habits, never running from man, as does the Chimpanzee. They are
objects of terror to the natives, and are never encountered by them
except on the defensive. The few that have been captured were killed
by elephant-hunters and native traders, as they came suddenly upon
them while passing through the forests.
"It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell,
that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh--ah!
kh--ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at
each expiration, his under-lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy
ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of
indescribable ferocity.
"The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He then
approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in
quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach with his gun
extended; if his aim is not sure he permits the animal to grasp the
barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he
fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of the ordinary
musket, which is thin), is crashed between his teeth and the encounter
soon proves fatal to the hunter.
"In the wild state their habits are in general like those of the
_Troglodytes niger_, building their nests loosely in trees, living
on similar fruits, and changing their place of resort from force of
circumstances."
Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and supplemented by those of
Mr. Ford, who communicated an interesting paper on the Gorilla to the
Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1852. With respect to the
geographical distribution of this greatest of all the man-like Apes,
Mr. Ford remarks:
"This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse the
interior of Guinea from the Cameroon in the north to Angola in the
south, and about one hundred miles inland, and called by the
geographers Crystal Mountains. The limit to which this animal extends,
either north or south, I am unable to define. But that limit is
doubtless some distance north of this river [Gaboon]. I was able to
certify myself of this fact in a late excursion to the head-waters of
the Mooney (Danger) River, which comes into the sea some sixty miles
from this place. I was informed (credibly, I think), that they were
numerous among the mountains in which that river rises, and far north
of that.
"In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am told
by native traders who have visited the coast, between the Gaboon and
that river. Beyond that, I am not informed. This animal is only found
at a distance from the coast in most cases, and, according to my best
information, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the south side of
this river, where they have been found within ten miles of the sea.
This, however, is only of late occurrence. I am informed by some of
the oldest Mpongwe men that formerly he was only found on the sources
of the river, but that at present he may be found within half a day's
walk of its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where
Bushmen alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe
plantations. This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of
information in years past, as the opportunities for receiving a
knowledge of the animal have not been wanting; traders having for one
hundred years frequented this river, and specimens, such as have been
brought here within a year, could not have been exhibited without
having attracted the attention of the most stupid."
One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed one hundred and seventy pounds,
without the thoracic or pelvic viscera, and measured four feet four
inches round the chest. This writer describes so minutely and
graphically the onslaught of the Gorilla--though he does not for a
moment pretend to have witnessed the scene--that I am tempted to give
this part of his paper in full, for comparison with other narratives.
"He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though he
approaches his antagonist in a stooping posture.
"Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or scents a
man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, prepares for an
attack, and always acts on the offensive. The cry he utters resembles
a grunt more than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee
when irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great
distance. His preparation consists in attending the females and young
ones, by whom he is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He,
however, soon returns with his crest erect and projecting forward, his
nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down; at the same time
uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify
his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a well-directed
shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antagonist with the palm of
his hands, or seizing him with a grasp from which there is no escape,
he dashes him upon the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks.
"He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel between
his teeth.... This animal's savage nature is very well shown by the
implacable desperation of a young one that was brought here. It was
taken very young, and kept four months, and many means were used to
tame it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it
died."
[Illustration: HAND OF GORILLA, ORANG, GIBBON, AND CHIMPANZEE.]
SOME STRANGE NURSERIES
(FROM NATURE'S WORKSHOP.)
BY GRANT ALLEN.
[Illustration]
You could hardly find a better rough test of relative development in
the animal (or vegetable) world than the number of young produced and
the care bestowed upon them. The fewer the offspring, the higher the
type. Very low animals turn out thousands of eggs with reckless
profusion; but they let them look after themselves, or be devoured by
enemies, as chance will have it. The higher you go in the scale of
being, the smaller the families, but the greater amount of pains
expended upon the rearing and upbringing of the young. Large broods
mean low organization; small broods imply higher types and more care
in the nurture and education of the offspring. Primitive kinds produce
eggs wholesale, on the off chance that some two or three among them
may perhaps survive an infant mortality of ninety-nine per cent, so as
to replace their parents. Advanced kinds produce half a dozen young,
or less, but bring a large proportion of these on an average up to
years of discretion.
[Illustration: SEA-HORSES.]
