscs of the genus
_Cerithium_ which in many districts form their chief food.
In the young flamingo, whose diet is of a different nature, the beak is
more or less normal in form.
Flamingoes, with certain relationships to the storks, appear to have
most affinity with ducks, geese, and swans; and it is curious to note
how like are the head and neck of a flamingo, if the beak were but
straightened out, to those of a swan, the resemblance extending in some
cases even to the colour of the beak,--red or orange at the base and
black at the tip.
White and scarlet, or crimson--the Easter colours--are the colours of
the flamingo, but the relative proportions of these vary according to
the species. The European flamingo--the subject of the Plate--whose
range extends from central Europe to the Canaries and the Cape Verd
Islands, and thence all over Africa, and eastwards to Lake Baikal,
India, and Ceylon, has, for instance, the greater part of the plumage
white or pinkish white with scarlet wing-coverts and black quills,
red legs, and the beak pink at the base and black at the tip. Much
more gorgeous is the tropical American _P. ruber_, ranging as far
south as Para and the Galapagos Islands, in which the general colour
of the plumage is light vermilion, with brighter wing-coverts, the
base of beak being yellow and the legs red. To the south of central
Peru, in Uruguay, and perhaps in Brazil this species is replaced by
_P. chilensis_, distinguished by the legs being grey with red joints,
while the black of the beak extends upwards above the bend. In all the
foregoing species a hind-toe is present, but this is lacking in two
other South American species, namely, _P. (Phœnicoparrus) andinus_, the
largest member of the family, of the Chilian and Bolivian Andes and
Argentina, and _P. (P.) jamesi_, of southern Peru and Chile, in both of
which the beak is yellow at the base and red in the middle, while the
legs are yellow in the former and red in the latter. Lastly, there is
_P. (Phœniconaias) minor_, of Africa, Madagascar, and India, which in
general appearance much resembles the European species.
[Illustration]
Although flamingoes spend much of their time in wading, they are also
good swimmers. Like geese and ducks, they associate in vast flocks, and
further evidence of their kinship to that group is afforded by their
loss of the power of flight during the height of the moulting season,
and likewise by their “gaggling” cries, which are curiously like those
of geese.
In the breeding-season flamingoes resort to lakes, salt-lagoons, or
the swamps in river-valleys, those of the Guadalquivir being one of
their favourite haunts in Europe. Bare shores are an essential element
in such breeding-colonies, for it is on these that the birds construct
their curious sugar-loaf mud-nests, which have a cup-like depression at
the summit for the reception of the one or two eggs, and vary in height
from two to fifteen inches according to the depth of the water. The
eggs, which are brooded by each sex in turn for a period of fully four
weeks, have bluish coloured shells, covered with a rough chalky crust.
When incubating, the bird sits with its legs bent beneath the body,
although it was long supposed that these hung down on the sides of the
nest.
Hundreds or even thousands of flamingoes may congregate in these
breeding-colonies; and there are few more beautiful sights in nature
than to see a flock of these splendid birds, especially the scarlet
American species, rise on the wing and display their full colouring and
plumage in the sunlight.
THE NILE CROCODILE
(_Crocodilus niloticus_)
To the ancient Egyptians the timsa, or Nile crocodile, the champsa
of Herodotus, was a familiar reptile; but from the lower and middle
portion of the Nile, as far up as Thebes, the species has long since
been exterminated, although it is still abundant in East and South
Africa. Elsewhere it occurs in Madagascar, and still survives, although
sparingly, in Syria, more especially in the Zerka (= Crocodile) River
near Cæsarea. In Biblical times crocodiles were, however, abundant in
the Holy Land; and there is little doubt that the “leviathan” of the
Book of Job refers to these noisome reptiles. Till nearly the fifteenth
century it also seems that crocodiles lived in Greece and the Isles
of the Grecian Archipelago; and at that date a huge crocodile’s skull
was jealously preserved and exhibited at Rhodes. It is these ancient
south European crocodiles which probably gave rise to the legend of St.
George and the Dragon and other myths of a kindred nature.
In popular estimation there is much confusion between crocodiles and
alligators; and in India the former are almost invariably called
alligators, although there is not a single representative of that
group in the whole country. Indeed, alligators are confined to China
and America; those of South America, properly known as caimans,
differing from the typical Mississippi species by having a bony
armour on the under as well as on the upper surface. There are many
characters distinguishing crocodiles from alligators; one of the most
easily recognised being that the fourth lower tooth of a crocodile
bites into a notch on the outer side of the upper jaw, so that its
summit is visible when the mouth is closed, whereas in an alligator
the corresponding tooth is received into a pit, so that the tip is
completely concealed when the reptile shuts its enormous mouth.
True crocodiles, which, with alligators, caimans, and gavials, are
the largest of living reptiles, are now represented by about eleven
species, whose combined range includes Africa, southern Asia, northern
Australia, and tropical America. India possesses two species, the
broad-nosed muggar (_Crocodilus palustris_), and the narrow-nosed
estuarine crocodile (_C. porosus_); the former of which ranges to
Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula and Islands, while the latter,
which enters salt-water freely, and is sometimes found far out to
sea, extends from India, Ceylon, and the south of China to northern
Australia and the Solomon and Fiji Islands.
[Illustration]
Crocodiles may grow to a length of 18 and probably 20 feet or more,
and are powerful creatures, which are the pests of the waters they
frequent, seizing and dragging down women and men who come to draw
water, and gripping by the nose cattle and other animals which come
to drink. A beast thus seized has little chance of escape, no matter
what may be its size, as it is taken at a disadvantage and rendered
comparatively helpless; but there is a well-authenticated story of a
Nile crocodile seizing a rhinoceros by one of the hind-legs just as
it was about to leave the river, and eventually dragging the enormous
beast, despite its frantic efforts, backwards into deep water, where it
was drowned.
The prey is, indeed, always killed by drowning, after which the carcase
is dragged ashore and concealed among reeds or other covert, where it
is left until decomposition has set in before being devoured. A large
proportion of the food of the Nile crocodile is stated, however, to
consist of fish; and snails, water-fowl, and carrion are also devoured
by these ravenous reptiles. When in repose, crocodiles lie like logs in
the water, or on the neighbouring sand and mud banks, but the slightest
sound awakens them to activity.
Hearing seems indeed to be the sense most strongly developed in
crocodiles; and it is upon this that they depend in ascertaining the
presence of prey. Smell, touch, and taste appear to be but poorly
developed; and the tongue is affixed to the lower surface of the mouth
throughout its entire length. Crocodiles are furnished with glands
secreting a musky substance, much esteemed by the Sudanis for anointing
their hair and bodies, and thus producing what is to them, no doubt, an
agreeable odour.
All crocodiles lay hard-shelled, oval eggs, about the size of those of
a goose. These are deposited by the female, to the number of from about
twenty to ninety, a yard or so deep in the sand of the river-bank,
where they are carefully covered up by means of her tail, and then left
to mature by the action of the sun’s rays. The mother appears, however,
to keep watch in the neighbourhood of the nest, and when the eggs are
ready to hatch, their occupants utter a peculiar sound which attracts
the parent to their assistance.
THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON
(_Hylobates lar_)
The name gibbon, which is of unknown origin, and appears to have
been first used by the French naturalist Buffon, is applied to the
members of the smallest representatives of the man-like apes, all of
which differ from their larger cousins, the chimpanzi, gorilla, and
orang-utan, by retaining small bare patches on the buttocks. In this
respect they show evidence of kinship to ordinary monkeys and baboons,
in which, however, these naked callosities, as they are called by
naturalists, attain much greater development.
Gibbons agree with the larger man-like apes in the complete absence
of the tail, but are distinguished by the great length of the limbs,
more especially the front pair, so that when these curious pigmies
are standing upright on their feet, their hands touch the ground.
It is very interesting to note in this connection that gibbons are
the only man-like apes which habitually assume the erect posture in
walking, when the arms are usually elevated and in some cases extended
horizontally, thus giving a most remarkable appearance to their owners.
All the members of the group are confined to tropical south-eastern
Asia, where they range from the eastern portion of the Himalaya
through Burma and the Malay countries to the island of Hainan,
off the southern coast of China. The largest species, the siaman
(_Hylobates syndactylus_) of Borneo, does not much exceed one yard
in height. In colour they are very generally black, often, as in the
species represented in the Plate, with a narrow white band or fillet
surrounding the greater part of the face, or making merely a line
above the eyebrows. In the white-handed species, forming the subject
of the illustration, the white fillet attains its fullest development,
and the hands and feet are likewise white. This species inhabits the
mountain-forests of Tenasserim at elevations between three thousand and
five thousand feet, whence it extends through the Malay Peninsula. Its
near relative the hulok (_H. hulok_), whose range extends from Assam to
Arakan and the neighbouring districts, lacks the white hands and feet,
while the fillet on the face merely forms a band over the eyebrow. In
the Hainan gibbon (_H. hainanus_) even the eyebrow-band is wanting.
A specimen of this last-named species, which is very near akin to
the hulok, afforded a surprise to naturalists in that it changed the
colour of its coat during its sojourn in the London Zoological Gardens.
When obtained in 1897, at an age of about six months, its colour was
dark smoky grey, but this soon changed to black, which persisted till
after the animal’s arrival in London in January 1904. In February
of that year the fur began to assume a greyish tinge; and by autumn
the entire coat had become silvery, or stone, grey, except for a
black stripe down the middle line of the head. It does not, however,
appear that this colour-change is universal in the species; for another
captive specimen believed to be about a dozen years old was wholly
black.
[Illustration]
This is confirmed by the observations of a French traveller in the case
of the white-cheeked gibbon (_H. leucogenys_) of Annam and Siam, in
which two distinct colour-phases are noticeable.
These gibbons commonly go about in parties of six or seven; and while
some individuals are black with white whiskers and a band on the sides
and lower part of the face, in others the general colour is golden
yellow with no white on the face. That the two phases are specifically
identical is certain, and it does not appear that the light-coloured
individuals eventually become dark, or _vice versa_. The natives, it is
true, have an idea that the light-coloured individuals are the females,
but this seems to be disproved by the fact that they are much less
numerous than the black ones; and it thus appears probable that the
species exhibits two distinct colour-phases.
Gibbons are almost wholly arboreal apes; and in the trees they move
about mainly with the aid of their long arms, by means of which
they swing themselves from bough to bough, and thus from one tree
to another, so that a whole troop will traverse the forest without
descending to the ground. So active and agile indeed are these apes,
that when confined in open cages they will catch birds on the wing,
which apparently form part of their food. In addition to these, gibbons
subsist on fruits of various kinds, leaves, young shoots, insects, and
spiders.
All gibbons have a remarkably powerful double-note cry, like _hu-lok_,
which has a wailing sound, and awakes the echoes in the early morning
and again at evening in the forests inhabited by these apes. At a
distance the cry has some faint resemblance to the human voice; but at
close quarters it is enough to drive the traveller, when resting in his
tent, well-nigh distracted.
THE ABYSSINIAN GREEN MONKEY
(_Cercopithecus æthiops_)
As a familiar example of a very large assemblage of exclusively
African long-tailed monkeys collectively known as guenons (from a
French word signifying to make grimaces), no better species could have
been selected for illustration than the Abyssinian green monkey. This
monkey, which like its cousin the common green monkey (_Cercopithecus
callitrichus_, or _sabæus_) may be seen in almost all menageries and on
many street-organs, is an East African species; whereas the true green
monkey is West African, ranging from Senegambia through Sierra Leone to
northern Liberia, but has been introduced into some of the Cape Verd
and West Indian Islands, where it still occurs plentifully, at least in
Barbados.
From the guereza monkeys (_Colobus_) of Africa, a guenon may be
distinguished at a glance by its well-developed thumbs; while these
monkeys also differ from guerezas, as well as from their Asiatic
relatives the langurs, by having well-developed pouches in their cheeks
for storing food. There is, however, another African group of monkeys,
the mangabeys (_Cercocebus_), some of which are more difficult to
distinguish from guenons, although the majority are recognisable at
a glance by their flesh-coloured eyelids, whence the name of white
eyelid monkeys. When this character fails, resource must be had to the
cheek-teeth, of which the last pair in the lower jaw is less complex in
a guenon than in a mangabey; but to examine the back-teeth of a live
monkey is not an experiment every one would desire to try!
To any one but a specialist, the very large number of representatives
of the guenons are exceedingly difficult to class and identify. The
matter has, however, been somewhat simplified by arranging the species
in thirteen groups, each characterised by the possession of some
particular distinctive feature or features. The well-known diana monkey
(_C. diana_) represents, for instance, a group in which there are
long, upwardly directed, snow-white whiskers associated with blackish
or dark red under-parts, a white brow-band, distinctly white areas on
the chest and the inside of the arms, a chin-tuft, and a white stripe
on the outer side of the thigh. The members of the spot-nosed group,
again, as typified by _C. petaurista_, are recognisable at a glance by
having a large, heart-shaped white spot on the tip of the nose. The
green monkeys, on the other hand, belong to a group (typified by the
Abyssinian species) somewhat less easy to recognise, but characterised
by the absence of black on the outer surface of the arms, which may
be coloured like the body, but are usually, as in the plate, somewhat
paler and grey. The face is nearly always black, but may be mottled or
freckled with pigment; and, except in one species, the whiskers grow
upwards and backwards over the ears. The western species, the aforesaid
_C. callitrichus_, lacks the white brow-band present in the Abyssinian
species and nearly all the other members of the group; the species
forming the subject of the plate being further distinguished by the
black-speckled yellowish olive colour of the fur of the back, the long,
white whiskers, sharply defined from the hair of the rest of the head,
and the presence of a tuft of hair at the root of the tail.
[Illustration]
Guenons may be regarded as some of the most typical of all monkeys, and
those in which monkey-tricks attain their fullest development. They
live more on fruits and seeds than either the guerezas or the langurs,
which feed largely on leaves and the young shoots of trees. Guenons are
indeed probably to some extent omnivorous, whereas the members of the
other two groups are wholly herbivorous. This difference in the matter
of diet is correlated with the presence of cheek-pouches and the simple
character of the stomach in the guenons, whereas the other two groups
lack pouches in the cheek, but, in compensation, have the stomach
folded and divided in a complex manner.
In their native forests green monkeys and their relatives associate
in large troops, which keep up a constant chattering, and each of
which is under the leadership and control of an old male. Each troop
appears to have its own particular territory in the forest; and if one
party intrude on the domain of its neighbour, a fierce contest takes
place, which does not end until the invaders have been driven out or
have proved themselves the stronger. A survival of this custom may
be noticed even among monkeys in a menagerie, where each species or
individual will take up one portion of the cage for its own particular
use, and resolutely defend it against the other occupants of the
enclosure.
From the other members of the genus the patas monkey (_C. patas_) and
its relatives are specially distinguished by their red colouring and
large size, and they should perhaps form a genus by themselves.
THE FOX
(_Canis vulpes_ or _Vulpes alopex_)
The fox enjoys a well-earned reputation for cunning and shrewdness, and
especially for its capacity to adapt itself to changed conditions and
its presence of mind and resourcefulness in emergencies. Nevertheless,
it is possible to deceive even a fox. A well-known American naturalist
relates, for instance, how he attracted a fox to within a few yards of
his own position by imitating the squeaking of a field-mouse. For some
distance he came cautiously skulking between the big tussocks of coarse
grass, but for the last fifty yards he had to traverse open sward. When
he had got half this distance he became suspicious, and began to think
that the motionless, squatting naturalist was not a stump or a rock,
whereupon, it is curious to note, that he at once ran to leeward of the
suspicious object, thus showing that foxes, like many other animals,
trust more to their sense of smell than to their sight.
