[Illustration: A E Brehm]
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, LONDON, GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH.
FROM
NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR
[Illustration]
FROM
NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR
STUDIES OF WILD LIFE AND SCENES
IN MANY LANDS
BY THE NATURALIST-TRAVELLER
ALFRED EDMUND BREHM
AUTHOR OF “BIRD-LIFE”, “TIERLEBEN”, ETC. ETC.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
MARGARET R. THOMSON
EDITED BY
J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., F.R.S.E.
_WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS_
[Illustration]
LONDON
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
GLASGOW AND DUBLIN
1896
PREFACE
TO THE GERMAN EDITION.
Six years have passed since the grave at Renthendorf closed over the
remains of my esteemed father, whose death--all too early--was as
great a loss to Science as to those who loved and honoured him. It
was strange that his eventful and adventurous life, in the course of
which he visited and explored four quarters of the globe, should have
ended at the little spot in green Thuringia where he was born. He had
just reached his fifty-fifth year when his lips, so apt in speech,
were silenced, and the pen which he held so masterfully dropped from
his hand. He was full of great plans as to various works, and it is
much to be regretted that the notes which he had collected towards
the realization of these were too fragmentary for anyone but their
author to utilize. But the manuscripts which he left contained many a
treasure, and it seemed to me a duty, both to the author and to all
friends of thoughtful observation, to make these available to the
reading public.
The following pages form the first book of the kind, and contain the
most valuable part of the legacy--Alfred Edmund Brehm’s lectures,
once so universally popular. I believe that, in giving these pages to
the world, I am offering a gift which will be warmly welcomed, and I
need add no commendatory words of mine, for they speak adequately for
themselves. Writing replaces spoken words very imperfectly, and my
father, who was never tied down to his paper, may often have delivered
the same matter in different forms according to the responsiveness of
his audience, abbreviating here, expanding there--yet to anyone who
has heard him the following pages will recall his presence and the
tones of his sonorous voice; everyone will not only recognize in them
the individuality of the author of the _Tierleben_ (Animal Life) and
_Bird Life_, but will learn to know him in a new and attractive side
of his character. For it is my father’s lectures almost more than
any other of his works which show the wealth of his experiences, the
many-sidedness of his knowledge, his masterly powers of observation
and description, and not least his delicate kindly humour and the
sympathetic interpretation of animate and inanimate nature which arose
from his deeply poetic temperament.
Therefore I send these pages forth into the world with the pleasant
confidence that they will add many to the author’s already numerous
friends. May they also gain new and unprejudiced sympathizers for the
animal world which he loved so warmly and understood so thoroughly;
and may they, in every house where the love of literature, and of the
beautiful is cherished, open eyes and hearts to perceive the beauty of
nature, the universal mother; then will the highest and noblest aim of
their author be achieved.
So may all success attend these pages, may they receive a joyful
welcome, and wherever they gain an entrance may they remain as a prized
possession.
HORST BREHM,
Doctor of Medicine.
BERLIN, _September, 1890_.
PREFATORY NOTE
TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION.
It has been a privilege to make available to English readers a book
which shows a great naturalist at his best--a book that presents the
reader with a series of vivid pictures of wild life and scenery,
painted from actual observation, and with all the truth and accuracy
that belong to the artist and man of science combined. It consists of
a number of papers or articles that were originally read as public
lectures and were afterwards collected into a volume that has met
with much success in Germany. The subjects treated range over a wide
and varied field. Some of them are unfamiliar to the ordinary reader,
and besides their inherent interest have the added charm of novelty;
others, if more familiar, are here invested with a freshness and charm
that such a trained observer and practised writer as the author could
alone impart.
To the translation of the German original have been added
an introductory essay, showing Brehm’s position among
naturalist-travellers, an extended table of contents, an appendix
containing a number of editorial notes, and an index. The number of
pictorial illustrations has also been increased.
For a notice of the Author and his labours see the concluding part of
the Introductory Essay.
M. R. T.
J. A. T.
UNIVERSITY HALL,
EDINBURGH, _December, 1895_.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
Page
PREFACE TO GERMAN EDITION, v
PREFATORY NOTE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION, vii
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE EDITOR, xv
THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.
The legend of Scandinavia’s origin--The harvest of the sea--The
doves of Scandinavia--Eider-holms and bird-bergs--The nesting of the
eider-duck--Razor-bills and robber-gulls--Millions of birds--(Notes,
pp. 565-566), 33
THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE.
High tundra and low tundra--The jewels of the tundra--The flora of the
tundra--The Arctic fox--The lemming--The reindeer--The birds of the
tundra--Mosquitoes--(Notes, pp. 566-568), 63
THE ASIATIC STEPPES AND THEIR FAUNA.
The steppe in summer and in winter--The coming of spring--The
rendezvous in the reeds--The marsh-harrier--The home of larks--Jerboa
and souslik--The archar sheep--The kulan and the ancestry of the
horse--(Notes, pp. 568-571), 86
THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA.