Without taking into account insects and such other "small deer,"--to
quote Shakespeare's expression,--this fundamental principle of
population will become at once apparent if we examine merely familiar
instances of back-boned or vertebrate animals. The lowest vertebrates
are clearly the fishes: and the true fishes have almost invariably
gigantic families. A single cod, for example, is said to produce,
roughly speaking, nine million eggs at a birth (I cannot pretend I
have checked this calculation); but supposing they were only a
million, and that one-tenth of those eggs alone ever came to maturity,
there would still be a hundred thousand codfish in the sea this year
for every pair that swam in it last year: and these would increase to
a hundred thousand times that number next year; and so on, till in
four or five years' time the whole sea would be but one solid mass of
closely-packed cod-banks. We can see for ourselves that nothing of the
sort actually occurs--practically speaking, there are about the same
number of cod one year as another. In spite of this enormous
birth-rate, therefore, the cod population is not increasing--it is at
a standstill. What does that imply? Why, that taking one brood and one
year with another, only a pair of cod, roughly speaking, survive to
maturity out of each eight or nine million eggs. The mother cod lays
its millions, in order that two may arrive at the period of spawning.
All the rest get devoured as eggs, or snapped up as young fry, or else
die of starvation, or are otherwise unaccounted for. It seems to us a
wasteful way of replenishing the earth: but it is nature's way; we can
only bow respectfully to her final decision.
Frogs and other amphibians stand higher in the scale of life than
fish; they have acquired legs in place of fins, and lungs instead of
gills; they can hop about on shore with perfect freedom. Now, frogs
still produce a great deal of spawn, as every one knows: but the eggs
in each brood are numbered in their case by hundreds, or at most by a
thousand or two, not by millions as with many fishes. The spawn
hatches out as a rule in ponds, and we have all seen the little black
tadpoles crowding the edges of the water in such innumerable masses
that one would suppose the frogs to be developed from them must cover
the length and breadth of England. Yet what becomes of them all?
Hundreds are destroyed in the early tadpole stage--eaten up or
starved, or crowded out for want of air and space and water: a few
alone survive or develop four legs, and absorb their tails and hop on
shore as tiny froglings. Even then the massacre of the innocents
continues. Only a tithe of those which succeeded in quitting their
native pond ever return to it full grown, to spawn in due time, and
become the parents of further generations.
Lizards and other reptiles make an obvious advance on the frog type;
they lay relatively few eggs, but they begin to care for their young.
The family is not here abandoned at birth, as among frogs, but is
frequently tended and fed and overlooked by the mother. In birds we
have a still higher development of the same marked parental tendency;
only three or four eggs are laid each year, as a rule, and on these
eggs the mother sits, while both parents feed the callow nestlings
till such time as they are able to take care of themselves and pick
up their own living. Among mammals, which stand undoubtedly at the
head of created nature, the lower types, like mice and rabbits, have
frequent broods of many young at a time; but the more advanced groups,
such as the horses, cows, deer, and elephants, have usually one foal
or calf at a birth, and seldom produce more than a couple. Moreover,
in all these higher cases alike, the young are fed with milk by the
mother, and so spared the trouble of providing for themselves in their
early days, like the young codfish or the baby tadpole. Starvation at
the outset is reduced to a minimum.
It is interesting to note, too, that anticipations of higher types, so
to speak, often occur among lower races. An animal here and there
among the simpler forms hits upon some device essentially similar to
that of some higher group with which it is really quite unrelated. For
example, those who have read my account of the common earwig (given in
the sixth chapter of "Flashlights on Nature") will recollect how that
lowly insect sits on her eggs much as a hen does, and brings up her
brood of callow grubs as if they were chickens. In much the same way,
anticipations of the mammalian type occur pretty frequently among
lower animals. Our commonest English lizard, for example, which
frequents moors and sandhills, does not lay or deposit its eggs at
all, but hatches them out in its own body, and so apparently brings
them forth alive: while among snakes, the same habit occurs in the
adder or viper. The very name _viper_, indeed, is a corruption of
_vivipara_, the snake which produces living young. Still more closely
do some birds resemble mammals in the habit of secreting a sort of
milk for the sustenance of their nestlings. Most people think the
phrase "pigeon's milk" is much like the phrase "the horse-marines," a
burlesque name for an absurd and impossible monstrosity. But it is
nothing of the sort: it answers to a real fact in the economy of
certain doves, which eat grain or seeds, grind and digest it in their
own gizzards into a fine soft pulp or porridge, and then feed their
young with it from their crops and beaks. This is thus a sort of
bird-like imitation of milk. Only the cow or the goat takes grass or
leaves, chews, swallows, and digests them, and manufactures from them
in her own body that much more nutritive substance, milk, with which
all mammals feed their infant offspring.
Now, after this rather long preamble, I am going to show you in this
present article a few other examples of special care taken of the
young in certain quarters where it might be least expected. Fish are
not creatures from which we look for marked domestic virtues: yet we
may find them there abundantly. Let us begin with that familiar friend
of our childhood, the common English stickleback.