In spite of the fact that everybody knows a fox by sight, there is
a difference of opinion among naturalists as to whether the fox of
North America is specifically identical with the European animal. The
differences between them are, however, so small and insignificant that
the most sensible course is to regard the fox as a circumpolar species,
with several local races, both in the Old World and in North America.
To attempt anything in the way of description of such a well-known
animal would be altogether superfluous, although it may be well to
mention that the tip of the tail is always white or whitish; and that,
as in most members of the dog family, there is a dark-coloured patch on
the upper surface of the root of the tail, indicating the position of a
gland.
Although nearly related to wolves and jackals, foxes are distinguished
by their slighter make, the relatively shorter limbs and longer body
and tail, as well as by the sharper muzzle, and also by a peculiarity
in the shape of the projecting process of bone which forms part of
the upper border of the socket of the eye. In wolves, jackals, and
dogs this process is convex, whereas in all foxes it is concave; thus
conclusively proving that the fox has nothing to do with the parentage
of the dog.
[Illustration]
The typical fox of northern and central Europe is one of the largest
representatives of the species, and is further characterised by the
deep “foxy” red colour of its coat, and the light colour of the
under-parts. In southern Europe this race is replaced by one of rather
smaller dimensions (_Canis vulpes melanogaster_) and less brilliant
red in colour, with the under-parts dark, and sometimes a cross-shaped
dark mark on the shoulders. Nearly allied is the Himalayan fox (_C.
v. montanus_); but in central Asia and some of the neighbouring
countries we find a larger and paler race known as _C. v. flavescens_.
No representative of the species is found to the south of the Himalaya
or in Burma and the Malay countries; but the central Asian, or a nearly
allied, race probably extends right across Siberia and Manchuria.
In North America the fox reappears, and ranges as far south as Georgia;
the common and most widely distributed race being known as _C. v.
fulvus_, while separate names have been given to the races respectively
inhabiting Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The so-called “cross fox” of
America is merely one with a blackish stripe down the back and another
across the shoulders, as in many Himalayan and Afghan foxes; while
the “silver fox” is a grey, and the “black fox” a black phase of the
ordinary American race.
Skins of black foxes are of enormous value, really fine specimens
selling for as much as £200 each; they are imitated by dyeing the skins
of the white Arctic fox (_C. lagopus_) and leaving the end of the tail
and the tips of the longer hairs white. Although most of these black
skins come from America, black foxes apparently also occur in Siberia.
No matter how far north its range, the fox never turns white in
winter. Another curious fact about this animal is that the skin, when
viewed under the microscope, exhibits a structure indicating that the
ancestors of the species were apparently clothed with scales instead of
hair; thus affording important testimony to the view that mammals are
the direct descendants of reptiles.
Unlike jackals and wolves, the fox is a more or less solitary animal,
living for the greater part of the year alone, or in company with
the vixen, as the female is called; the latter name being merely the
west country pronunciation of _fixen_, which may be the Saxon plural
of _fix_. Chiefly nocturnal in their habits, foxes may take up their
residence either in holes, or “earths,” dug by themselves, in ravines
or clefts among rocks, or amid coarse grass and bushes. The young,
usually from five to seven in number, have slaty grey coats quite
different from their parents. Although foxes are sad enemies to the
poultry-yard and the game-covert, it should be remembered that they are
death on field-mice and rats.
THE BROWN BEAR
(_Ursus arctus_)
With the exception of the hyænas and the civets, all the more important
families of land Carnivora are represented in northern Europe; the
wild cat and the lynx doing duty for the _Felidæ_, the wolf and the
fox for the _Canidæ_, the pine-marten, glutton, and otter, together
with several smaller species, for the _Mustelidæ_, and the bear, or
brown bear, as it is commonly called, in order to distinguish it from
its relatives--white, grey, or black--for the _Ursidæ_. It is further
noteworthy that, with the exception of the wild cat, all these animals
are either common to the northern portions of the two hemispheres or
are represented in North America by species very closely allied to
their European prototypes.
The bear is one of the undoubtedly circumpolar species, for although
distinct names have been given to its American representatives, with
the exception of the grisly bear (_Ursus horribilis_), which is
specifically different, all these are obviously nothing more than local
forms or races of a single variable and widely distributed species.
Even in the Old World there are many distinct races of the brown bear.
In Syria, for instance, we have a greyish race (_U. arctus syriacus_);
while in Kashmir the coat is very generally deep cream-colour, although
it tends to darken in old individuals of this race, which is known as
_U. a. isabellinus_. From the British Isles the bear has long since
been exterminated, but it survives in the wilder parts of Spain,
France, Germany, and Hungary, while it is still comparatively common
in many parts of Scandinavia and Russia, whence it extends right
across Asia north of the southern flank of the Himalaya to Kamchatka
and Japan; its southern limit to the east of the Himalaya being marked
by the Siamese race (_U. a. shanorum_). Central Asian brown bears,
of which the local races are not yet properly determined, generally
have light-coloured coats, with a white gorget, which is wanting in
Scandinavian and Russian bears. The largest Old World race is the
Kamchadale brown bear (_U. a. piscator_ or _lasiotis_), of which skins
may measure as much as 9 feet in length.
On the opposite side of Bering Strait Alaska vies with Kamchatka in
claiming the record in point of size among brown bears, while in the
matter of local variation the representatives of the species put the
rest of the world into the shade, for American naturalists recognise
no fewer than half a dozen different races in Alaska alone. These
include the huge Kodiak bear (_U. a. middendorffi_) of Kodiak Island,
the Alaskan Peninsula bear (_U. a. gyas_), the gigantic Yakutat bear
(_U. a. dalli_) from the neighbourhood of Yakutat Bay and the coast
for an undetermined distance north and south, the Sitka bear (_U.
a. sitkensis_) of Sitka and Baranoff Islands, the Admiralty bear (_U.
a. eulophus_) of Admiralty Island, and Kidder’s bear (_U. a. kidderi_)
of the Alaskan Peninsula. All these are, however, so similar to one
another, that it requires an expert to distinguish them.
[Illustration]
The grisly bear (_U. horribilis_) is, however, a distinct species,
characterised, among other features, by its white claws. Typically
a native of the high forests of the Rocky Mountains, the grisly is
represented by two Alaskan races, namely, _U. h. phæonyx_ of the
interior, and _U. h. kenaiensis_ of the Kenai Peninsula and adjacent
coasts. It perhaps reappears in the Tian Shan range, in the heart of
central Asia, in the shape of the so-called _U. leuconyx_.
Bears are the least carnivorous of the Carnivora, subsisting in many
districts almost entirely on fruits, nuts, shoots of trees, roots,
honey, and ants, with an occasional meal of carrion. In Alaska,
however, when the bears wake up from their winter sleep and come abroad
they find the rivers almost choked with Pacific salmon which are
ascending to spawn, and in these they find an abundant and nourishing
food-supply upon which they rapidly grow fat. The duration of the
winter-sleep, which may take place in a hollow tree, a cavern, or a
cleft in the rocks, depends upon the length of the winter; and it is
when they first issue forth from these lairs that bears are in their
best coats, the summer fur being short and comparatively valueless,
while the skins are also difficult to preserve owing to the fatness of
the animals at this season. The females bring forth their cubs, one or
two in number, during the period of hibernation.
Bears are to a great extent diurnal mammals, whose haunts are chiefly
the forests, although in late summer they resort in many localities,
such as Kashmir, to the open mountain pastures, where they may be seen
grazing at no great distance from flocks of sheep or goats. The adults
go about singly or in pairs, the females generally accompanied by their
cubs, which may include those of two successive seasons.
THE PINE-MARTEN
(_Mustela martes_)
The marten, or pine-marten, as it is commonly termed in order to
distinguish it from its continental relative the beech-marten (_Mustela
foina_), is one of those species which are on the verge of disappearing
from England and Wales. In the midland and south-eastern counties of
England the species appears to have become scarce during the first
half of the last century, and in most of these it was killed before
1860, although isolated instances of its occurrence in Hertfordshire,
Surrey, and Sussex have been recorded since that date. In Lincolnshire,
Norfolk, and Suffolk it survived, however, until the ’eighties; and
there have been recent occurrences in Leicestershire. The Lake District
and the western side of north and central Wales are at present the
strongholds of the species; and the isolated occurrences in other parts
of the country appear to be largely due to its wandering habits.
In the wilder districts of Scotland, wherever there is sufficient
forest, martens are still far from uncommon; and they are comparatively
abundant in parts of Scandinavia, France, Spain, Germany, Hungary,
and Russia. Among the characteristics of the species, the most
easily recognisable is the yellow or orange area on the throat; this
part being white in the beech-marten. That these two animals are
distinct species, and not merely local races of a single one, seems
to be demonstrated by their occurrence in the same districts. How
far eastwards the range of the marten extends does not appear to be
ascertained. In Siberia the species is, however, represented by the
closely allied sable (_M. zibellina_), which in turn gives place in
North America to the American marten (_M. americana_). All three might
perhaps, however, be regarded as geographical races of one and the same
species. Martens are essentially forest-animals, which prefer evergreen
trees, and are especially partial to woods where dead tree-trunks lie
rotting on the ground or form natural bridges from one stem to another.
Here they are as active as squirrels, and chase one another in the same
sportive manner. Much of their prey is, however, taken on the ground,
and they are deadly foes to hares, rabbits, pheasants, and partridges,
as well as to small birds of all kinds. They are also reported to eat
beech-mast, and if this be the case, berries may also very probably
form a portion of their diet.
The persistency with which a marten will follow the trail of a hare or
a rabbit, even in deep snow, is a character the species possesses in
common with the weasel tribe generally; and if it fail to pounce upon
the unsuspecting victim in the first few springs, it will settle down
to the chase as steadily as a beagle or a harrier.
[Illustration]
Martens are devoid of the unpleasant odour of the polecat, or foumart,
and are therefore suitable for taming. In their native forests they
associate in pairs, and make their nests high up in tall trees,
selecting in some instances a hole in the stem, but in other cases
taking possession of the deserted nests of wood-pigeons or other large
birds, or occasionally the drey of a squirrel. In this nest are born
early in the spring the six or seven young, which come into the world
blind, and are tended by their parents with assiduous care; and they
remain in its neighbourhood till they are nearly full grown.
In North America it has been observed that once in about every eight
or ten years martens more or less completely disappear from districts
in which they are at other times abundant. Strange to say, there is
no evidence of the prevalence of disease on such occasions; and it is
certain that the martens do not migrate after the manner of lemmings.
It has, however, been noticed by the trappers that just before their
disappearance none of the martens in the district will take a bait,
although at other times they are caught with comparative ease.
In the forest martens and sables are much less difficult to approach
than many other wild animals; but they nevertheless display a keen
aversion to the neighbourhood of human dwellings, which they never
voluntarily approach. Martens and sables, unlike their smaller
relative the stoat or ermine, do not turn white in winter; for the
very sufficient reason that, on account of being arboreal animals,
they would be extremely conspicuous in such a livery. They are so
relentlessly hunted for the sake of their valuable fur, that it is a
marvel they have not long since been exterminated from many portions of
their habitat. The value of the skins of the ordinary European marten
varies from eight to twelve shillings, but Russian and Siberian sable
commands a much higher price in the market.
THE LEOPARD
(_Felis pardus_)
It is not a little remarkable that three such closely related animals
as the lion, the tiger, and the leopard or panther (for these two
names really indicate the same species) should exhibit such striking
dissimilarity in their type of colouring. The explanation of the
difference in this respect is, however, probably to be found in the
diversity of habit. Neither the lion nor the tiger can climb; and as
the former is mainly an inhabitant of open and more or less desert
country, it has assumed a uniformly sandy coat to accord with the tawny
hue of its surroundings. The tiger, on the other hand, resorts more to
covert, and has therefore adopted a livery suitable to such situations,
or, at all events, one which tends to break up the general outline of
the body.
From both its larger cousins the leopard differs by its arboreal
habits, and this may to a great extent account for its spotted type of
colouring, which harmonises well with the chequered shade thrown by
the foliage on the horizontal and gnarled branches of forest-trees.
It is, however, important to notice that the dark markings on the fur
of an ordinary leopard are not solid black circular spots, but take
the form of rosettes of irregular black patches enclosing a centre of
darker tint than the general ground-colour of the fur. Such a type of
colouring seems to be one specially adapted to a partially arboreal
life, for in the purely terrestrial hunting-leopard (_Cynælurus
jubatus_), as well as in the smaller African cat known as the serval
(_Felis serval_), the markings all take the form of solid circular
black spots. It is further noteworthy that the Amurland race of the
leopard (_F. pardus villosa_), which inhabits a country where the
forests are coniferous and therefore ill-adapted for climbing by a
large animal, the spots are in the main solid and more or less nearly
circular.
Leopards have a range larger than that of either the lion or the
tiger. In former times they probably inhabited a considerable portion
of Europe; and at the present day they extend from the Caucasus over
the greater part of Asia, inclusive of Persia, India, China, and the
Malay countries, although unknown in northern Siberia, the highlands
of Tibet, and Japan. In Africa they inhabit the whole continent from
Morocco to Cape Colony, although from certain districts they have now
been killed off. As a rule, the central chestnut area forming the
centre of the rosettes does not carry any small spots, but two or
three such spots occur in the rosettes of some Asiatic leopards; and
skins thus marked serve to connect the leopard with its near relative
the jaguar (_F. onca_) of Central and South America, in which these
central spots are constant. Now the jaguar is an even more arboreal
animal than the leopard; and the more complex development of its
rosettes is a further proof that this type of marking is one specially
adapted to a life among thick-foliaged trees. It may be added that the
near relationship existing between the leopard and the jaguar affords
conclusive evidence that large spotted felines at one time inhabited
North America.
[Illustration]
With such an enormous geographical range, it would be only natural to
expect that the leopard should present considerable local variation;
and, as a matter of fact, such is actually the case. The Amurland,
or Manchurian, race has already been mentioned. Asiatic leopards
have large rosettes; and among these the Persian leopard (_F. pardus
panthera_, or _tulliana_) constitutes a race characterised by its
pale colour, long fur, and thick tail. This race makes an approach to
the snow-leopard (_F. uncia_) of the highlands of central Asia, which
is, however, a distinct species, distinguished by its long fur and
tail, with the prevailing colour grey, and the rosettes in the form of
ill-defined rings; this type of colouring being probably an adaptation
to a life among rocks and snow.
Leopards from North and East Africa show large rosettes of the Asiatic
type; but in most other parts of the African continent the rosettes
show a great tendency to break up into small spots. Among these
small-spotted leopards the Somali race (_F. pardus nanopardus_) is
noticeable for its pale colour and small size; its total length being
less than 5 feet, whereas some of the other races may measure 7½
feet, or even more, in length.
Both in Asia and north-eastern and East Africa black leopards are
not uncommon; but these are merely a dark (melanistic) phase of the
ordinary leopard. Nevertheless, it appears, so far as can be judged
from a single authenticated instance, that black leopards when mated
together will breed true, although, if paired with spotted individuals,
the progeny may be of either type.
With regard to the general habits of leopards, space permits only
of reference to their remarkable partiality for the flesh of dogs,
which is so strong as to render it difficult to keep these animals in
leopard-infested districts.
THE LYNX
(_Felis (Lynx) lynx_)
Whether the lynx is more keen of vision than other animals is more than
problematical; but, nevertheless, it takes its name from the Greek word
(_luké_) for light, and lynx-eyed has become a proverbial expression.
Moreover, as if to set a seal of endorsement upon the proverb, the
oldest and most renowned scientific society in Italy bears the title of
_Regia Lynceorum Academia_ (the “Royal Academy of Lynxes”).