An ice-wilderness or not--The forest zone--Axe and fire--The
pines--Hunting and trapping--The elk, the wolf, and the lynx--Sable
and other furred beasts--Bear-hunting and bear-stories--(Notes, pp.
571-573), 120
THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA.
The progress of the seasons--A tropical thunderstorm--Night in
the steppes--Spiders, scorpions, and snakes--Mudfish and other
sleepers--Cleopatra’s asp--Geckos--The children of the air--The
bateleur eagle--The ostrich--The night-jar--The mammals of the
steppe--Stampede before a steppe-fire--(Notes, pp. 573-576), 168
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
Spring in the forest--The beautiful Hassanie--The baobab--Climbers and
twiners--The forest birds and their voices--Sociable birds--Conjugal
tenderness--Salt’s antelope--River monsters--A rain-lake--Hosanna in
the highest--(Notes, pp. 576-578), 201
MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.
Black rats and brown--Cousin man’s kindness to the monkeys--Migration
of mountain animals--The restlessness of the reindeer--Wandering herds
of buffaloes--The life of the kulan--Travellers by sea--Flights of
bats--The march of the lemmings--(Notes, pp. 578-581), 234
LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS.
Are birds automata?--The battles of love--Different modes of
courtship--Polygamy--Life-long devotion--(Notes, p. 581), 259
APES AND MONKEYS.
Sheikh Kemal’s story--The monkey question--A general picture of monkey
life--Marmosets and other New World monkeys--Dog-like and man-like Old
World monkeys--Monkeys as pets--The true position of monkeys--(Notes,
pp. 581-583), 282
DESERT JOURNEYS.
An appreciation of the desert--The start of the caravan--The character
of the camel--A day’s journey--Oases--Simoom and sand storms--Fata
morgana--The peace of night--(Note, p. 583), 318
NUBIA AND THE NILE RAPIDS.
Egypt and Nubia contrasted--Wady Halfa and Philæ--The three great
cataracts--Journey up and down stream--The Nile boatmen--History of
Nubia--(Notes, pp. 583-584), 356
A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.
Russian hospitality--A tedious journey--An excursion into Chinese
territory--Sport among the mountains--Journeying northwards--On the
track of splenic fever--(Notes, p. 584), 390
THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS.
Racial affinities--Christians and heathen--The dress of the
Ostiaks--The tshum of the wandering Ostiaks--The life of the
herdsmen--A fishing village--The Ostiak at the fair--An Ostiak
wedding--An interview with a Shaman--Funeral rites--(Notes, pp.
584-585), 416
NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE STEPPES.
The name Kirghiz--Conditions of life on the steppe--Winter
dwellings--Breaking up the camp--In praise of the yurt--The herds
of the Kirghiz--The Kirghiz horse--Summer wanderings--“A sheep’s
journey”--Returning flocks--Evening in the aul--(Note, p. 585), 451
FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE KIRGHIZ.
The Kirghiz as horsemen--Racing and wrestling--Hunting with eagles and
greyhounds--A sheep-drive--The “red tongue”--Kirghiz bards--Education
and character--Kirghiz etiquette--The price of a bride--The
children--Funeral ceremonies, 482
COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA.
Mistaken impressions--Impartial observation--The emancipation of the
serfs--The Altai--Compulsory service--Condition of the peasants--The
superabundant harvest--Romance in Siberia--Domestic life open
to the convicts--The way of sighs--General picture of Siberian
life--Runaways--(Notes, pp. 585-586), 510
AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE.
Twenty eyries--The voyage down the river--The woods on the banks--A
heronry--Sea-eagles--A paradise of birds--The marsh of Hullo--The black
vultures of Fruškagora--Homeward once more--(Note, p.586), 540
INDEX, 587
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIG. Page
PORTRAIT OF ALFRED EDMUND BREHM, _Frontispiece_.