Which of us cannot look back in youth to the mysteries of the
stickleback fisheries? Captains courageous, we sailed forth with bent
pin and piece of thread, to woo the wily quarry with half an inch of
chopped earthworm. For stickleback abound in every running stream and
pond in England. They are beautiful little creatures, too, when you
come to examine them, great favorites in the fresh-water aquarium; the
male in particular is exquisitely colored, his hues growing brighter
and his sheen more conspicuous at the pairing season. There are many
species of sticklebacks--in England we have three very different
kinds--but all are alike in one point which gives them their common
name, that is to say, in their aggressive and protective prickliness.
They are armed against all comers. The dorsal fin is partly replaced
in the whole family by strong spines or "stickles," which differ in
number in the different species. One of our English sorts is a lover
of salt water: he lives in the sea, especially off the Cornish coast,
and has fifteen stickles or spines; on which account he is commonly
known as the Fifteen-spined Stickleback; our other two sorts belong to
fresher waters, and are known as the Ten-spined and the Three-spined
respectively.
The special peculiarity of the male stickleback consists in the fact
that he is, above all things, a model father. In his acute sense of
parental responsibility he has few equals. When spring comes round, he
first exhibits his consciousness of his coming charge by suddenly
enduing himself in a glowing coat of many colors and of iridescent
brilliancy. That is in order to charm the eyes of the prospective
mate, or rather mates, for I may as well confess the sad truth at once
that our amiable friend is a good parent but an abandoned polygamist.
We all know that
"In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
Not to be out of the fashion, therefore, the romantic stickleback does
precisely the same thing as all these distinguished and poetical
compeers. And he does it for the same reason, too; because he wants to
get himself an appropriate partner. "There is a great deal of human
nature in man," it has been said: I am always inclined to add, "And
there is a great deal of human nature in plants and animals." The more
we know of our dumb relations, the more closely do we realize the
kinship between us. Fish in the spring are like young men at a
fair--all eager for the attention of their prospective partners.
[Illustration: NO. 1. FEMALE STICKLEBACK ABOUT TO ENTER NEST.]
The first care of the male stickleback, when he has acquired his
courting suit, is to build a suitable home for his future wives and
children. So he picks up stems of grass and water-weeds with his
mouth, and weaves them deftly into a compact nest as perfect as a
bird's, though some what different in shape and pattern, it rather
resembles a barrel, open at both ends, as though the bottom were
knocked out: this form is rendered necessary because the eggs, when
laid, have to be constantly aerated by passing a current of water
through the nest as I shall describe hereafter. No. 1 shows us such a
nest when completed, with the female stickleback loitering about
undecided as to whether or not she shall plunge and enter it. You
will observe that the fabric is woven round a fixed support of some
waving water-weeds; but the cunning little architect does not trust in
this matter to his textile skill alone; he cements the straws and
other materials together with a gummy mortar of mucous threads
secreted for the purpose by his internal organs.
[Illustration: NO. 2. FEMALE STICKLEBACK LAYING EGGS IN NEST.]
As soon as the building operations are fully completed, the eager
little householder sallies forth into his pond or brook in search of
a mate who will come and stock his neatly-built home for him. At this
stage of the proceedings, his wedding-garment becomes even more
brilliant and glancing than ever; he gleams in silver and changeful
gems; when he finds his lady-love, he dances round her, "mad with
excitement," as Darwin well phrased it, looking his handsomest and
best with his lustrous colours glistening like an opal. If she will
listen to his suit, he grows wild with delight, and coaxes her into
the nest with most affectionate endearments. In No. 2, as you
perceive, the mate of his choice has been induced to enter, and is
laying her eggs in the dainty home his care has provided for her. The
father fish, meanwhile dances and capers around, in a _pas de
triomphe_ at the success of his endeavors.
One wife, however, does not suffice to fill the nest with eggs; and
the stickleback is a firm believer in the advantages of large
families. So, as soon as his first mate has laid all her spawn, he
sets out once more in search of another. Thus he goes on until the
home is quite full of eggs, bringing back one wife after another, in
proportion to his success in wooing and fighting. For, like almost all
polygamists, your stickleback is a terrible fighter. The males join
wager of battle with one another for possession of their mates; in
their fierce duels they make fearful use of the formidable spines on
their backs, sometimes entirely ripping up and cutting to pieces their
ill-fated adversary. The spines thus answer to the spurs of the
gamecock or the antlers of the deer; they are masculine weapons in the
struggle for mates. Indeed, you may take it for granted that brilliant
colors and decorative adjuncts in animals almost invariably go with
irascible tempers, pugnacious habits, and the practice of fighting for
the possession of the harem. The consequence is, with the
sticklebacks, that many males get killed during the struggle for
supremacy, so that the survivors wed half a dozen wives each, like
little Turks that they are in their watery seraglios. Only the most
beautiful and courageous fish succeed in gaining a harem of their own:
and thus the wager of battle tells in the end for the advantage of the
race, by eliminating the maimed, the ugly, and the cowardly, and
encouraging the strong, the handsome, the enterprising, and the
valiant. This is nature's way of preventing degeneracy.