Be all this as it may, the lynx is an aberrant and well-marked member
of the _Felidæ_, distinguished, together with its immediate relatives,
from other members of the cat tribe by its short, stumpy tail, the long
tufts of hair at the tips of the ears, and the bushy whitish whiskers
fringing the face, as well as by the large size of the feet, and a
generally stout appearance, due to the thickness of the coat.
The beautiful fur of the lynx, which commands a high price in the
market, has also a character all its own, being long, soft, and silky,
with a greyish or reddish tawny colour, and in most cases a number of
more or less dark markings, which take the form of longitudinal streaks
along the back, of flecks on the sides, and roundish spots on the
limbs; the greater portion of the absurd apology for a tail, together
with the backs and tufts of the ears, and a conspicuous streak on each
side of the face, being black. Many lynx-skins are, however, more or
less completely devoid of the dark markings; and it does not yet appear
to be ascertained whether the difference in this respect is individual
or seasonal.
When the markings are fully developed, they so completely break up the
outline of the body as to render the animal almost invisible at a short
distance; this being noticeable even within the cramped confines of a
cage.
The lynx is the second and largest species of the cat tribe inhabiting
northern Europe, where it is common in Scandinavia and Russia, while
to the south it is found in mountainous districts as far as Spain.
Eastwards it extends across Asia, from the Caucasus and northern
Persia, to the northward of the Himalaya to the island of Saghalin. Its
fossil remains prove that it was formerly a native of the British Isles.
The Tibetan lynx, on account of its generally paler colour, has been
separated as _F. lynx isabellina_, while the one from the Urals,
Caucasus, and northern Persia is distinguished as _F. l. cervaria_. The
Altai lynx, characterised by its unusually long coat, the, at least
frequent, absence of spots, except on the limbs, and its extremely pale
colouring, approximating in many parts to white, has likewise received
a separate racial name, _F. l. wardi_.
[Illustration]
In North America the so-called Canada lynx, although often regarded as
a distinct species, differs, in the opinion of a well-known American
naturalist, from the lynx of northern Asia and Europe merely by
features which may with safety be ascribed to local environment, and
should therefore be reckoned as yet another geographical race, under
the name of _F. l. canadensis_. Its range extended in former days from
Arctic America to the mountains of Pennsylvania; the lynxes of Alaska
and Newfoundland respectively forming two minor races.
Lynxes are extremely savage animals with immensely powerful limbs,
which appear out of proportion to the lean body. They are inhabitants
of forest, where they pass much of their time reposing on the
horizontal boughs of trees, whence they can launch themselves with
unerring spring on any unsuspecting animal that may be passing below,
or from which they may ascend higher in search of squirrels or birds
and their nests. They by no means, however, confine their attention
to such arboreal game, but are relentless pursuers of hares and still
smaller terrestrial mammals of all kinds, while their agility is such
that a half-tamed individual has been repeatedly seen to catch pigeons
out of a flock feeding on the ground as they rose on the wing. In
pursuit of ground-game they advance in long silent leaps, and in winter
are prevented from sinking in the snow when progressing in this manner
by the great size of their paws.
Tangled thickets or other kinds of dense undergrowth are selected by
the lynx for its summer lair; and in such localities in Norway the
fluffy cubs are born. In Tibet, however, these animals are compelled
to exchange clefts in rocks for the forests of Scandinavia and Russia.
Unlike bears, lynxes, in common with all members of the cat tribe,
remain active throughout the winter, being sufficiently protected
against cold by the thickness of their soft fur. At this time of year
they are, however, frequently reduced to great straits by hunger; and
their endurance must be simply marvellous to enable them when in this
famishing condition to hunt and capture from time to time such prey as
may be on the move.
THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS
(_Rhinoceros unicornis_)
Although formerly ranging a considerable way down the peninsula, the
great Indian rhinoceros, as this species should properly be called, is
more or less completely restricted to Nepal and the country east of the
Tista valley, especially the plain of Assam and Kuch-Behar. Here the
mighty beast, which stands over 5½ feet in height at the shoulder,
dwells in the tall grass-jungles, where it is as completely concealed
as is a rabbit in a meadow ready for mowing. The rhinoceroses, in
fact, make for themselves in this giant grass, tunnels, or “runs,” in
which they move from place to place perfectly secure from observation,
and likewise protected from the direct rays of the sun; and it
appears that, except to drink, they seldom leave this wonderful
covert. To attempt to shoot such enormous beasts on foot in jungle
of this description, where escape from the beaten track is well-nigh
impossible, would be little short of madness; and the Indian rhinoceros
is therefore always hunted on elephants.
In old books on Indian sports the rhinoceros is depicted as charging
the elephants, and attempting to spear them with its horn, if not in
the act of goring their bodies. This is, however, erroneous, as none of
the three named species of Asiatic rhinoceros use their horns in this
manner, but employ for offence their sharp, triangular lower tusks,
with which they make lateral thrusts and lunges after the manner of a
wild boar. African rhinoceroses, on the other hand, have no tusks, and
consequently have to rely on their horns--always two in number--for
both attack and defence.
It must not, however, be assumed from this that the absence of tusks
is compensated by the development of two horns, for there is one
Asiatic species, commonly known as the Sumatran rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros
sumatrensis_), which has two horns combined with lower tusks; this
species thus being the most formidably armed member of the whole
group. This so-called Sumatran rhinoceros also occurs in some of
the eastern districts of India, as does likewise the third Asiatic
species, commonly known as the Javan rhinoceros (_R. sondaicus_), which
resembles the great Indian species in carrying but one horn.
[Illustration]
A satisfactory and easily recognised distinction between the
rhinoceroses of south-eastern Asia and the two African species is
afforded by the circumstance that while in the former the hide is
thrown into a number of deep folds dividing it into separate areas, in
the latter these folds are more or less lacking, so that the skin is
comparatively smooth like that of a pig. The shape of the skin-folds
serves to distinguish the species forming the subject of the plate from
the other one-horned Asiatic species. Among the distinctive features
of the present animal may be noted the coif-like expansions of skin at
the sides of the head, the large tubercles, recalling the heads of the
rivets in an iron boiler, on the shoulders and hind-quarters, and the
somewhat triangular shape of the great shield on each shoulder, the
fold forming the upper border of which does not extend across the back.
By the older naturalists, rhinoceroses, elephants, and hippopotamuses
were grouped together under the title of pachyderms,--a name which has
completely dropped out of use in natural history. And very rightly,
since the three groups of animals brigaded together under that
designation have but little in common with one another. Elephants, for
instance, form a group by themselves; hippopotamuses are cousins of the
pigs, and thus related to deer and cattle; while rhinoceroses, together
with tapirs and horses, form a third group by themselves.
There may seem to the man in the street little in common between a
great lumbering brute like a rhinoceros and a Derby winner; but the
difference is due solely to the one being a modern specialised type
cut out solely for speed, and the other an old-fashioned creature
suited for wallowing in marshes or wandering on open plains where it
is sufficiently protected by its size and ferocity. Take away the
two side-toes from each foot of a rhinoceros, lengthen its limbs,
lighten its head and body, modify to a comparatively slight degree
its cheek-teeth, and replace its bare “pachydermatous” covering by a
thinner, hairy skin, and we should have a horse. Fortunate it is for
the naturalist that such primitive creatures as rhinoceroses and tapirs
have survived to the present day to afford us an adequate idea of what
their numerous extinct relatives looked like in life.
Rhinoceroses are purely herbivorous animals, but whereas the great
Indian species subsists chiefly on bamboo-leaves and other grasses,
its two Asiatic relatives depend more upon boughs and roots; this
difference being correlated with the structure of their teeth.
Producing but one offspring at a time, and that at long intervals,
these animals apparently live to a very great age, although by no means
so long as elephants. The idea that the hide of the Indian species is
bullet proof is altogether erroneous.
THE BISON
(_Bos [Bison] bonasus_)
Although the name bison indisputably belongs to the single species
of wild cattle now surviving in Europe, it came to be applied almost
exclusively to its American cousin, while the bison itself, till
comparatively few years ago, was generally known in this country as the
aurochs. The aurochs was, however, the ancient wild ox of Europe, the
ancestor of many of our domesticated cattle; and on its extermination,
which took place in Poland during the seventeenth century, its name
became transferred to the bison, or zubr as it is called in Russia and
Poland. Of late years, however, matters have been put right in this
respect, and the bison has once more come into its own.
The European bison, although lacking the enormous mass of long hair on
the head and fore-quarters which gives to the bulls of its American
cousin such a magnificent appearance, is a far better built animal than
the latter, as the hind-quarters do not fall away in the same manner.
The bulls are considerably larger than the cows, and it is in that sex
alone that the beard and throat-fringe, as well as the long hair on
the fore-quarters, attain their full development. In summer a short
and sleek coat is donned; the old winter coat falling off in spring in
large, blanket-like masses.
The bison, apart from a certain number which have been introduced
into private parks, now survives only in the forest of Bielowitza,
in Lithuanian Poland, now the Russian province of Grodno, and in the
Caucasus. In Bielowitza the bison exist in a partially protected
condition, and are regularly fed during winter; their number diminished
from nearly two thousand in 1857 to three hundred and seventy-five in
1892, and a few years previously had been just over a hundred less. At
the present time the herd, which forms an imperial preserve, appears
to be suffering from the effects of inbreeding, so that an abnormally
large number of the calves are males.
On the other hand, the bison of the Caucasus, which has been separated
as a distinct race under the name _Bos bonasus caucasicus_, exists in a
purely wild state, although very little information with regard to its
numbers, distribution, and habits is available. In former times bison,
as we know from historical evidence, as well as from rude although
often spirited sketches, believed to be the work of prehistoric man, on
the walls of caverns, as well as from their actual fossil remains, were
distributed over the greater part of Europe, including Spain.
[Illustration]
Here it should be mentioned that the European and the American species
are the only living kinds of wild cattle properly entitled to be
included under the name of bison; the so-called Indian and Burmese
bison belonging to a totally different group of the ox tribe.
European bison, which associate in large herds, are essentially forest
animals, although the forest they inhabit must be comparatively thin
and intersected with glades and meadows where the herd can graze. The
neighbourhood of water is also essential; and when muddy pools are
available, they are utilised for wallowing. In addition to taking these
mud-baths, bull bison in summer are fond of rolling in sandy or dusty
spots.
Leaves and grass form the greater portion of the food of the Bielowitza
herd in summer, one particular kind of grass, known as zubr-grass,
being a special favourite and communicating to the animals themselves
an aromatic odour. Young shoots, twigs, and bark, especially those
of the ash, are also largely eaten; and in obtaining bark the stems
of trees are frequently stripped as high as the animals can reach,
while numbers of saplings are trampled down. Except where they are
artificially fed, bison have to depend almost entirely upon buds,
twigs, bark, and patches of dry grass and bracken for sustenance; and
at this season the herds leave the damper parts of the forest to take
up their quarters in the driest situations they can find.
Although an adult bull bison is more than a match for any wolf that
ever existed, the Bielowitza herd is constantly harassed by the
attacks of wolves, bears, and lynxes, which kill many of the calves,
and probably also overpower weakly and half-starved cows in winter,
especially if the wolves hunt in packs.
Bison feed chiefly in the early mornings and evening, although they
may be seen abroad at all hours. During the breeding-season, in August
and September, fierce combats take place between rival bulls for the
mastery of the herds. When disturbed or alarmed, the herd breaks into
a quick trot, which soon develops into a heavy lumbering gallop; and
there is scarcely a finer sight in the world than a charging troop of
these magnificent beasts.
THE GAZELLE
(_Gazella dorcas_)
Although many kinds of gazelles are now known, the gazelle _par
excellence_, that is to say, the ghazal of the Arabs, is the beautiful
little species represented in the Plate, which, in order to distinguish
it from its relatives, naturalists have designated the dorcas. And no
more beautiful and delicately made creature exists in the world than
this same gazelle, which has formed the theme of poets--especially
in the East--for centuries, as the emblem of beauty, elegance, and
fleetness. Many people persist in confusing gazelles with deer,
although the two groups have but little in common, being broadly
distinguished by the characters of their horns, which in gazelles are
hollow, unbranched sheaths of true horn supported on cores of bone,
while in deer they are branching structures of bare bone. Indeed, the
so-called horns of deer are not really horns at all, at all events from
the point of view of the naturalist, but rather antlers; and gazelles
constitute a section of that group of ruminants collectively known as
antelopes.
Of the approximate size of a roebuck, the true, or dorcas, gazelle,
like most of its kindred is coloured to harmonise with the more or
less desert conditions of its home. The delicate rufous fawn of the
upper-parts accords with the yellow tint of the rocks or sand amid
which these beautiful creatures spend most of their time; while, when
the animal is standing in the full glare of an Eastern sun, the white
of the under surface counteracts the effect of the dark shade thrown by
the body, and thus, even at comparatively short distances, makes for
more or less complete invisibility. Neither is the white “blaze” on the
rump without its special use, as it serves as a guide to the members of
a troop to follow the line taken by their leader when safety depends
solely upon fleetness of foot; the effect of the danger-signal on such
occasions being increased by the elevation of the tail, of which the
white under surface is then shown. In the bucks alone do the gracefully
curved and heavily ringed black horns attain their full development;
those of the does being thin and nearly smooth spikes.
The range of the gazelle is large, including the whole of northern
Africa, from Morocco in the west to Egypt in the east, and extending
southwards to Nigeria and the Egyptian Sudan; while in Asia it embraces
Palestine and Syria. In western and southern Arabia it is, however,
replaced by the Arabian gazelle (_Gazella arabica_), which is itself a
relative of the edmi gazelle (_G. cuvieri_), of Morocco, Algeria, and
western Tunisia; the last-named being a mountain-dweller, whereas the
dorcas is largely a native of the plains.
[Illustration]
In the deserts and plains between the Nile and the Red Sea, where
the dorcas gazelle is especially numerous, its food chiefly consists
of mimosa-bushes; these bushes growing most abundantly on low,
boulder-strewn hills which form the favourite feeding-places of the
gazelles. Unlike many ruminants, gazelles are almost constantly on the
move, resting only during the very hottest hours of the day, when they
seek the shade of the mimosas: and when thus reposing, even experienced
hunters find it extremely difficult to distinguish them from the
boulders amid which they lie.
Gazelles mostly associate in herds of variable size; but they are
generally seen on their feeding-grounds either in small parties of from
two to eight head, or singly. They are extremely shy and watchful, and
nearly always feed with the wind behind them; while their favourite
stations are on elevated ground, where they can command an extensive
view of the plains below. When a herd is alarmed and takes to flight,
its members always seek shelter on the nearest hill.
The senses of sight, smell, and hearing are all highly developed in
gazelles; and the speed of these beautiful antelopes is little short of
marvellous. Indeed, when a gazelle is fleeing from the slughi hounds,
or so-called Persian greyhounds, with which the Arabs hunt the fawns,
they seem scarcely to touch the ground, and to be flying rather than
running.
Previous to the pairing-season the bucks fight among themselves, and
so fiercely that they not infrequently lose a horn. After a gestation
of between five and six months, the doe gives birth to a single fawn,
which is at first extremely helpless, when it is most assiduously
nursed by the mother. Young gazelles are beautiful little creatures,
which in their own country can be kept and tamed without difficulty; in
cold climates they require, however, shelter and protection in cold and
bad weather.
Pictures of the gazelle are common among the ancient Egyptian frescoes,
especially in the temples at Giza, Thebes, Sakhara, and Beni-hassan;
and from a painting in a tomb at Sakhara it may be inferred that herds
of these graceful ruminants were kept in a half-tamed condition in
Pharaonic times.
