idea of the Unicorn to the coarse figures traced by savages on rocks.
Ignorant of perspective, and wishing to present in profile the horned
antelope, they could only give it one horn; and thus originated the
_Oryx_. The oryx of the Egyptian monuments is, most probably, but the
production of a similarly crude style, which the religion of the country
imposed on the artist. Many of the profiles of quadrupeds have only one
leg before and one behind: why, then, should they show two horns? It
is possible that individual animals might be taken in the chase whom
accident had despoiled of one horn, as it often happens to chamois and
the Scythian antelope; and that would suffice to confirm the error which
these pictures originally produced. It is thus, probably, that we find
anew the Unicorn in the mountains of Thibet.
The _Chiru Antelope_ is the supposed Unicorn of the Bhotians. In form
it approaches the deer; the horns are exceedingly long, are placed
very forward in the head, and may be popularly described as erect and
straight. It is usually found in herds, and is extremely wild, and
unapproachable by man. It is much addicted to salt in summer, when vast
herds are often seen at the rock-salt beds which abound in Tibet. They
are said to advance under the conduct of a leader, and to post sentinels
around the beds before they attempt to feed.
Major Salter is stated to have obtained information of the existence of
an animal in Tibet closely resembling the Unicorn of the ancients, which
revived the belief of naturalists by adducing testimonies from Oriental
writings. Upon this statement, M. Klaproth remarks, that previous to
Major Salter's Reports, the Catholic missionaries, who returned to
Europe from China by way of Tibet and Nepal, in the seventeenth century,
mentioned that the Unicorn was found in that part of the Great Desert
which bounds China to the west, where they crossed the great wall; that
Captain Turner, when travelling in Tibet, was informed by the Raja of
Boutan that he had one of these animals alive; and that Bell, in his
"Travels to Peking," describes a Unicorn which was found on the southern
front of Siberia. He adds:--"The great 'Tibetan-Mongol Dictionary'
mentions the Unicorn; and the 'Geographical Dictionary of Tibet and
Central Asia,' printed at Peking, where it describes a district in the
province of Kham, in Tibet, named Sera-zeong, explains this name by 'the
River of Unicorns,' because," adds the author, "many of these animals
are found there."
In the "History of the Mongol-Khans," published and translated at St.
Petersburg, we find the following statement:--Genghiz Khan, having
subjected all Tibet in 1206, commenced his march for Hindustan. As he
ascended Mount Jadanarung, he beheld a beast approaching him of the
deer kind, of the species called _Seron_, which have a single horn at
the top of the head. It fell on its knees thrice before the monarch, as
if to pay respect to him. Every one was astonished at this incident.
The monarch exclaimed. "The Empire of Hindustan is, we are assured, the
country where are born the majestic Buddhas and Bodhisatwas, as well as
the potent Bogdas and princes of antiquity: what can be the meaning,
then, of this animal, incapable of speech, saluting me like a man?"
Upon this, he returned to his own country. "This story," continues M.
Klaproth, "is also related by Mahommedan authors who have written the
life of Genghiz. Something of the kind must, therefore, have taken
place. Possibly, some of the Mongol conqueror's suite may have taken a
Unicorn, which Genghiz thus employed, to gain a pretext for abstaining
from an expedition which promised no success."
Upon this statement, it was observed in the "Asiatic Register," 1839,
that "when we consider that seventeen years have elapsed since the
account of Major Salter was given, and that, notwithstanding our
increased opportunities of intercourse with Tibet, no fact has since
transpired which supplies a confirmation of that account, except
the obtaining of a supposed horn of the supposed Unicorn, we cannot
participate in these renewed hopes."
The Rev. John Campbell, in his "Travels in South Africa," describes the
head of another animal, which, as far as the horn is concerned, seems
to approach nearer than the common rhinoceros to the Unicorn of the
ancients. While in the Machow territory, the Hottentots brought to Mr.