In No. 3 the nest is seen full of eggs, and the excellent father now
comes out in his best light as their guardian and protector. He
watches over them with ceaseless care, freeing them from parasites,
and warding off the attacks of would-be enemies who desire to devour
them, even though the intruder be several times his own size. The
spines on his back here stand him once more in good stead: for small
as he is, the stickleback is not an antagonist to be lightly despised:
he can inflict a wound which a perch or a trout knows how to estimate
at its full value. But that is not all the good parent's duty. He
takes the eggs out of the nest every now and then with his snout, airs
them a little in the fresh water outside, and then replaces and
rearranges them, so that all may get a fair share of oxygen and may
hatch out about simultaneously. It is this question of oxygen, indeed,
which gives the father fish all the greatest trouble. That necessary
of life is dissolved in water in very small quantities; and it is
absolutely needed by every egg in order to enable it to undergo those
vital changes which we know as hatching. To keep up a due supply of
oxygen, therefore, the father stickleback ungrudgingly devotes
laborious days in poising himself delicately just above the nest, as
you see in No. 3, and fanning the eggs with his fins and tail, so as
to set up a constant current of water through the centre of the
barrel. He sits upon the eggs just as truly as a hen does; only, he
sits upon them, not for warmth, but for aeration.
[Illustration: NO. 3. MALE STICKLEBACK WATCHING EGGS IN NEST.]
For weeks together this exemplary parent continues his monotonous
task, ventilating the spawn many times every day, till the time comes
for hatching. It takes about a month for the eggs to develop: and then
the proud father's position grows more arduous than ever. He has to
rock a thousand cradles at once, so to speak, and to pacify a thousand
crying babies. On the one hand, enemies hover about, trying to eat the
tender transparent glass-like little fry, and these he must drive off:
on the other hand, the good nurse must take care that the active young
fish do not stray far from the nest, and so expose themselves
prematurely to the manifold dangers of the outer world. Till they are
big enough to take care of themselves, he watches with incessant
vigilance over their safety; as soon as they can go forth with
tolerable security upon the world of their brook or pond, he takes a
last well-merited holiday.
It is not surprising under these circumstances to learn that
sticklebacks are successful and increasing animals. Their numbers are
enormous, wherever they get a fair chance in life, because they
multiply rapidly up to the extreme limit of the means of subsistence,
and develop as fast as food remains for them. There the inexorable
Malthusian law at last steps in: when there is not food enough for all
some must starve; that is the long and the short of the great
population question. But while provender is forthcoming they increase
gayly. Sticklebacks live mainly on the spawn of other fish, though
they are so careful of their own, and they are therefore naturally
hated by trout-preservers and owners of fisheries in general.
Thousands and thousands are caught each year; in some places, indeed,
they are so numerous that they are used as manure. It is their
numbers, of course, that make them formidable; they are the locusts of
the streams, well armed and pugnacious, and provided with most
remarkable parental instincts of a protective character, which enables
them to fill up all vacancies in their ranks as fast as they occur
with astonishing promptitude.
To those whose acquaintance with fish is mainly culinary, it may seem
odd to hear that the father stickleback alone takes part in the care
of the nursery. But this is the rule among the whole class of fish;
wherever the young are tended, it is almost always the father, not the
mother, who undertakes the duty of incubation. Only two instances
occur where the female fish assumes maternal functions towards her
young; about these I shall have more to say a little later on. We must
remember that reptiles, birds, and mammals are in all probability
descended from fish as ancestors, and it is therefore clear that the
habit of handing over the care of the young to the female alone
belongs to the higher grades of vertebrates--in other words, is of
later origin. We need not be astonished, therefore, to find that in
many cases among birds and other advanced vertebrates a partial
reversion to the earlier habit not infrequently takes place. With
doves, for example, the cock and hen birds sit equally on the eggs,
taking turns about at the nest; and as for the ostriches, the male
bird there does most of the incubation, for he accepts the whole of
the night duty, and also assists at intervals during the daytime.
There are numerous other cases where the father bird shares the tasks
of the nursery at least equally with the mother. I will glance first,
however, at one of the rare exceptions among fish where the main duty
does not devolve on the devoted father.
[Illustration: NO. 4. FEMALE TUBE-MOUTH.]