THE MOUFLON
(_Ovis musimon_)
The mouflon, or muflon, is the only wild sheep inhabiting Europe, where
it is restricted at the present day to the mountains of Corsica and
Sardinia. In former times it doubtless had a more extensive range, and
there are reports of its occurrence within the historical period in
Greece and the Balearic Islands. It is likewise reported to have once
inhabited the mountain ranges of central Spain.
Like all wild sheep, the mouflon has a hairy coat, while its tail
is short and deer-like, as in the small domesticated sheep of Soa
and other Hebridean islands, of which it is probably the ancestor.
The woolly fleece and long tail of many domesticated breeds must
accordingly be regarded as features due to careful selection; and in
this connection it is important to notice that some of the domesticated
sheep of Africa, as well of the East, possess hairy coats like their
wild ancestors.
The general colour of the mouflon, like that of so many ruminants, is
of a protective nature, being dark above and white beneath, with a
white rump-patch as a signal-mark for the members of the flock when in
flight. In accordance with the nature of its surroundings, the mouflon
has a darker and more rufous coat than the gazelle; but old rams have
a whitish saddle-patch on the back in the winter coat. In their native
haunts these sheep are stated to be very difficult to detect. The white
streaks on the face so characteristic of the gazelles are wanting, but
the dark flank-band dividing the fawn of the back from the white of the
belly is a feature common to mouflon and many species of gazelles.
In height the mouflon ram stands only about 27 inches, so that the
species is one of the smallest of the wild sheep. The horns of the rams
usually curve forwards on the sides of the face; the right horn thus
forming a right-handed spiral, and _vice versa_. In some Sardinian
rams, however, there is an alteration in the direction of the upper
part of the spiral, so that the horns curve backwards over the neck,
instead of forwards by the sides of the face. The ewes of the Sardinian
mouflon appear to be generally, if not invariably, hornless; but some
Corsican females, at any rate, carry small horns; and it may be that
the presence or absence of horns in this sex forms a distinction
between the races respectively inhabiting the two islands.
[Illustration]
Mouflon are found only in certain parts of the mountains of Sardinia
and Corsica; and when in repose usually resort to high peaks or ridges
whence a wide view can be obtained. Moreover, they frequently select
situations where currents of air from two different situations
combine, and they are then absolutely unapproachable by the sportsman.
In much of the ground they frequent, the valleys are filled with a
thick growth of ilex; while they feed on the hills amid abundant
heather, which affords admirable covert for the approach of the stalker.
In the pairing-season, which takes place during December and January,
the old rams, like the males of most ruminants, engage in fierce
combats for the possession of the females. The ewes give birth to their
one or two lambs during April and May; and these, like the lambs of
domesticated sheep, are able to run with their mothers at a very early
age. When the rams are in good condition, mouflon-mutton, if hung long
enough, is excellent for the table.
In Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia the mouflon is replaced by the red
sheep (_Ovis orientalis_), a redder and, in the case of some races,
larger species, often with a fringe of blackish hair on the throat
of the old males, and the horns in that sex always curving backwards
behind the neck. The race of this species inhabiting the Troödos
mountains of Cyprus is smaller than the rest.
Farther east, namely, in the Kopet Dagh range dividing Persia from
Turkestan, the red sheep gives place to the well-known urial (_O.
vignei_), in which there is a long white throat-fringe to the old rams,
whose horns curve forwards by the sides of the face. This species
ranges through Baluchistan and Afghanistan to the Salt Range of the
Punjab, and thence along the ranges flanking the Indus into Ladak and
Tibet.
In the Altai and Tibet, together with other parts of central Asia, we
reach the country of the great argali sheep (_O. ammon_), with its
numerous races; while in the Yana Valley of Siberia and in Kamchatka
we first meet with the so-called bighorns (_O. canadensis_), of which
the typical race is North American. One peculiar species (_Ammotragus
lervia_) inhabits the north of Africa, but in the rest of that
continent, as also in peninsular India, the Malay countries, and South
America, wild sheep are unknown.
THE RED DEER
(_Cervus elaphus_)
The red deer, the typical representative of the family _Cervidæ_, is
the largest and handsomest European member of that group, although it
attains its maximum development in point of bodily size and massiveness
of antlers only in eastern Europe and south-western Asia. As in most
members of the deer tribe inhabiting temperate countries, there is
considerable seasonal difference in the colour of the coat, and the
fawns differ remarkably in this respect from their parents. There are
also distinctions in colour between the various local races of the
species. The ordinary name refers to the fact that in summer a more or
less distinct rufous colour prevails on the upper-parts. Here it may be
remarked that deer do not in most cases present that marked contrast
between the upper and the lower surfaces of the body so characteristic
of gazelles and many other members of the antelope group. And the
reason for this is not difficult to explain. As mentioned in the text
accompanying the plate of that species, the white under-parts of the
gazelle are for the purpose of counteracting the dark shadow thrown by
the body when standing in full sunlight, and thus to render the animal
inconspicuous. Deer, on the other hand, are in the main nocturnal and
forest-dwelling creatures, and this type of protective colouring would
therefore be useless in their case. The chital, or Indian spotted deer,
is, however, much less nocturnal than most species, and also feeds to
a great extent in the open; and it is interesting to notice that, in
accordance with such habits, this species is white-bellied.
Notable features in the red deer are the shortness of the tail, and the
straw-coloured patch on the buttocks in which that brief appendage is
included; the same features recurring in its near relative the wapiti.
As in all similar cases among ruminants, the light rump-patch serves
as a guide to the members of a herd; the place of this being taken
in certain other species, such as the fallow deer and the American
white-tailed deer, by the pure white under surface of the tail, which
is raised when the animals are running.
The antlers of the stag are characterised by the number and regular
arrangement of the tines; and more especially, in their fullest
development, by the duplication of the first, or brow, tine, and the
cup-like arrangement of the terminal snags.
[Illustration]
Two features indicate that the red deer is what naturalists term a
highly specialised animal. These are, firstly, the shortness of the
tail, and, secondly, the white-spotted coat of the fawn, so utterly
different from that of the adults of the typical western representative
of the species. In the race inhabiting the Caucasus yellowish spots
are, however, frequently observable in the coats of full-grown hinds,
while similar spots may be developed in adult stags of the North
African race,--the so-called Barbary deer. These features clearly
indicate that the red deer is descended from a species which was fully
spotted at all ages.
The range of the red deer includes, with the exception of the far
north, practically the whole of Europe, as well as Asia Minor and part
of Persia. From many parts of western Europe these splendid animals
have, however, been exterminated; and in the British Isles they survive
in a wild state only in Devon and Somerset, the highlands and isles of
Scotland, and parts of Ireland. The red deer of the Caspian district
and the neighbouring countries, commonly known (from its Persian
name) as the maral, is a much larger and also a greyer animal, with
heavier antlers, than its west European representative. The latter have
been split up into several local races, which need not, however, be
particularised in this place.
The food of the red deer varies considerably according to the time of
year, and comprises grass and other herbage, corn, leaves and boughs,
bark, acorns, chestnuts, funguses, lichens, and moss. In autumn, when
living near cultivated ground, deer will dig up with their hoofs,
potatoes, artichokes, and other edible roots.
The pairing-time commences early in September, and continues till the
middle of October; and at this season, when they utter the well-known
bellowing or roaring, the stags not only fight fiercely among
themselves for the mastery of the herd, but are highly dangerous to
human beings. At no time very amiable, the stags at this season are
little better than incarnate fiends. Soon after the breeding-season the
antlers are shed, to be replaced by new growths, covered at first with
soft velvety skin, the following spring.
At the end of May or early in June the hind seeks a sequestered
situation amid covert in which to give birth to her fawn. The fawns, of
which there may occasionally be twins, are extremely helpless at birth,
but in a short time gain sufficient strength to run by the side of
their mothers.
THE BEAVER
(_Castor fiber_)
The beaver enjoys the distinction of being the only warm-blooded
quadruped that is in the habit of making really noticeable
modifications in the appearance of the earth’s surface. Many
quadrupeds, such as foxes, ant-bears, rabbits, and rats and mice
burrow holes in the ground, while the mole marks the course of its
subterranean tunnels by throwing up heaps of earth at intervals. But
although such excavations and hillocks, when sufficiently numerous,
may to a slight degree affect the appearance of a meadow, they are
nothing in comparison to the changes brought in a valley by a colony of
beavers. By throwing a dam across its course, these industrious rodents
will convert a narrow stream into a wide sheet of stagnant water, which
in the course of time may become silted up so as to form a broad and
level “beaver-meadow,” where there was originally a rocky valley. In or
near their dams beavers likewise construct dwellings of mud and clay,
known in America as “lodges,” for their own accommodation.
But this is by no means all beavers accomplish in the way of “public
works,” for, by means of the single pair of powerful chisel-like teeth
in the fore part of each jaw and the powerful muscles by which the jaws
themselves are worked, these animals, which are about the size of an
ordinary spaniel, are enabled to fell trees of considerable size, which
are used in the construction of their dams.
Beavers are the sole living representatives of a family of rodents
allied on the one hand to squirrels and dormice, and on the other to
rats and mice. Two structural peculiarities are very characteristic of
these rodents. In the first place, one of the toes of the fore-foot
is provided with a double claw, which may be used in dressing the
beautiful, long brown fur; a similar structure occurring in the smaller
rodent known as the Arctic lemming (_Dicrostonyx torquatus_). Secondly,
there is the remarkable flattened, scaly tail, which almost looks as
though it did not belong to the animal, although in reality, except
for its superior size, it is not much more abnormal than the scaly
cylindrical tail of the rat. Several myths attach to the beaver’s tail;
it was said, for instance, to be employed as a trowel for plastering
down the mud used in building the dams and lodges, although its real
use is to act as a rudder in swimming, more especially when its owner
is transporting the trunk of a felled tree. When entering the water,
or when engaged in playing therein, the beaver frequently makes a
resounding “smack” by striking the surface with its tail.
[Illustration]
In monkish times beaver-tail was considered to partake more of the
nature of fish than flesh, and was consequently allowed to be eaten on
fast days. This was, however, in the days when beavers were still
abundant in all the great rivers of Europe, from most of which they
have now been all but exterminated for the sake of their valuable fur,
and likewise for the odoriferous secretion known as castoreum, which
was formerly much used both in medicine and in perfumery. When the last
beaver was killed in the British Isles is unknown, but the species
still survived in Wales when the old chronicles were written; and we
have testimony as to its former existence in England not only in the
shape of skulls, teeth, and bones dug up from time to time in the peat
of the fens and other superficial deposits, but also in place-names
such as Beverley, in Yorkshire.
Considerable colonies of beavers still exist, by the aid of special
protection, in certain parts of Scandinavia, while a few are taken from
time to time in the Rhone, but from the Rhine, and even the Vistula,
they seem to have completely disappeared. In eastern Russia they
probably still survive locally, as they doubtless do over a large part
of Siberia, although our information on this point is very defective.
Indeed the southern range of the beaver in central Asia seems to be
still unknown, although it is certain that the species never existed in
Kashmir or the Himalaya.
Of late years it has been suggested that each of the great European
river-systems possessed a special race of beavers of its own; but the
evidence adduced in favour of this opinion is at present insufficient.
Speaking broadly, the beaver may be regarded as a circumpolar animal;
although its American representative has been separated, on account of
a comparatively small difference in the shape of the bones covering the
cavity of the nose, as a distinct species, under the name of _Castor
canadensis_. Unfortunately, the Canadian beaver has been almost as much
persecuted as its European relative, and has been exterminated from
many districts.
Beavers, it need scarcely be mentioned, are thoroughly aquatic rodents,
which feed on vegetable substances, and have their entrances to their
habitations under water. They remain active all the winter, when they
swim beneath the ice. In Europe beavers have given up constructing
lodges, and live in burrows.
THE MARMOT
(_Arctomys marmotta_)
The marmot of the Alps is the typical representative of a large
assemblage of burrowing rodents near akin to squirrels; the
head-quarters of the group being in central Asia. By rights, of course,
the name belongs exclusively to the typical species, but as it has
been extended to include all the members of the group, the former is
now distinguished as the Alpine marmot. Marmotte, it appears, is the
Savoyard name of this rodent, which in the Engadine is designated
marmotella, while its German designation is murmeltier.
The typical marmot is confined to Europe, and mainly to the high ranges
of the Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians. In eastern Europe and western
Asia it is replaced by the bobac (_Arctomys bobac_); and in central
Asia there are a number of species, of which several are considerably
larger and more brightly coloured than the Alpine animal; none is
found to the south of the main range of the Himalaya, and the group is
represented elsewhere only by the so-called woodchuck (_A. monax_) of
North America, which attains a length of about 24 inches.
The general colour and appearance of the Alpine marmot are well shown
in the Plate; and it will suffice to direct attention to the shortness
of the ears as a feature connected with burrowing habits. In one
Himalayan species the tail is considerably longer. In the Alps marmots
dwell high up among bare rocks, above the zone of vegetation, where
not even goats venture, and where it frequently snows for six weeks
together in winter. In such desolate situations these hardy rodents
make their home in the little islands of rocks between the glaciers.
Himalayan marmots, on the other hand, live at an elevation where a
considerable amount of vegetable growth flourishes in summer; their
burrows being frequently excavated beneath clumps of wild rhubarb.
As summer resorts, Alpine marmots select situations with a southerly,
easterly, or westerly aspect on the mountain slopes, and here they
construct their summer dwellings, which are designed to afford them
shelter in bad weather and to serve as a refuge from danger. In autumn
they dig deeper into the sides of the mountains to construct their
winter burrows and chambers, which have to afford accommodation for the
entire family, whose number generally ranges between five and fifteen
individuals. The burrow terminates in a large chamber, which is filled
with soft, short hay. As early as August these rodents begin to collect
grass, which is spread out on the hillsides to dry, and then carried
into the burrows.
[Illustration]
The entrance to the burrow is only just wide enough to admit the
owners, and at the commencement of the winter-sleep is blocked with
earth, stones, clay, grass, and hay. When this work is completed,
the whole family falls into a death-like sleep lasting from six to
eight months; in this torpid condition, well protected from the intense
cold, they remain till awakened to new life by the warmth of returning
spring.
Marmots feed upon a number of different kinds of Alpine plants, as well
as on the fresh or dried grass found in the neighbourhood of their
burrows. When eating, they sit up on their hind-legs and hold the food
in their mouths after the manner of squirrels; and the herbage they
consume is so full of sap, that they seldom require to drink. The same
upright position is assumed when they first come out of their burrows,
in order that they may see whether all is safe; if danger threatens,
they utter a shrill whistle and disappear with marvellous rapidity into
the depths of the burrow. Frequently they take up their position on
some large rock in the neighbourhood of the burrow, on which they can
either sit up and survey the prospect, or bask in the warmth of the
summer sun.
Their extraordinary wariness and the rapidity with which they disappear
from view are due to their numerous enemies, among which man, foxes,
and eagles and other birds-of-prey are the chief. It requires only the
shadow of an eagle’s wings to make them utter their piercing, whistling
scream and vanish into the holes, from which they do not reappear for
some time. As a rule, they only remain above ground while the sun is
shining, and they keep entirely below during bad weather, so that they
are regarded by the peasants as weather-prophets.
To the Savoyards and other Alpine peasantry the marmot is a valuable
animal; its flesh being much esteemed as food, when it has been freed
from a certain disagreeable odour by smoking. The fat is regarded
as a remedy for many diseases; and a freshly removed marmot skin is
considered wonderfully efficacious in cases of rheumatism. Marmots are
caught either by trapping or by digging them out of their burrows.