Campbell a head differing from that of any rhinoceros that had been
previously killed. "The common African rhinoceros has a crooked horn,
resembling a cock's spur, which rises about nine or ten inches above
the nose, and inclines backward; immediately behind which is a straight
thick horn. But the head brought by the Hottentots had a straight horn
projecting three feet from the forehead, about ten inches above the tip
of the nose. The projection of this great horn very much resembles that
of the fanciful Unicorn in the British arms. It has a small thick horny
substance, eight inches long, immediately behind it, which can hardly
be observed on the animal at the distance of a hundred yards; so that
this species must look like an Unicorn (in the sense 'one-horned') when
running in the field." The author adds:--"This animal is considered
by naturalists, since the arrival of the above skull in London, to be
the Unicorn of the ancients, and the same that is described in Job
xxxix. 9--'Will the Unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy
crib? 10. Canst thou bind the Unicorn with his band in the furrow? or
will he harrow the valleys after thee? 11. Wilt thou trust him because
his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?' Again,
Deuteronomy xxxiii. 17--'His horns are like the horns of Unicorns: with
them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth.'"
A fragment of the skull, with the horn, is deposited in the Museum of
the London Missionary Society.
Mr. W. B. Baikie writes to the _Athenæum_ from Bida Núpe, Central
Africa, in 1862, the following suggestions:--"When I ascended the Niger,
now nearly five years ago, I frequently heard allusions to an animal
of this nature, but at that time I set it down as a myth. Since then,
however, the amount of testimony I have received, and the universal
belief of the natives of all the countries which I have hitherto
visited, have partly shaken my scepticism, and at present I simply
hold that its non-existence is not proven. A skull of this animal is
said to be preserved in a town in the country of Bonú, through which
I hope to pass in the course of a few weeks, when I shall make every
possible inquiry. Two among my informants have repeatedly declared to me
that they have seen the bones of this animal, and each made particular
mention of the long, straight, or nearly straight, black horn. In
countries to the east, and south-east, as Márgi and Bagirmi, where the
one-horned rhinoceros is found, the hunters carefully distinguished
between it and the supposed Unicorn, and give them different names. In
the vast forests and boundless wastes which occur over Central Africa,
especially towards the countries south and east of Lake Tsád, Bórnú,
Bagirmi and Adamáwa, are doubtless numerous zoological curiosities as
yet unknown to the man of science, and among them possibly may exist
this much-talked-of, strange, one-horned animal, even though it may not
exactly correspond with our typical English Unicorn."
The factitious horn has been preserved in various Museums. The "Monocero
Horn," in Tradescant's collection, was, probably, that which ordinarily
has passed for the horn of the Unicorn, namely, the tooth of a narwhal.
Old legends assert that the Unicorn, when he goes to drink, first dips
his horn in the water to purify it, and that other beasts delay to
quench their thirst till the Unicorn has thus sweetened the water. The
narwhal's tooth makes a capital twisted Unicorn's horn, as represented
in the old figures. That in the Repository of St. Denis, at Paris, was
presented by Thevet, and was declared to have been given to him by
the King of Monomotapa, who took him out to hunt Unicorns, which are
frequent in that country. Some have thought that this horn was a carved
elephant's tooth. There is one at Strasburg, some seven or eight feet in
length, and there are several in Venice.
Great medical virtues were attributed to the so-called horn, and the
price it once bore outdoes everything in the _Tulipomania_. A Florentine
physician has recorded that a pound of it (sixteen ounces) was sold
in the shops for fifteen hundred and thirty-six crowns, when the same
weight in gold would only have brought one hundred and forty-eight
crowns.
From what source we derive the stories of the animosity between the
lion and the Unicorn is not clearly understood, although this is the
principal medium through which the fabulous creature has been kept in
remembrance by being constantly before us in the Royal Arms, which
were settled at the Accession of George I. We owe the introduction of
the Unicorn, however, to James I., who, as King of Scotland, bore two
Unicorns, and coupled one with the English lion, when the two kingdoms
were united.