Years ago Savoyard organmen used frequently to be accompanied by a
marmot or two.
THE HAMSTER
(_Cricetus frumentarius_)
The hamster, which, although abundant in many parts of the Continent is
unknown in the British Isles, is the typical representative of a large
section of the mouse tribe characterised by the cusps on the upper
cheek-teeth forming two longitudinal rows, instead of the three found
in those of ordinary rats and mice. In size it may be compared to a
rat, but its tail is reduced to a mere stump, not more than a couple of
inches in length; while it is further characterised by the brilliant
and variegated colouring of its fur. Short-legged and stoutly built, it
has relatively small, membranous ears, large brilliant eyes, a rather
sharp muzzle, small toes, and short claws. The glossy, hairy fur is
underlain by a thick woolly under-fur. Very characteristic of this
animal is a narrow line of fur darker than the rest on the middle line
of the back which marks the position of a gland.
In general colour the fur of the upper-parts is light brownish yellow;
but the sides of the face are variegated with chestnut and white, and
there is a white area on the shoulder, while the under-parts and the
greater portion of the limbs are black, the black extending upwards to
some extent behind the fore-legs. Hamsters are, however, subject to
considerable individual variation in colour, and black, pied, and even
white examples are by no means uncommon.
Soft dry soils other than loose sand, which is unsuited for its
burrows, form the favourite resorts of the hamster, which in localities
of this nature ranges from the valley of the Rhine to that of the Obi
in Siberia. Its distribution is, however, very local, and the species
is unknown in the southern and south-western districts of Germany, as
it is also in eastern and western Prussia: in Thuringia and Saxony, on
the other hand, it is abundant.
The chief interest of the hamster is concentrated in its remarkable
habits. These rodents associate in large societies; and, like marmots,
construct both summer and winter burrows, in the latter of which they
become torpid during the cold months of the year. The winter-burrow
includes a large sleeping-chamber, situated at a depth of from one
to two yards below the surface; and also a storehouse or granary,
in which quantities of corn of various kinds are collected by these
industrious rodents for use during such portions of their retirement as
they are active. The burrow leading to the dwelling-chamber descends
almost perpendicularly, but takes a turn before opening into the
chamber itself, which is likewise provided with an oblique emergency
exit. Although grain forms their chief nutriment during the period of
retirement, hamsters in summer consume large quantities of peas, beans,
roots, fruits, and grass and other green food.
[Illustration]
As a rule, hamsters retire from the world to their subterranean
dwelling-places some time during October; when they block up the
entrances and exits of the winter-burrows with earth. Apparently
they almost immediately enter on their winter-sleep, from which they
do not awake till the following February or March, according to the
temperature. The weather at this early period of the year is, however,
by no means suited for an out-door existence, and these rodents
accordingly subsist for a season on their hoarded grain. The old males
generally make their appearance above ground about the middle of March,
but the females defer their emergence till a fortnight or so later.
They are then ravenously hungry, and will devour almost anything
that comes in their way, including beetles or other insects and an
occasional bird or mouse.
In summer the nest-chamber of the females, which is distinct from the
summer-burrow of the males and is furnished with one exit and several
entrances, is carefully lined with hay. Towards the end of April the
males visit the females in their own apartments; and four or five weeks
later the first litter of blind and naked young--varying in number from
half a dozen to eighteen--is produced. These rapidly develop their
fur, and open their eyes about the eighth or ninth day; and within a
fortnight are driven away from the parental burrow to construct a new
one of their own. Freed from one family, the old hamsters set about
producing a second one, which usually comes into the world in July.
The annual increase is, however, by no means limited to the older
individuals, for the members of the early spring litter are able to
produce young ones in the autumn.
Hamsters frequently make their appearance in enormous swarms, when
they do vast damage to crops. In return, the winter granaries of these
rodents are frequently raided by the peasants of countries where
they are common; the flesh of the hamster is also eaten, and its fur
employed for lining cloaks and coats.
THE DUCKBILL OR PLATYPUS
(_Ornithorhynchus anatinus_)
For many years it was reported by the natives of Australia that the
extraordinary warm-blooded quadruped known to naturalists as the
duckbill, or platypus, produced its young from eggs laid in a burrow
by the female. That a mammal--and a mammal, although of an altogether
peculiar and out of the way type, the creature undoubtedly is--should
lay eggs was, however, too much for the minds of stay-at-home
naturalists, and the fiat accordingly went forth that the native story
was to be discredited. And discredited it therefore was. In nature, as
in other things, truth will, however, ultimately prevail; and we now
know for certain that the female lays in a burrow in the bank of some
river or pool a couple of hard-shelled, oval eggs, which in due course
hatch out into naked, helpless young, furnished with soft sucking lips.
Not that they suck in the ordinary mammalian fashion, for the female
platypus has no nipples, but her milk oozes out in the breast from a
number of sieve-like pores, from the surface of which it is sucked up
by her offspring.
Such a difference from the ordinary mammalian way of doing business
proclaims the wide distinction between the platypus, and, it may be
added, its relatives the spiny ant-eaters or echidnas (one of which
forms the subject of another illustration), and all other warm-blooded
quadrupeds. Nor is this all, for in the structure of their skeleton and
soft internal parts the platypus and the echidna display many marks of
affinity with reptiles and birds, which are totally wanting in other
mammals. These two creatures represent indeed a group by themselves, so
that mammals may be divided into two great primary sections, the one
embracing only the two egg-laying types, and the other all the rest.
And it is not a little significant that the egg-layers are confined
to Australia and New Guinea, the home of many other primitive and
ancient types which have disappeared from the rest of the world. In one
sense indeed the platypus and the echidna are not exactly primitive
creatures, as they have several specialised characters which were
evidently wanting in their ancestors. They may rather be described as
specialised branches of an ancient and primitive stock.
The duckbill is a heavily made aquatic mammal of about the size of a
very short-legged rabbit, with blackish, mole-like fur above, passing
gradually into whitish beneath, and a short, thick, tapering tail.
The very short limbs terminate in thick toes, connected together by a
web and armed with strong, pointed claws. In the fore-feet the margin
of the web projects considerably beyond the claws, but on the rare
occasions that the animal leaves the water the margin is folded
downward beneath the claws, so as to leave the claws exposed. In
museum-specimens, however, the web is almost invariably shown fully
expanded, as in the accompanying illustration; a condition in which it
would obviously be impossible for the animal to walk on land.
[Illustration]
The most remarkable external feature of the duckbill is undoubtedly
the duck-like, naked beak, pierced with two holes representing the
nostrils. In stuffed specimens, at any rate, this beak is dark-coloured
and horny in consistence, and looks as though it did not belong to the
animal, but in life it is soft and tender. Medium-sized, dark eyes
complete the physiognomy of this strange creature, in which external
ears are wanting.
The internal arrangements of the mouth of the duckbill are scarcely
less curious than the exterior. In early life the mouth is furnished,
both above and below, with three pairs of somewhat quadrangular
cheek-teeth, with raised and cusped margins. Beneath these grow up
certain large horny plates, and about the time that full maturity is
attained the teeth become worn out, and are finally shed, thus leaving
the horny plates as the sole masticating organs.
This replacement of the teeth by horny plates appears to be connected
with the nature of the food, for while in early life the duckbill
appears to subsist mainly on water insects and other comparatively soft
aquatic creatures, later on it takes to feeding almost entirely on
bivalve shells of one particular species; and for crushing the stout
shells of these molluscs it has been suggested that the tough horny
plates are better suited than brittle teeth.
Duckbills, except when in their burrows, pass the greater portion of
their time in the water, selecting quiet pools for their favourite
haunts. In such situations they may be seen on a still evening floating
and diving, and looking more like bottles in the water than anything
else. They obtain their food chiefly by probing in the mud with their
duck-like beaks. The dwelling-chamber of the burrow is situated in the
bank above the water level, but its entrance is below the surface,
although there is also an exit on the land. In the pairing-season the
males, which are armed with a poison-bearing spine on the inside of
each hind-leg, fight fiercely among themselves.
The duckbill, of which there is but a single species, is absolutely
confined to southern and eastern Australia and Tasmania; and its
nearest living relative is the echidna, of which a picture and notice
follow.
THE SPINY ANT-EATER OR ECHIDNA
(_Tachyglossus aculeatus_)
No one who looked at the portrait of the spiny ant-eater for the
first time, and had no knowledge of its anatomy or history, would
be likely to guess that it was a near relative of the duckbill. But
in natural history, when we have to deal with members of different
groups, externals count for very little, and all depends upon internal
organisation. In the latter respect the echidnas, for there is more
than one species, resemble in all essential features the duckbill,
as they do in laying hard-shelled eggs, from which the young are
eventually hatched. The single egg of the echidna, in place of being
laid in a burrow, is, however, carried about by the female in a pouch
developed for the purpose on the under side of her body shortly before
the egg is laid; and in this same temporary pouch the young is likewise
nurtured during the earlier stages of its existence.
The duckbill and the echidna afford an excellent example of the
diversity of appearance produced in animals more or less nearly related
to each other by specialisation and adaptation to totally distinct
modes of life. In the duckbill the specialisation and adaptation are
for an aquatic existence; in the echidna they are for a burrowing,
terrestrial life and a diet of ants.
To an ant-eater teeth of any kind would be not only useless, but an
actual hindrance, and they have accordingly been discarded, while the
muzzle has been prolonged into a decidedly bird-like beak. In this
respect the echidna much resembles the great South American ant-eater,
which belongs to a totally different group of mammals.
To enable it to dig out the nests of the ants which form its chief
food, and likewise to excavate the burrows in which it passes the day,
the echidna is armed with powerful claws, those on the hind-feet being,
however, much larger and more curved than those in front. It is with
these strong hind-claws that the earth loosened by the fore-feet is
thrown out from ants’ nests and the burrow. Like the porcupine, which
is also a nocturnal and a burrowing creature, the echidna has its back
protected with an array of parti-coloured horny spines mingled with
hairs. The degree of development of the spines is, however, subject to
great variation; and there is one race in which the hair predominates,
and the spines appear only in the midst of the dense brown fur. Like
the platypus, the echidna has no external ears.
[Illustration]
The ordinary, or five-toed, echidna has a much more extensive range
than the platypus, occurring, in suitable localities, not only all
over Australia and Tasmania, but likewise in New Guinea. The last-named
island is likewise the home of the much larger three-toed echidna
(_Proechidna bruijnii_), in which the beak is longer, more slender, and
distinctly curved, while the number of the toes on each foot is reduced
to three.
With the commencement of evening the echidna issues forth from the lair
or burrow, in which it has passed the day, in search of food--this
comprising not only ants, both ordinary and white, but likewise such
other insects and their grubs as may be encountered or dug up during
the nocturnal wanderings. Soon after daybreak the creature returns to
its burrow. During the hottest and driest part of the Australian summer
spiny ant-eaters fall into a torpid condition, when they exist for
weeks at a time on no other nourishment but their own fat. In cases of
extreme hunger they are stated to fill their stomachs with sand. At
the end of the dry season, when rain falls and the country resumes its
verdure, the echidnas wake up, and the males relinquish their normally
solitary life and take to themselves partners.
On occasions of danger the echidna has two means of defence--it can
either roll itself up into a ball and present a sphere of spikes to its
enemy, or it can burrow with such rapidity that it actually seems to
sink into the earth as if swimming.
The single egg appears to be conveyed to the pouch by the female in her
mouth, and the parent assists the young echidna, whose muzzle is armed
with a special knob for that purpose, in breaking the shell. Naked and
blind when first hatched, the young one remains in the pouch till its
spines make their appearance, drawing its nutriment from two pores
through which the milk flows. When the young echidna has been turned
adrift in the world to shift for itself, the maternal breeding-pouch
shrivels up, to be re-developed the following year.
As in the case of the platypus, no remains of extinct echidnas are
found anywhere except in the superficial deposits of Australia itself.
Certain teeth from rocks older than the Chalk, both in Europe and
America, may, however, indicate the ancestral stock of the egg-laying
group.
THE BLACK SWAN
(_Cygnus atratus_)
When the old Roman poet penned the well-known line, “Rara avis in
terris, nigroque simillima cygno,”[A] he little imagined that a black
swan was actually living in the then unknown and undreamt-of Antipodes,
to be discovered in the dim and distant future by the sailors of a
little island in the far north inhabited by fair-haired barbarians of
whom he may or may not have heard.
[A] “A rare bird in the world, and most like a black swan.”
The black swan of Australia, from which the Swan River takes its name,
is not perhaps the ideal black swan of the poet, for, as a matter of
fact, it has a good deal of white in its wings, although but little
of this is visible when the wings are closed, as in the illustration.
Moreover, the general colour of the plumage is brownish black, rather
than pure black, while the beak is crimson with a white tip, and
the eyes are scarlet. From all other swans this species differs by
the curling feathers in the region of the shoulder, and the extreme
shortness of the tail. Other distinctive features are to be found in
the compressed body, the long neck, the small, gracefully carried head,
and the absence of a ridge to the beak.
The range of the black swan includes both Australia and Tasmania, where
it is found not only on the coast, but likewise on the rivers and
lakes of the interior. In the earlier days of Australian colonisation
it abounded in many parts of the country; but, unfortunately, it is
a bird by no means shy, and therefore comparatively easy to shoot,
and in consequence of this it has been incessantly and relentlessly
persecuted, even the cygnets, while still unable to fly, being hunted
among the reeds in the swamps and killed out of pure maliciousness. As
a result of this persecution the species has everywhere become scarce,
and from some parts of the country has been exterminated.
During the winter months these swans collect in small parties and
families in South Australia, and return to their breeding-places in
spring. The nest is a huge, ill-built structure, made out of coarse
materials and lined with sedge. It is generally situated in the
neighbourhood of small islands, where the parent birds can readily
collect the large amount of material required for its construction. The
clutch consists of from five to seven dirty white or pale green spotted
eggs, which are brooded with great assiduity by the female, while the
male keeps guard in the neighbourhood. The cygnets are clothed in a
grey or rufous down, and can swim and dive as soon as they are hatched.
The food of both young and adults comprises water-plants of all kinds,
as well as worms, molluscs, and small frogs and fishes.
[Illustration]
The black swan is a noisy species, more especially during the
pairing-season, when it gives vent to loud trumpetings. When doing
so, the neck is stretched out straight along the water, so that the
beak lies close to the surface. At this season the males become very
pugnacious, and fight much among themselves.
It is a beautiful sight to watch a party of these swans swimming on a
still lake or river by moonlight in large circles; but this is exceeded
when the birds mount into the air and reveal the striking contrast
formed by the white of the pinions against the sable of the rest of
the plumage. When flying, these swans stretch out their necks to the
fullest extent, and accompany the loud and regular beat of their wings
with continuous and resounding trumpetings.
The black swan bears captivity well, alike in its own country and in
Europe, being content with small rations and breeding regularly every
season.
The Australian black swan is by no means the only abnormally coloured
member of its tribe inhabiting the Southern Hemisphere, its place in
South America being taken by the black-necked swan (_C. nigricollis_),
which is a native of Chile, Argentina, and some of the other southern
countries. In this handsome species the head and neck are black, and
the remainder of the plumage white; the lores, or bare patches in front
of the eyes, and the basal portion of the beak being red. In its long
and wedge-shaped tail the black-necked swan differs from the black
species and resembles the ordinary European mute swan (_C. olor_),
from which it is structurally distinguished by the scalloped margins
of the webs of the toes. The adults of all swans, except the black and
the black-necked species, are wholly white; the smallest kind is the
coscoroba swan of South America, which is no larger than a goose, and
has been referred to a genus by itself.
THE BUSTARD
(_Otis tarda_)
By the extermination of the bustard, or great bustard, as it is
sometimes called in order to distinguish it from its smaller relatives,
the British Islands have lost one of the finest members of their
bird fauna; and, unfortunately, all attempts to rehabilitate this
magnificent species have resulted in failure. It is to be feared,
moreover, that any such attempts have but little chance of success in
the future, for the bustard is a native of open downs and fallows,
where it must live an undisturbed and untrammelled existence, and in
England at the present day this is almost an impossibility in country
of that description. In this respect the bustard stands at a great
disadvantage in comparison with the capercaillie, whose reintroduction
into the forests of Scotland was a relatively easy matter.
Like those of most polygamous birds, the cocks of the bustard are much
larger than the hens, rivalling full-grown turkeys in the matter of
size; they are also much more attractively coloured, and are furnished
with a quantity of white fluffy plumes, which are only fully displayed
when the birds perform their curious nuptial parade to attract the
hens, although some of them may be seen when two cocks are fighting,
as depicted in the plate. Another peculiarity of the cock is the
possession of a great pouch, communicating with the windpipe, on the
throat, which can be inflated under the influence of excitement.
When the wings are closed and the bird is engaged in feeding or other
normal occupation, the colouring of the body-feathers of the cock
bustard is admirably adapted to harmonise with the generally sandy
or earthy hue of the surroundings. In the case of the hen the whole
plumage is protectively covered. The one feature of the body-plumage
in both sexes which produces such a wonderful harmony between the
colouring and that of the surroundings is the presence of a vast number
of narrow black bars on a rufous buff ground, this type of colouring
not only matching sandy or loamy soil, but likewise aiding to break up
the outline of the bird.
When bustards lived in England their favourite resorts were the
dry, heathy uplands of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the downland of
Cambridgeshire, and the neighbourhood of Royston. At the present day
these splendid birds are still common in many parts of the Continent,
their range including the greater portion of central and southern
Europe and a large extent of central Asia, while in winter it likewise
embraces northern Africa. The steppes of Russia, the plains of the
Danube in its course through Hungary, and the open tracts of central
Asia are the regions where bustards are now to be met with in the
greatest numbers, although large flocks may be seen in parts of Spain.
[Illustration]
Bustards, which associate in large flocks, are essentially birds of the
open country, never entering woods, and preferring elevated ground,
whence they can command a wide view of the plains below, to which they
descend during the daytime in search of food. They are exceedingly shy
and mistrustful, giving every bush in their path a wide berth, lest it
should conceal a lurking foe, and taking to flight on the least alarm.
For warning of the presence of danger they seem to depend mainly upon
sight, although their hearing is also good; on the other hand, their
sense of smell, like that of most birds is but poorly developed. This
excessive shyness renders the bustard a difficult bird to bag, even by
the experienced gunner.
At the commencement of the pairing-season the cocks endeavour to
attract the attention of the hens by their nuptial display. Advancing
towards the latter they ruffle out their feathers like an excited
turkey-cock, at the same time lowering their wings and spreading out
the tail like a fan. The gular pouch is also inflated, so as to make
the neck appear as thick as possible, and the beautiful under feathers
are displayed to the utmost extent, the body and neck being half buried
in a billowy mass of snow-white plumes. It is at this time also that
the cocks rush at one another with trailing wings to contend with beak
and talons for the mastery. On such occasions it is possible to capture
these generally shy birds with the hand.
The nest is generally constructed amid growing corn, the hen merely
scratching a slight hollow in the ground, which she lines with straw,
bents, and grass. The three or four eggs are incubated by the hen
alone, and when the young are hatched, both these and their parents
leave the standing corn only for short periods. At first the young
bustards feed chiefly upon insects and worms, to which they are
directed by the old birds, but later on vegetable substances constitute
almost their sole food. Young peas and cabbage form very favourite
food, but in default of better nutriment grass is largely eaten.
THE SOMALI OSTRICH
(_Struthio molybdophanes_)
Ostriches, which are natives of the deserts and semi-desert plains of
Africa and south-western Asia, cannot possibly be mistaken for any
other birds, and therefore stand in no need of description, although it
may be as well to mention that they are the largest of living birds,
and are absolutely peculiar in having only two toes to each foot, as
well as in the absence of feathers on the thigh. It was at one time
considered that the lack of the power of flight, which characterises
these birds in common with their relatives the rheas of South America,
the emu of Australia, the cassowaries of Austro-Malaya and Australasia,
and the tiny kiwis and rheas of New Zealand, was a primitive feature.
But this is manifestly an erroneous idea, and all these groups are
evidently descended from birds endowed with the power of flight,
their nearest relatives being the tinamus of South America and the
game-birds, with which they agree in the presence of longitudinal light
stripes on the downy dress of the chicks.
Naturalists now recognise four kinds of African ostriches, which,
although generally classed as distinct species, might perhaps be
better regarded as local races of a single specific type. These,
regarded as species, comprise the typical red-legged and red-thighed
North African ostrich (_Struthio camelus_), ranging into Palestine
and Arabia, and laying thickly pitted eggs; the Somali ostrich (_S.
molybdophanes_), characterised by its bluish grey neck and thighs; the
Masai ostrich (_S. masaicus_) of East Africa, with the bare parts red,
the body-plumage of the cocks brownish black in place of black, and the
eggs pitted; and, lastly, the South African _S. australis_, which lays
smooth-shelled eggs and has the neck and thighs light bluish grey. In
the Somali ostrich, which inhabits Somaliland and western Gallaland as
far as the Juba River, the colour of the bare parts of the body may
best be described as grey or slaty blue, while the margins of the beak
and the front surfaces of the lower part of the legs are dull vermilion.
Ostriches are essentially gregarious birds, associating either in small
family parties comprising five or six birds, or in large flocks, which
in East Africa mingle freely with herds of hartebeests, gnus, and
bontequaggas. They require a wide extent of open country, with grass
and, above all, water, of which they drink frequently and copiously.
Although ostriches feed chiefly upon vegetable substances, they
likewise consume worms, insects, molluscs, reptiles, and probably also
small birds and mammals, while in captivity they will swallow almost
anything that is offered them, including nails, keys, and copper coins.
In a state of nature they swallow sand, earth, and small stones, in
order to assist the action of their gizzards.
[Illustration]
The cocks appear to be polygamous, although some doubt has been
expressed as to whether this is really the case; and it seems certain
that several hens lay in the same nest, where as many as thirty eggs
may be laid in a slight hollow in the sand. Incubation is undertaken
by the cock alone, and it is he who looks after the chicks, which he
tends with remarkable care. The chicks when they escape from the eggs
(each of which weighs as much as twenty-four hens’ eggs) are as large
as hens; and, with their bristly feather-quills, are rather suggestive
of two-legged hedgehogs.
Ostriches are extremely shy and remarkably swift birds, so that they
are difficult either to stalk or to ride down. When brought to bay, or
when running loose in captivity, they should be approached with great
caution, as a kick from their strongly clawed feet will prove fatal
to an animal of the size of a jackal, if not also to a human being.
The vision of these giant birds is very strongly developed and capable
of sweeping the country to the distance of at least a mile; and their
senses of hearing and smell are also good, although taste appears to be
practically wanting. Occasionally ostriches indulge in a kind of dance;
and they are also subject, when startled, to sudden collapse, which may
have given rise to the old fable of their burying their heads in the
sand and leaving their bodies exposed.
If allowed sufficient space, ostriches thrive remarkably well in
confinement; and ostrich-farming, for the sake of the lovely white
plumes of the cocks, has become an important industry, not only in
Africa, but in many other parts of the world. Ostrich-farming was
commenced in Algeria, and by 1865 had been introduced in Cape Colony,
whence it has spread northwards, while it has also been established in
Egypt, southern Russia, California, Patagonia, and Argentina. The cocks
are clipped regularly every eight months.
THE PIED HORNBILL
(_Buceros bicornis_)
The hornbills, which are as large as big eagles, are some of the most
extraordinary and bizarre of all birds, not only on account of the
huge beaks from which they take their name, but from their strange and
unique nesting-habits. In the enormous development of the beak these
Old World birds are paralleled by the toucans of tropical America,
although the two groups are in nowise nearly related. Such a huge and
apparently unnecessary structure might at first sight seem too heavy
and bulky for the bird by which it is carried; but internally the
beak is generally a mere delicate tissue of bone, so that its weight
is really very slight. Indeed, these enormous beaks are in most cases
probably much less of an incumbrance to their owners than are the
matinee hats favoured by ladies of the present day.
The pied, or double-horned species, the hornray of the natives,
inhabits the dense forests of the Indo-Malay countries from the
Himalaya and the Indian peninsula to the south of China and Sumatra.
The glossy plumage is mostly black above, with the under-parts, the
neck, the tips of the flight feathers, and the tail feathers more
or less white or whitish, the upper half of the huge beak, with its
horn-like appendage, being reddish yellow, and the lower half yellow.
The total length of the bird, which is the largest member of the
whole group, exceeds a yard. The so-called “horn,” or casque, forms a
more or less flat and oblong platform on the upper part of the beak
and the fore part of the head, terminating in front in two obtuse
corners. On the other hand, the same appendage in the nearly allied
rhinoceros-hornbill, or engan (_Buceros rhinoceros_), is much more
horn-like, as it turns up into a recurved point in front.
The range of the hornbill group includes Africa, India, Malaya,
Celebes, and New Guinea and the neighbouring islands as far as the
Solomon group. The ground-hornbills are solely African, while the
hollow-casqued section has a distribution equivalent to that of the
group. One very remarkable Malay species, the solid-billed hornbill,
the teban-mertua of the Malays (_Rhinoplax vigil_), differs from all
the rest in having the beak and casque solid. This species is much
hunted by the Chinese for the sake of its beak and casque, which have
a structure resembling ivory, and are used as a substitute for that
material in carving; while it is further remarkable for its bare neck
and the elongation of the middle pair of tail feathers.
[Illustration]
The flight of hornbills is heavy and noisy, the swishing sound produced
by the wings being audible at a great distance. The whole body of
these birds is permeated by air-tubes connected with the wind-pipe,
and it is said that the movement of the air in these increases the
noisiness of the flight.
Mountain-forests bordering valleys, and big forests near rivers, are
the favourite haunts of the typical hornbills. Here the great birds
perch in flocks which may number a score in individuals; for hours
together they sit motionless, with the neck drawn back on to the body,
and the body itself pressed down on to the feet.
Their food consists chiefly of the fruits of the trees in which these
birds take up their quarters, the favourite fruit being figs; but in
captivity hornbills will eat fruits of all kinds, as well as animal
food. These birds kill every small creature that comes in the way, and
throw them up in the air before swallowing the body. When perching,
hornbills utter from time to time a loud cry, recalling the bark of a
dog, this changing into a loud scream when they are wounded.
The most remarkable feature connected with the habits of these
birds is, however, connected with their nesting arrangements. As
was first observed in India in 1855 by a military officer devoted
to outdoor natural history, when the female has laid her clutch of
eggs, varying in number from two to half a dozen, in some hole in a
tree and commenced to incubate, the male walls up the entrance to the
apartment with clay, leaving an aperture only just large enough for
her to protrude her beak and receive the food brought regularly by her
hard-working mate. The object of this immuring process is doubtless
to protect the female and her eggs or young from the attacks of
birds-of-prey, or predatory arboreal mammals. Under these circumstances
sanitary matters cannot, of course, be attended to, and the nest-hole,
consequently, soon becomes an evil-smelling mass of abominable filth.
In order that no time may be wasted, the female moults during the
period of her confinement, a process which adds still more to the mess
in the hole. The young, which come forth from the eggs almost naked,
remain in the breeding-hole till they are fully fledged. To reach the
food brought by her partner, the female, at any rate during the early
stages of incubation, has to climb up to the aperture in the wall of
clay.
THE BLUE MACAW
(_Ara cærulea_ or _Ara ararauna_)
The blue, or blue and yellow, macaw, the ararauna of the natives,
is one of the most familiar representatives of a group of tropical
American parrots characterised by their large size, long tails, and
brilliantly coloured plumage, as well as, it may be added, by their
atrociously loud, screaming cries, which render them among the most
objectionable of all birds as pets. In the species forming the subject
of the plate blue and yellow are the predominant hues; yellow, it
is said, being the equivalent among true parrots, in which white is
unknown, to no colour at all. The whole of the under surface and the
sides of the neck are deep orange-yellow, while the upper surface,
inclusive of the tail-coverts, is dark sky-blue. The range of this
species, like that of its relative the green and blue macaw (_Ara
severa_), extends only from Panama southwards through the tropical
forests of the New World. Other kinds are, however, found farther
north, the handsome red and blue species (_A. chloroptera_) and the red
and green macaw (_A. militaris_) extending, for instance, from Mexico
and central America to Bolivia. Four other species, known on account
of their deep blue colouring, as hyacinthine macaws, constituting the
genera _Anodorhynchus_ and _Cyanopsittacus_, are, on the other hand,
solely Brazilian.
Macaws are not only strong fliers, but likewise excellent climbers,
and in the latter mode of progression make use of their powerful beaks
as well as their feet, in captivity, at any rate, frequently hanging
from a branch or perch by the beak alone, which is specially adapted
for obtaining a hold on smooth branches by the sharp downward curvature
of the extremity of its upper half. The food of these birds includes
fruits and seeds, especially hard nuts of various kinds, which are
cracked in the strong beak as if in a vice. When the fruits or nuts are
large, they are held to the beak in one foot. The thick, fleshy tongue
aids in extracting the inside of fruits from the rind, or the kernels
of nuts from their shells.
[Illustration]
All macaws are essentially birds of the great primeval forests of
tropical America, the blue and yellow species being especially abundant
in those of northern Brazil. During the hottest hours of the day these
birds sit quietly perched on the lower branches of thick-foliaged
trees, the long tail hanging straight down, and the neck being drawn
in. After resting for several hours, they issue forth in search of
food; and a flock of these magnificent birds on the wing in the clear
air of the tropics is a truly splendid sight, as they fly slowly to
and from their feeding-places. Having selected a likely looking tree,
the whole flock descend with a rush, and proceed to strip it of its
fruit. Quickly each bird climbs out to the end of a branch and sets to
work at cracking nuts, or devouring softer fruit. When such a flock
of araraunas is feasting, little is seen of the birds themselves, but
their presence is amply manifested by their incessant and discordant
cries and screams. If a shot be fired in the neighbourhood, the whole
flock rises immediately in a gold and azure cloud. Macaws of all kinds
constantly make raids on cultivated crops, where, unless promptly
driven off, they do incalculable damage in a surprisingly short space
of time, cocoa being one of the crops to which they are specially
partial.
As is the case with all members of the parrot tribe, the union between
the sexes of the ararauna is very close: the two members of a pair are
thorough comrades, and live only for themselves and their offspring.
At the pairing-season each couple of the older birds resorts to the
same spot, and often to the same tree, as has served them previously
as a breeding-place. For the nest a tall tree is always selected, and
a slit in the trunk or a hollow in one of the branches is enlarged
by means of the powerful beak until a cavity large enough to contain
the nest is excavated. In this chamber the female ararauna deposits a
couple of white eggs of nearly the same size as those of a domesticated
hen, afterwards incubating them with great assiduity, her long tail
projecting all the time out of the hole, and thus revealing the
situation of the nest.
Tame araraunas and other macaws are much esteemed by the Indians
of Brazil and other South American countries. These dwell on the
properties of their owners, and fly off to feed in the fields, just
in the same manner as domesticated pigeons in Europe. They form the
ornaments of the Indian poultry-yard.