The position of the lion and Unicorn in the arms of our country seems to
have given rise (naturally enough in the mind of one who was ignorant of
heraldic decoration) to a nursery rhyme which most of us remember:--
"The Lion and the Unicorn
Were fighting for the crown;
The Lion beat the Unicorn
All round the town," &c.
unless it alludes to a contest for dominion over the brute creation,
which the "rebellious Unicorn," as Spenser calls it, seems to have waged
with the tawny monarch.
Spenser, in his "Faerie Queen," gives the following curious way of
catching the Unicorn:--
"Like as a lyon, whose imperiall powre,
A prowd rebellious Unicorn defyes,
T'avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre
Of his fiers foe, him a tree applyes,
And when him rousing in full course he spyes,
He slips aside; the whiles that furious beast
His precious home, sought of his enemyes,
Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast.
But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."
Shakspeare, also ("Julius Cæsar," Act ii. scene 1), speaks of the
supposed mode of entrapping them:--
"For he loves to hear
That Unicorns may be betrayed with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers."
We have no satisfactory reason for believing that man ever coexisted
with Mastodons; otherwise Professor Owen's discovery of the retention of
a single tusk only by the male gigantic Mastodon, might have afforded
another form of Unicorn.
Whatever the zoologists may have done towards extirpating the belief
in the existence of the Unicorn, it is ever kept in sight by heraldry,
which, with its animal absurdities, has contributed more to the
propagation of error respecting the natural world than any other species
of misrepresentation.
THE MOLE AT HOME.
The Mole, though generally a despised and persecuted animal, is
nevertheless useful to the husbandman in being the natural drainer of
his land and destroyer of worms. To other inferior animals he is a
sapper and miner, forming for them their safe retreats and well-secured
dormitories.
The economy of the Mole has been much controverted among naturalists.
It is found throughout the greater part of Europe. We are overrun with
it in most parts of England and Wales; but it does not appear to have
been found in the northern extremity of Scotland, and there is no record
of its having been seen in the Orkney Isles, Zetland, or Ireland. Its
most diligent and instructive historian is Henri Le Court, who, flying
from the terrors that came in the train of the French Revolution,
betook himself to the country, and from being the attendant on a Court,
became the biographer of this humble animal. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
the celebrated French naturalist, visited Le Court for the purpose
of testing his observations, and appears to have been charmed by the
facility and ingenuity with which Le Court traced and demonstrated the
subterraneous labours of this obscure worker in the dark.
We shall first briefly describe the adaptation of its structure to its
habits. The bony framework is set in motion by very powerful muscles,
those of the chest and neck being most vigorous. The wide hand, which is
the great instrument of action, and performs the offices of a pickaxe
and shovel, is sharp-edged on its lower margin, and when clothed with
the integuments the fingers are hardly distinguishable. The muzzle of
the Mole is evidently a delicate organ of touch, as are also the large
and broad hands and feet; and the tail has much sensitiveness to give
notice to the animal of the approach of any attack from behind. Its
taste and smell, especially the latter, are very sensitive. Its sight
is almost rudimentary. The little eye is so hidden in the fur that its
very existence was for a long time doubted. It appears to be designed
for operating only as a warning to the animal on its emerging into the
light; indeed, more acute vision would only have been an encumbrance.
If the sight be imperfect, the sense of hearing is very acute, and the
tympanum very large, though there is no external ear, perhaps because
the earth assists considerably in vibration. The fore-feet are inclined
sideways, so as to answer the use of hands, to scoop out the earth to
form its habitation or pursue its prey, and to fling all the loose soil
behind the animal. The breastbone in shape resembles a ploughshare.
The skin is so tough as only to be cut by a very sharp knife. The hair
is very short and close-set, and softer than the finest silk; colour
black; some spotted and cream-coloured. This hair is yielding; had it
been strong, as in the rat or mouse, it would doubly have retarded the
progress of the creature; first by its resistance, and then acting as a
brush, so as to choke up the galleries, by removing the loose earth from
the sides and ceilings of the galleries.