In captivity in Europe macaws thrive well, and can be taught to speak,
although they never turn out such good linguists as many other members
of the parrot tribe.
THE MANDARIN DUCK
(_Æx galerita_)
The male of the mandarin duck--the mandarin drake, as it should
properly be called--looks so essentially Chinese that one would almost
intuitively guess that it came from China. Nevertheless, it has a
near relative, and the only other member of the same genus, in North
America, where it is represented by the summer duck (_Æx sponsa_). In
this distribution these painted ducks, as they have not inaptly been
called, resemble several other groups of animals, such as the true
alligators (_Alligator_) and the spoonbeaked sturgeons (_Polyodon_ and
_Psephurus_), each of which has one North American and one Chinese
species, although the American and Asiatic spoonbeaked sturgeons are
referred to separate genera.
Ducks, it may be mentioned, are divided into two distinct
sections--namely, the swimming ducks and the diving ducks; the mandarin
duck and its American relative belonging to the former section, of
which they form a special group, characterised by the ornate plumage of
the drakes, and particularly by the broad ornamental feathers on the
shoulders and the elongated plumes on the head, which form a kind of
helmet, with a large flange extending backwards over the neck.
The mandarin drake is specially distinguished from the male of the
summer duck by possessing a ruff on the neck formed of elongated,
narrow, chestnut feathers streaked with whitish, and a chestnut and
black “fan” rising up in a kind of tiger’s-claw shape on each side of
the hind end of the body, and mainly formed by the broad innermost
secondary feather of the wing; the helmet being copper-coloured,
purple, and green, and separated by a broad white band enclosing the
eye from the chestnut throat-ruff, while the beak is reddish brown. The
other details of colour and pattern are sufficiently apparent in the
illustration.
This gorgeous breeding-livery is, however, worn only during a portion
of the year. For four months--namely, from June till September--the
mandarin drake is a very ordinary-looking bird, clothed in a greyish
dress, which in autumn gives place, by a second moult, to the
breeding-livery, the latter lasting till the following summer. When the
drake is in the non-breeding plumage, it is mainly distinguishable from
the duck by its somewhat superior size. The colour of the female is
chiefly grey, relieved with brown and white.
The distributional area of the mandarin duck includes northern China,
Japan, and Amurland; but the species appears to be nowhere common,
and in most districts is decidedly rare. In China these ducks, which
are regarded as semi-sacred birds, are highly valued, and are kept in
cages.
[Illustration]
Unlike the majority of the duck tribe, both the mandarin and the summer
duck are in the habit of perching on the branches of trees, and make
their nests in holes either in the branches or trunk. In this perching
habit they resemble the tree-ducks of the genus _Dendrocycna_. After
lining the hole with a plentiful supply of feathers, down, and other
soft material, the female lays a clutch of from seven to fifteen eggs.
These she incubates herself, carefully covering them up with down every
time she leaves the nest; and she likewise takes sole charge of the
ducklings, from the time they are hatched till they are able to shift
for themselves. When, as is frequently the case, the nest is situated
over water, the ducklings throw themselves down into the water very
soon after they are hatched, but in other instances they are carried in
the beaks of their parents, as is the case with those of the ordinary
wild duck when the nest is built above the level of the ground.
The food of these ducks, like that of many other members of the
tribe, includes insects, worms, water-snails, young frogs, and other
water-animals, together with the leaves and young shoots of various
kinds of water-plants.
The mandarin duck is an active and untiring bird, moving quickly on
the ground, and flying easily and rapidly into trees, where it flits
from bough to bough with the ease and assurance of a wood-pigeon. It
lives and breeds well in confinement, and may be seen in nearly all
zoological gardens, as well as on many ornamental waters.
In the summer duck, which is a native of North America and Cuba, but
occasionally wanders to Jamaica and the Bermudas, the colour of the
upper-parts of the male in the breeding-dress is chiefly glossy green,
with the cheeks purple, and black patches on the neck, and white
stripes on both the head and neck. The wing-coverts are partly blue,
the flanks are brown, black, and white, while the breast is chestnut
spotted with white, and the rest of the under-parts white; the beak
being a mixture of black, white, purplish, yellow, and scarlet, and the
feet yellow.
THE HERON
(_Ardea cinerea_)
The heron, or common or grey heron, as it is frequently called in order
to distinguish it from its relatives, has fortunately not shared the
fate of the bittern, and is still more or less common in many parts of
Great Britain, where it may be seen at all hours of the day standing
mid-leg deep in some stream patiently awaiting the next passing fish.
Its gregarious habits and the protection accorded to many of the
ancient heronries in various parts of the country doubtless account for
the survival among us of this handsome, albeit thin and ill-favoured,
grey bird. Nevertheless, on account of its fish-eating habits, the
heron has many enemies, and is relentlessly persecuted in certain
districts, especially by those connected with fisheries. Recently,
however, efforts have been made to check this persecution; and in East
Sussex, where there are no trout-hatcheries, these birds are protected
throughout the year.
Although, as just mentioned, herons may be seen fishing at all hours of
the day, they are chiefly nocturnal birds, and thus the very opposite
of the kingfisher, which always captures its prey by daylight. When
a heron sees a fish within reach, it strikes with unerring aim like
a flash of lightning, and usually seizes its victim crosswise in its
spear-like beak. In the case of larger fish, it is stated, however, to
attack them by stabbing in the back--a mode of attack from which such
fish, although mortally wounded, generally manage to escape. Of those
fish which are seized crosswise in the beak, the larger ones are first
beaten to death, after which they are swallowed head-foremost. When
a successful lunge has been made, the heron resumes its motionless,
watchful pose, confident that, although scared away for a time, the
fish will soon return.
As the heron is a most voracious bird, consuming, it is affirmed,
fully its own weight of food in a day, and as this food consists
chiefly of fish, anglers, it must be confessed, have some excuse for
the detestation with which they regard the species. Nevertheless,
the heron does some good, as it also consumes a number of snakes and
frogs, as well as water-rats. In addition to the above, herons also eat
river-mussels, insects, worms, and probably also young birds.
The geographical distribution of the heron is very extensive,
comprising most of the countries of the Old World, although the
bird visits some of these only during certain parts of the year. In
the north of Europe, for example, herons are migratory, travelling
southwards to Africa in parties of as many as fifty individuals in
October, and not returning till the following March or April. All
streams and pieces of water in the neighbourhood of forests, or at
least where a certain number of large trees are to be found, may
serve as the fishing-resorts of the heron.
[Illustration]
Herons build in large colonies, or heronries, which may contain from
about fifteen to as many as four hundred nests. Formerly there were
a great number of English heronries, especially in Lincolnshire, but
many of these, like the well-known large one near Spalding, have been
broken up. Many, however, still remain, and a new one has been recently
established near Lewes. One of the largest English heronries was that
of Bride, near Rye, in Sussex, which in 1860 contained as many as four
hundred nests, although by 1880 there were barely a couple of hundred.
Now, owing to the felling of some of the trees, this magnificent
heronry has ceased to exist.
The nest is a large, rude structure of dry sticks and reeds, lined with
hair, wool, and feathers, in which the female lays her three or four
large green eggs. The young remain in the nest, or nesting-platform
as it might well be called, until fully fledged, and are remarkably
voracious. Putrefying fish cover the edge of the nest, as well as the
ground below, and poison the air with their smell. The parents attend
to their offspring for a few days after the latter leave the nest; but
at the end of this period old and young part company.
If the nest be attacked, the parents suffer their eggs or young to be
carried off, without doing more than opening their beaks and uttering
mournful cries, although in many cases a single blow from the beak
would suffice to slay the spoiler.
Heron-hawking was in former days a favourite sport of the nobles all
over Europe. The falcon, usually the peregrine, always endeavoured to
get above the heron, when, after the delivery of a successful attack,
both birds fell together headlong to the ground. As a rule, the
ornamental feathers--at one time highly esteemed--were plucked from the
heron, which was then set at liberty.
On account of the damage it does to fisheries, the heron is even more
persecuted on the Continent than in Great Britain; and is shot whenever
an opportunity occurs, except in protected breeding-places.
THE GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER
(_Dendrocopus major_)
It is not a little remarkable that such nearly allied birds as the
great green woodpecker, or yaffle, and the two kinds of pied or
spotted woodpeckers should present such remarkable diversity in the
matter of colouring; the former being mainly olive-yellow with a
red skull-cap in both sexes, while the other two are pied above and
chiefly white below, with a red band at the back of the head of the
cock alone. A third group is represented by the great black woodpecker,
which is wholly sable, with an ivory-white beak. The difference in
the matter of colouring between the green and the pied species is
probably due to their different habits, the former being to a great
extent a ground-bird, fond of frequenting lawns and meadows near
woods for the purpose of digging up ants’ nests, while the other two
are almost completely arboreal. In the dappled shade cast by the
leaves--especially those of pines--on the trunks of trees, these pied
birds are comparatively inconspicuous; while among grass of moderate
length the green woodpecker is absolutely invisible. It is further
noteworthy that the pied species have most of the under surface of the
body white, whereas in the green woodpecker the same aspect is grey.
To a bird walking on grass a white under surface would certainly be
no protection; but in bright sunshine on the trunk of a tree such a
surface would undoubtedly tend to render the bird inconspicuous, as it
would counteract the effect of the dark shade thrown by the body, in
precisely the same manner as in the case of white-bellied quadrupeds.
Very curious is the fact that while, as already mentioned, the red band
on the back of the pied species occurs in the adult only in the males,
such a band is found in both sexes of the immature birds. This fact,
coupled with the occurrence of a red head in both sexes of the green
species, may be taken as an indication that red on the head was at one
time a feature in all woodpeckers, but that for some reason it has been
discarded in the females of the pied group.
[Illustration]
Woodpeckers present some of the finest examples of the adaptation
of bodily structure to be met with in the whole animal kingdom. The
strong, conical beak is, for example, admirably suited for chiselling
out, by repeated blows of the head, rotten wood in insect-infected
trees, or prising off loose pieces of bark in order that the bird may
be able to get at the insects and other creatures lurking beneath.
Then, again, the short legs and the curious structure of the feet, with
two toes turned forwards and the other backwards, enable these birds
to obtain the most effective foothold on smooth, slippery bark.
Lest, however, the feet should prove ineffectual, the bird is aided
in climbing by its tail, the feathers of which have unusually strong
quills, the tips of these being bare and shiny. When this tail is
pressed firmly against the bark, the stiff tips of the feathers afford
very considerable support to the ascending bird.
The climax in the way of special adaptation is presented, however, by
the woodpecker’s tongue, which, owing to the form and structure of
the supporting bones, can be thrust out a long distance in advance of
the tip of the beak, and is covered with a sticky secretion to which
insects adhere. A similar structure obtains in the tongue of the
wryneck; but there are certain foreign woodpeckers in which that organ
is normal.
By means of its strong beak, the spotted woodpecker chisels out in
the trunk of a tree, where the wood is more or less decayed, both
a sleeping and a nesting hole. A circular entrance leads for some
distance horizontally into the heart of the stem, after which the
hole descends vertically for some way, and then expands into a large
dome-shaped chamber, which serves as a receptacle for the clutch of
three to eight white eggs, these being incubated by the male and female
birds alternately. It is very generally believed that woodpeckers
live entirely upon insects and other invertebrate animals; this,
however, is a mistaken idea, for they likewise eat various kinds of
seeds and berries, as well as nuts and walnuts, which they crack in
nuthatch-fashion. The cry of the pied woodpecker is either a short and
sharp “hi, hi,” or a harsh and resounding “hæ, hæ”; but a more familiar
sound is the tapping on the bark of the stem or larger boughs by the
beak, in order that the bird may ascertain whether the wood beneath
is sound or rotten. Very characteristic is the undulating flight of a
woodpecker, the bird generally dropping suddenly near the end of its
course, so as to alight only a short distance from the root of the
selected tree, up the stem of which it then rapidly climbs.
The larger spotted woodpecker frequents woods with different kinds of
trees; but its special favourites are pines, poplars, and willows.
THE SENEGAL PARROT
(_Pæocephalus senegalus_)
Although the name Senegal parrot, or rather _perroquet de Sénégal_, has
been applied to several distinct members of the parrot tribe, it is
now by general consent restricted to the gorgeously coloured species
forming the subject of the accompanying illustration. In addition to
this name, it has also the titles of orange-bellied long-winged parrot
and black-headed parrot, the first of which is the more distinctive,
although the second is preferable on account of its conciseness.
The black-headed parrot is a native of Senegambia and some of the
countries of the West Coast properly so called, although the exact
limits of its distributional area, which probably extend a considerable
way into the heart of the continent, are still imperfectly known.
This parrot has been a well-known bird in Europe from very early days,
as it was mentioned by Aloysius Cada Mosto so long ago as 1445, and was
again referred to by the naturalist Brisson in the year 1760. Large
numbers of these parrots are at times imported into Europe, especially
to Havre and likewise to Liverpool. At the last-named port immense
consignments used to be received now and then, but as these were for
the most part young birds a very large proportion died soon after their
arrival, especially when purchased singly and separated from their
companions. Such young birds used to be sold at prices ranging upwards
from five or six shillings; but tamed individuals are worth from twenty
to thirty shillings each, while the few specimens that learn to talk
fetch much higher prices.
If caught sufficiently young, these parrots make admirable cage-birds,
as they are strikingly handsome, and fairly hardy. Occasionally they
will lay in captivity, if provided with a suitable nesting-place.
Sometimes they become very tame, although they are always nervous and
excitable birds, uttering when alarmed a curious grating sound, and
when thoroughly terrified giving vent to a shrill, whistling scream
of fear. As a talker, the black-headed species bears, however, no
comparison to the common grey parrot; and it has even been stated
that the former is totally unable to learn to speak, although this is
an error. The adult cock, which is rather larger and handsomer than
his partner, has the head, cheek, and the upper portion of the throat
brownish or blackish grey; the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts are
glossy grass-green, while the wing-quills are olive greenish brown, the
wing-coverts green with brown middles, and the shoulders, together with
the lesser under wing-coverts, yellow. Those portions of the upper
surface not already mentioned, together with the throat and the upper
part of the breast and the whole of the tail-feathers, are bright
grass-green. The remainder of the under surface is yellow, passing into
bright orange-red on the middle of the breast and abdomen, the yellow
likewise embracing the under tail-coverts. The beak is dark horny grey
passing into blackish brown, with the soft “cere” at its base, like the
patch of bare skin round each eye, blackish; while the feet are dark
brown. Bright colour reappears in the iris of the eye, which varies
from sulphur-yellow to dark brown, probably according to age.
[Illustration]
In the hen the head is light brownish grey, the under surface uniformly
yellow without any tinge of orange, while the under tail-coverts are
yellowish green instead of yellow. In size the female may be compared
with a small jackdaw.
As is the case with many other members of its tribe, very little is
known with regard to Senegal parrots in a state of nature. They are
stated, however, to associate in small parties of about half a dozen,
and to take up their quarters, whenever possible, in the tops of the
huge monkey-bread trees, where they reveal their presence by uttering
piercing screams at the approach of an intruder on their domains. In
taking wing, and also when settling after a flight, they are stated
to be somewhat awkward, but when once started they fly as straight
and as swift as arrows. Details are wanting with regard to their
nesting-habits; but, when the young are strong enough to fly, the whole
party takes to wandering about, and then frequently do much damage to
the banana, rice, maize, and other crops. In captivity, at any rate,
the males perform a kind of love-dance at the commencement of the
breeding-season.
The Senegal parrot is the typical representative of a genus, with
rather more than a dozen species, confined to Africa south of the
Sahara. That genus belongs to a subfamily (_Pioninæ_), of which the
more typical representatives, such as _Pionus_ and _Chrysotis_ (Amazon
parrots), are South American.
THE GOLDFINCH
(_Carduelis elegans_)
Properly speaking, the name “goldfinch” ought to be the designation
of the canary, but it was doubtless given to the well-known British
bird long before canaries were thought or heard of in England, and the
former has, therefore, an indefeasible title. And, after all, if the
canary be put aside, the designation is really very suitable to the
goldfinch, referring as it does to the bright golden wing-bar which
distinguishes both sexes from all other British birds. Taking into
consideration the fact that both sexes share the brilliant plumage
characteristic of the species, the goldfinch can lay claim to be the
most brightly coloured perching-bird indigenous to the British Isles
and north-western Europe generally.
To describe the colouring of such a well-known bird would be altogether
superfluous on the present occasion, more especially as it is so
excellently shown in the Plate. It may be remarked, however, that there
is some amount of individual variation in this respect, and that the
development of the red area on the head and of the white spots on all
the tail-feathers is a feature of the adults alone; and it may be added
that in regard to colouring females differ from the males chiefly by
the smaller extent of the red area, which may contain black spots.
To one variation bird-fanciers have given the special name of
“cheverel”; this rare sport, when fully developed, being characterised
by the wholly white chin, and by the white patch on the cheek extending
upwards so as to unite across the back of the head with its fellow of
the opposite side. The brown patch on the breast is likewise replaced
by white. Every kind of variation between a typical goldfinch and the
so-called cheverel may be seen; and it is thus evident that the latter
is merely a partially albinistic phase of the former.
There is an idea, doubtless unfounded, that the cheverel, or chevil, as
it is sometimes called, mates better with the canary, and is likewise
a superior songster; and it is to the latter notion that it owes its
name, which is apparently derived from an old English word _chefle_ or
_chevelen_, signifying to talk idly, or chatter.
The distributional area of the goldfinch extends from the British Isles
to western and central Siberia, beyond which it is replaced by the
grey-headed goldfinch (_Carduelis caniceps_)--a bird with which the
large eastern race of the European species will interbreed. Although
the goldfinch is only a casual visitor to Scotland, in Scandinavia its
breeding-area extends some five degrees farther north than that of its
cousin, the brambling.
[Illustration]
Owing to the estimation in which it is held as a cage-bird, the
goldfinch was almost exterminated from most parts of England some
years ago; but now that bird-nesting has been to a great extent
stopped, the species is gradually recovering its numbers, and may
often be seen on many thistle-covered commons to which it was long
a stranger. In addition to Europe and western and central Asia, the
goldfinch also inhabits northern Africa, while it has been introduced
into New Zealand and Japan.
Its favourite haunts are open lands on the borders of woods,
plantations, fields with trees, parks, and commons and other waste
grounds. Thick forests it studiously avoids.
The food of this bird consists of seeds, more especially those of
thistles and burdocks, as well as those of the birch and the alder. As
a rule, it seeks those on the plants and trees themselves, and not on
the ground; and in picking out the seeds from thistle-heads, it may be
seen hanging head-downwards and in various other graceful attitudes
on the stems. From the nature of its food, the goldfinch is, indeed,
a most valuable bird both to the agriculturist and the gardener, on
whom it confers additional benefits by disturbing insects which take
up their quarters in its food-plants. It is, therefore, worthy of
protection on two grounds--its utility and the beauty of its plumage,
to say nothing of its song.
The nest is a beautifully made structure, nearly resembling that of
the chaffinch, and generally built by the female alone, who is cheered
in her task by the continuous song of the cock. It is frequently built
in gardens, often at no great distance from the house, generally at
a height of from fifteen to twenty feet above the ground, the most
favoured situation being the fork of a bough, in which it is so well
secured that it will retain its place even when the tree is felled. The
four or five black-spotted bluish green eggs are laid by the female in
May, and are hatched in thirteen or fourteen days. The young remain in
the company of their parents for some time after they have left the
nest. In many parts of the Continent goldfinches collect in the autumn
in large flocks, which in winter break up into small parties of from
ten to twenty birds.
THE RAZORBILL OR AUK
(_Alca torda_)
The razorbill, or auk, which, in suitable localities, is one of the
commonest of British sea-birds, has an interest all its own from the
circumstance that it is the nearest living relative of the now extinct
great auk, these two species being, in fact, the sole members of the
genus _Alca_. Both these birds present a considerable superficial
resemblance to the penguins of the Southern Hemisphere; and it seems to
be due to this resemblance that the latter owe their name, for there
appears to be little doubt that the great auk was the true and original
penguin, or pinguin, and that the birds we now know by that name were
so called by the old voyagers on account of their likeness to the
former species. Such resemblance as exists between the two groups is,
however, merely of the most superficial kind, auks being strong fliers,
with feet of normal structure, whereas the wings of penguins serve the
purpose of paddles, and the bones of their feet are quite unlike those
of all other birds.
Auks, in fact, appear to be near relatives of the gulls and terns,
which have assumed, in accordance with their mode of life, a partially
upright position of body. For these birds, in common with guillemots,
very frequently breed on the narrow ledges of cliffs, where it is
obvious that an upright posture affords them greater facilities for
movement and at the same time economises space. In accordance with this
habit, razorbills, in common with other members of the auk tribe, lay
pear-shaped eggs, which cannot well roll off the bare ledges of rock
on which they are often laid. As a rule, each female deposits only
one, relatively large, egg; while no female incubates more than a pair
of these eggs at the same time. Sometimes, in place of a bare ledge,
the egg is laid in a hollow in the rock, or, where the soil is of a
suitable nature, in a hole excavated by the parent bird.
All members of the auk tribe are inhabitants of the cooler portions
of the Northern Hemisphere; their place in the corresponding southern
latitudes being taken by the aforesaid penguins.
[Illustration]
In addition to its remarkable bodily shape, the adult razorbill is
easily recognised by the great lateral compression and subterminal
expansion of the beak, from which the bird derives its ordinary
vernacular name; as well as by the deep groovings and wide band on the
sides of this appendage. The curved white stripe running from just
in front of the eye to the root of the beak is another distinctive
feature of the species; and this, too, in a more or less distinct
form, in birds of all ages, whereas in the young the groovings and
white markings on the beak are wanting. Considerable difference exists
between the summer and winter plumages of the adult birds. In summer
the head and neck are sooty brown, while the back and wings are black
with a greenish gloss; the beak and the rest of the under-parts,
together with a narrow wing-bar, being white. On the other hand, the
winter plumage of the adults, like that of the young in summer, is
browner above, while the sides of the head and the fore portion of the
neck are of the same snowy white as the under-parts of the body.
The razorbill inhabits the coasts on both sides of the North Atlantic,
breeding far up on the Norwegian coast, on those of Iceland and the
Faröe Islands, and on the opposite side of the ocean on the shores of
Newfoundland, Labrador, and Greenland; latitude 70° about marking its
northward breeding range on the American side, while in Europe the
limit is about one degree less. Eastwards the range extends to Jan
Mayen Island; while the southward boundary of the breeding area in
Europe appears to be formed by the Brittany coasts. In great Britain
these birds breed, in suitable localities, all round the coasts,
inclusive of those of the Shetland Islands. These limits do not,
however, by any means indicate the whole range of the species, for
in winter these birds visit the Mediterranean, and occasionally the
Canaries.
Throughout the year razorbills associate in large flocks, although in
autumn the numbers of these colonies are diminished, apparently by a
portion of the birds going out to sea. Bempton Cliffs, on the Yorkshire
coast, form one of their favourite breeding-places, where the birds
congregate in thousands, in company with guillemots, and yield a large
harvest of eggs. The laying season commences about the middle of May,
but is at its height some days later; while eggs and young may be found
together till late in June. By the end of July the birds have for the
most part finished their breeding season, and by the first week in
August nearly all have forsaken the cliffs for the sea, which is their
true home, and on which they often pass the night.
INDEX
Abyssinian Green Monkey, 48.
_Æx galerita_, 90;
_sponsa_, 90.
_Alca torda_, 100.
_Alces machlis_, 8.
_Ammotragus lervia_, 67.
_Ara ararauna_, 88;
_chloroptera_, 88;
_cærulea_, 88;
_militaris_, 88;
_severa_, 88.
_Arctomys bobac_, 72;
_marmotta_, 72;
_monax_, 72.
_Ardea cinerea_, 92.
Auks, 100.
Aurochs, 62.
_Balearica chrysopelargus_, 36;
_gibbericeps_, 36;
_pavonina_, 36;
_regulorum_, 36.
Bears, 22, 52.
Beaver, 70.
Bison, 62.
Bittern, 34.
Black Swan, 80.
Blue Macaw, 88.
Blue Roller, 32.
_Bos bonasus_, 62;
_b. caucasicus_, 62.
_Botaurus stellaris_, 34.
Brown Bear, 52.
_Bubo ignavus_, 40;
_sibiricus_, 40;
_turcomanus_, 40;
_virginianus_, 40.
_Buceros bicornis_, 86;
_rhinoceros_, 86.
Bustard, 82.
_Canis latrans_, 27;
_lupus_, 26;
_l. occidentalis_, 27;
_l. pambasileus_, 26;
_vulpes_, 50;
_v. flavescens_, 51;
_v. fulvus_, 51;
_v. melanogaster_, 50;
_v. montanus_, 50.
Capercaillie, 10.
_Capreolus bedfordi_, 15;
_caprea_, 14;
_manchuricus_, 15;
_pygargus_, 15.
_Carduelis caniceps_, 98;
_elegans_, 98.
Caribou, 17.
_Castor canadensis_, 71;
_fiber_, 70.
_Cercopithecus æthiops_, 48;
_callitrichus_, 48;
_diana_, 48;
_petaurista_, 48;
_sabæus_, 48.
_Cervus elaphus_, 68.
_Cobus coba_, 19;
_defassa_, 18;
_d. penricei_, 18;
_ellipsiprymnus_, 18;
_leche_, 19;
_leucotis_, 19;
_maria_, 19;
_vardoni_, 19.
_Coracias garrulus_, 32;
_indicus_, 32.
Coscoroba Swan, 81.
Cranes, Crowned, 36.
_Cricetus frumentarius_, 74.
Crocodiles, 44.
_Crocodilus niloticus_, 44;
_palustris_, 44;
_porosus_, 44.
Crowned Crane, 36.
_Cygnus atratus_, 80;
_nigricollis_, 81;
_olor_, 81.
_Cynælurus jubatus_, 56.
Deer, 14, 68.
Defassa Waterbuck, 18.
_Dendrocopus major_, 94.
Drill, 25.
Duckbill, 76.
Eagle Owls, 40.
Echidnas, 78.
Elk, 8.
_Felis catus_, 28;
_leo_, 1;
_lynx_, 58;
_l. canadensis_, 59;
_l. cervaria_, 58;
_l. isabellina_, 58;
_l. wardi_, 58;
_ocreata_, 28;
_onca_, 56;
_pardus_, 56;
_p. nanopardus_, 57;
_p. panthera_, 57;
_p. tulliana_, 57;
_p. villosa_, 56;
_serval_, 56;
_tigris longipilis_, 4;
_t. mongolica_, 4;
_t. sondaica_, 4;
_t. virgata_, 4;
_uncia_, 57.
Flamingo, 42.
Fox, 50.
_Gazella arabica_, 64;
_cuvieri_, 64;
_dorcas_, 64.
Gazelles, 64.
Gibbons, 45.
Goldfinch, 98.
Great Horned Owl, 40.
Great Spotted Woodpecker, 94.
Green Monkeys, 48.
Grisly Bear, 53.
Guenons, 48.
Gulls, 38.
_Halichærus grypus_, 7.
Hamster, 74.
Hare, 20.
Heron, 92.
Hornbills, 86.
Horned Owls, 40.
Hulok, 46.
_Hylobates hainanus_, 45;
_hulok_, 45;
_lar_, 45;
_leucogenys_, 47;
_syndactylus_, 45.
Indian Rhinoceros, 60.
Jaguar, 56.
Kafir Crowned Crane, 36.
Kangaroo, 30.
_Larus argentatus_, 38;
_canus_, 38;
_hyperboreus_, 39.
Leopard, 56.
_Lepus europæus_, 20;
_timidus_, 20;
_t. hibernicus_, 20;
_t. scoticus_, 20.
Lion, 1.
Lynx, 58.
Macaws, 88.
_Macropus rufus_, 30.
_Maimon leucophæus_, 25;
_mormon_, 24.
Manchurian Tiger, 4.
Mandarin Duck, 90.
Mandrill, 24.
Mangabeys, 48.
Marmot, 72.
Martens, 54.
Moose, 8.
Mouflon, 66.
_Mustela americana_, 54;
_foina_, 54;
_martes_, 54;
_zibellina_, 54.
Nile Crocodile, 44.
_Ornithorhynchus anatinus_, 76.
Ostriches, 84.
_Otis tarda_, 82.
_Ovis ammon_, 67;
_canadensis_, 67;
_musimon_, 66;
_orientalis_, 67;
_vignei_, 67.
Owls, 40.
Parrot, Senegal, 96.
_Phoca vitulina_, 6.
_Phœnicoaias minor_, 43.
_Phœnicoparrus andinus_, 43;
_jamesi_, 43.
_Phœnicopterus chilensis_, 42;
_roseus_, 42;
_ruber_, 42.
Pied Hornbill, 86.
Pine-Marten, 54.
Platypus, 76.
_Pœocephalus senegalus_, 96.
Polar Bear, 22.
_Proëchidna bruijni_, 79.
_Rangifer tarandus_, 16;
_t. arcticus_, 17;
_t. caribu_, 17;
_t. fennicus_, 17;
_t. novæ-terræ_, 17;
_t. osborni_, 17.
Razorbill, 100.
Red Deer, 68.
Red Kangaroo, 30.
Reindeer, 16.
_Rhinoceros sondaicus_, 60;
_sumatrensis_, 60;
_unicornis_, 60.
Rhinoceroses, 60.
_Rhinoplax vigil_, 86.
_Rissa tridactyla_, 39.
Roe-deer, 14.
Roller, Blue, 32.
_Sciurus vulgaris_, 12;
_v. argenteus_, 13;
_v. leucurus_, 12;
_v. lilæus_, 13;
_v. rutilans_, 12;
_v. sibiricus_, 13;
_v. typicus_, 12.
Seal, 6.
Senegal Parrot, 96.
Silver Gull, 38.
Somali Ostrich, 84.
Spiny Ant-eater, 78.
Squirrel, 12.
_Struthio australis_, 84;
_camelus_, 84;
_masaicus_, 84;
_molybdophanes_, 84.
Swans, 80.
_Tachyglossus aculeatus_, 78.
_Tetrao urogallus_, 10.
Tigers, 4.
_Ursus arctus_, 52;
_a. dalli_, 52;
_a. eulophus_, 53;
_a. gyas_, 52;
_a. isabellinus_, 52;
_a. kidderi_, 53;
_a. lasiotis_, 52;
_a. middendorffi_, 52;
_a. piscator_, 52;
_a. shanorum_, 52;
_a. sitkensis_, 53;
_a. syriacus_, 52;
_horribilis_, 53;
_h. kenaiensis_, 53;
_h. phæonyx_, 53;
_leuconyx_, 53;
_maritimus_, 22.
_Vulpes alopex_, 50.
Waterbuck, 18.
White-handed Gibbon, 45.
Wild Cat, 28.
Wolf, 26.
Wolves, 26.
Woodpeckers, 94.
_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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