It is supposed that the verdant circles so often seen in grass ground,
called by country people _fairy rings_, are owing to the operations of
Moles: at certain seasons they perform their burrowings in circles,
which, loosening the soil, gives the surface a greater fertility and
rankness of grass than the other parts within or without the ring. The
larger mole-hills denote the nests or dens of the Mole beneath.
The feeling of the Mole is so acute that when casting up the earth, it
is sensible of very gentle pressure; hence mole-catchers tread lightly
when in quest of Moles; and unless this caution is used the Mole ceases
its operation, and instantly retires. Again, so acute is the smell, that
mole-catchers draw the body of a captured Mole through their traps and
the adjoining runs and passages to remove all suspicious odours which
might arise from the touch of their fingers.
During summer the Mole runs in search of snails and worms in the
night-time among the grass, which pursuit makes it the prey of owls. The
Mole shows great art in skinning a worm, which it always does before it
eats it, by stripping the skin from end to end, and squeezing out the
contents of the body. It is doubtful whether any other animal exists
which is obliged to eat at such short intervals as the Mole, ten or
twelve hours appearing to be the maximum of its fasting; at the end
of that time it dies. Cuvier tells us that if two Moles are shut up
together without food, there will shortly be nothing left of the weakest
but its skin, slit along the belly! Buffon accuses Moles of eating all
the acorns of a newly-set soil. Its voracity makes the Mole a great
drinker: a run is always formed to a pond or ditch as a reservoir; when
it is too distant, the animal sinks little wells, which have sometimes
been seen brimfull.
We now return to Le Court's experiments with Moles, which are very
interesting. To afford proof of the rapidity with which the Mole will
travel along its passages, Le Court watched his opportunity, and when
the animal was on its feed at one of the most distant points from its
sanctuary or fortress, to which point the Mole's high road leads. Le
Court placed along the course of that road, between the animal and
the fortress, several little camp colours, so to speak, the staff of
each being a straw, and the flag a bit of paper, at certain distances,
the straws penetrating down into the passage. Near the end of this
subterraneous road he inserted a horn, the mouthpiece of which stood
out of the ground. When all was ready, Le Court blew a blast loud enough
to frighten all the Moles within hearing. Down went the little flags in
succession with astonishing velocity, as the terrified Mole, rushing
along towards his sanctuary, came in contact with the flag-straws; and
the spectators affirmed that the Mole's swiftness was equal to the speed
of a horse at a good round trot.
To test its amount of vision, Le Court took a spare water-pipe, or
gutter, open at both ends. Into this pipe he introduced several Moles
successively. Geoffroy St. Hilaire stood by to watch the result at the
further end of the tube. As long as the spectators stood motionless the
introduced Mole made the best of his way through the pipe and escaped;
but if they moved, or even raised a finger, the Mole stopped, and then
retreated. Several repetitions of this experiment produced the same
results.
In the domain of the Mole, the principal point is the habitation, or
fortress, constructed under a considerable hillock raised in some secure
place, often at the root of a tree, or under a bank. The dome of the
fortress is of earth, beaten by the Mole-architect into a compact and
solid state. Inside is formed a circular gallery at the base, which
communicates with a smaller upper gallery by means of five passages.
Within the lower gallery is the chamber or dormitory, which has access
to the upper gallery by three passages. From this habitation extends
the high road by which the proprietor reaches the opposite end of
the encampment; the galleries open into this road, which the Mole is
continually carrying out and extending in his search for food; this has
been termed the _hunting-ground_. Another road extends, first downwards,
and then up into the open road of the territory. Some eight or nine
other passages open out from the external circular gallery. From the
habitation a road is carried out, nearly straight, and connected with
the encampment and the alleys leading to the hunting-ground which open
into it on each side. In diameter the road exceeds the body of a Mole,
but its size will not admit of two Moles passing each other. The walls,
from the repeated pressure of the animal's sides, become smooth and
compact. Sometimes a Mole will lay out a second or even a third road; or
several individuals use one road in common, though they never trespass
on each other's hunting-grounds.
If two Moles should happen to meet in the same road, one must retreat
into the nearest alley, unless they fight, when the weakest is often
slain. In forming this tunnel the Mole's instinct drives it at a
greater or less depth, according to the quality of the soil, or other
circumstances. When it is carried under a road or stream, a foot and
a-half of earth, or sometimes more, is left above it. Then does the
little engineering Mole carry on the subterraneous works necessary for
his support, travelling, and comfort; and his tunnels never fall in.
The quality or humidity of the soils which regulates the abundance of
earth-worms, determines the greater or less depth of the alleys; and
when these are filled with stores of food the Mole works out branch
alleys.
The main road communicating with the hunting-grounds is of necessity
passed through in the course of the day; and here the mole-catcher sets
his traps to intercept the Mole between his habitation and the alley
where he is carrying on his labours. Some mole-catchers will tell you
the hours when the Moles move are nine and four; others that near the
coast their movements are influenced by the tides. Besides the various
traps which are set for Moles, they are sometimes taken by a man and a
dog; when the latter indicates the presence of a Mole, the man spears
the animal out as it moves in its run. Pointers will stop as steadily as
at game, at the Moles, when they are straying on the surface.
The Mole is a most voracious animal. Earthworms and the larvæ of insects
are its favourite food; and it will eat mice, lizards, frogs, and even
birds; but it rejects toads, even when pressed by hunger, deterred,
probably, by the acrid secretions of their skin. Moles are essentially
carnivorous; and when fed abundantly on vegetable substances they have
died of hunger.
During the season of love, at which time fierce battles are fought
between the males, the male pursues the female with ardour through
numerous runs wrought out with great rapidity. The attachment appears
to be very strong in the Moles. Le Court often found a female taken in
his trap and a male lying dead close to her. From four to five is the
general number of young. The nest is distinct, usually distant from the
habitation. It is constructed by enlarging and excavating the point
where three or four passages intersect each other; and the bed of the
nest is formed of a mass of young grass, root fibres, and herbage. In
one nest Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Le Court counted two hundred and four
young wheat-blades.
M. St. Hilaire describes the pairings, or as he calls it, "the loves of
the Moles." As soon as the Mole has finished the galleries he brings his
mate along with him, and shuts her up in the bridal gallery, taking care
to prevent the entrance of his rivals: in case of a fight they enlarge
the part of the gallery where they are met; and the victory is decided
in favour of him who first wounds his adversary before the ear. The
female, during the fight, is shut up in the bridal gallery, so as to be
unable to escape; for which purpose, however, she uses all her resources
in digging, and attempts to get away by the side passages. Should she
succeed the conqueror hastens to rejoin his faithless mate, and to
bring her back into his galleries. This manoeuvre is repeated as often
as other males enter the lists. At length the conqueror is recognised,
and his mate becomes more docile. The pair work together and finish the
galleries; after which the female digs alone for food. As soon as the
galleries are formed, the male conducts his mate to a certain point, and
from this time the female no longer digs in the solid earth, but towards
the surface, advancing by merely separating the roots of the grass.
The Mole is a great friend to the farmer; but there are places in which
he is a public enemy. He is not a vegetable feeder, and he never roots
up the growing corn in spring-time, except when he is after grubs,
snails, and wire-worms. It has been calculated that two Moles destroy
20,000 white worms in a year. He is very destructive to under drains;
and where the land is low we are in danger of a deluge from his piercing
holes in the drain-banks. Thus it would be madness not to extirpate
Moles in those places where the waters, in drains or rivers, are above
the level of the lands around, especially when the banks are made of
sand or earth of loose texture.
The persecution of Moles in cultivated countries amounts almost to a
war of extermination. The numbers annually slaughtered are enormous.
A mole-catcher, who had followed the craft for thirty-five years,
destroyed from forty to fifty thousand Moles. But all Mole exterminators
must yield to Le Court, who, in no large district, took, in five months,
six thousand of them. Moles are good swimmers, and their bite is very
sharp; their attacks are ferocious, and they keep their hold like a
bull-dog.