1. Scene on the Sogne Fjord, Norway, 35
2. Colony of Eider-ducks, 44
3. The Bird-bergs of Lapland, 51
4. Razor-bills, 61
5. The High Tundra in Northern Siberia, 65
6. Peregrine Falcons and Lemmings, 70
7. The White or Arctic Fox (_Canis lagopus_), 73
8. The Reindeer (_Tarandus rangifer_), 76
9. Skuas, Phalathrope, and Golden Plovers, 80
10. View in the Asiatic Steppes, 89
11. A Salt Marsh in the Steppes, 90
12. A Herd of Horses during a Snowstorm on the Asiatic Steppes, 94
13. Lake Scene and Waterfowl in an Asiatic Steppe, 99
14. The Souslik (_Spermophilus citillus_), 108
15. The Jerboa (_Alactaga jaculus_), 108
16. Archar Sheep or Argali (_Ovis Argali_), 111
17. Pallas’s Sand-grouse (_Syrrhaptes paradoxus_), 113
18. The Kulan (_Equus hemionus_), 118
19. Reindeer Flocking to Drink, 133
20. Elk and Black-cock in a Siberian Forest, 137
21. The Maral Stag, 145
22. The Elk Hunter--A Successful Shot, 148
23. A Siberian Method of Wolf-shooting, 153
24. Sable and Hazel-grouse in a Siberian Forest, 159
25. The Bed of an Intermittent River, Central Africa, 175
26. Hills of African Termites, or White Ants, 179
27. Secretary-bird and Aspis, 184
28. On an Ostrich Farm in South Africa, 190
29. Hyæna-dogs pursuing Antelope, 196
30. Zebras, Quaggas, and Ostriches flying before a Steppe Fire, 199
31. The Baobab Tree, Central Africa, 211
32. Long-tailed Monkeys, 222
33. Salt’s Antelope (_Antilope Saltiana_), 224
34. Crocodile and Crocodile-birds (_Pluxianus ægyptius_), 228
35. A Wild Duck defending her Brood from a Brown Rat, 236
36. A Herd of American Bison or Buffalo, 243
37. Wild Horses crossing a River during a Storm, 246
38. Flying Foxes, 251
39. Springbok Antelopes, 258
40. The Strutting of the Tragopan in Pairing-time, 269
41. Cock Chaffinches Fighting, 274
42. Entellus Monkeys (_Semnopithecus Entellus_), 285
43. Common Marmoset or Ouistiti (_Hapale Jacchus_), 292
44. Red Howling Monkeys (_Mycetis seniculus_), 295
45. Old Baboon Rescuing Young One, 301
46. Macaque or Bonnet-monkey (_Macacus sinicus_) and Snake, 307
47. The Hoolock (_Hylobates leuciscus_), one of the Gibbons, 310
48. Chimpanzee (_Troglodytes niger_), 313
49. Caravan in the African Desert, 323
50. An Encampment in the Sahara, 328
51. Gazelles lying near a Mimosa, 332
52. An Oasis in the Desert of Sahara, 343
53. Band of Mounted Bedouins, 353
54. An Egyptian _Sakieh_ or Water-wheel, 365
55. A Nubian Village on the Nile, 374
56. Nubian Children at Play, 377
57. A Passage through the Nile Rapids, 385
58. A Post Station in Siberia, 395
59. Imperial Eagle, Marmot, and Souslik, 407
60. An Ostiak Settlement on the Banks of the Obi, 409
61. Huts and Winter Costume of the Christian Ostiaks, 419
62. “Heathen” Ostiaks, Reindeer, and Tshums, 424
63. Ostiaks with Reindeer and Sledge, 427
64. Interior of an Ostiak Dwelling (Tshum), 435
65. The Burial of an Ostiak, 449
66. The Home of a Wealthy Kirghiz, 455
67. Life among the Kirghiz--the Return from the Chase, 461
68. Kirghiz with Camels, 467
69. Kirghiz and their Herds on the March in the Mountains, 471
70. Kirghiz Aul, or Group of Tents, 478
71. Hunting the Wolf with the Golden Eagle, 487
72. Kirghiz in pursuit of Wild Sheep, 489
73. Frolic at a Kirghiz Wedding, 505
74. Miners in the Altai returning from Work, 517
75. Exiles on the Way to Siberia, 527
76. Interior of a Siberian Peasant’s Dwelling, 532
77. Types of Siberian Convicts--“Condemned to the Mines”, 535
78. Flight of an Exile in Siberia, 538
79. Herons and their Nests, 544
80. Rooks and their Nests, 546
81. Sea-eagles and Nest in a Danube Forest, 550
82. Nest of the Penduline Titmouse (_Parus Pendulinus_), 562
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
BY J. ARTHUR THOMSON.
BREHM’S PLACE AMONG NATURALIST-TRAVELLERS.
Though Brehm’s lectures might well be left, as his son has said,
to speak for themselves, it seems useful to introduce them in
their English dress with some notes on the evolution of the
naturalist-traveller and on Brehm’s place in the honourable list; for
an adequate appreciation of a book like this depends in part on a
recognition of the position it occupies among analogous works, and on
having some picture of the illustrious author himself.
In sketching the history of the naturalist-traveller it is not
necessary to go very far back; for though it is interesting to recall
how men of old followed their migrating herds, as the Lapp or Ostiak
does his reindeer, and were led by them to fresh fields and new
conquests, or how others followed the salmon down the rivers and became
the toilers of the sea, this ancient lore is full of uncertainty, and
is, besides, of more moment to the sociologist than to the naturalist.
What we attempt here is merely to indicate the various types of
naturalist-traveller who have in the course of time succeeded one
another in the quest for the new.
I.
The foundations of zoology were laid by Aristotle some three hundred
years before Christ, but they remained unbuilt on for nearly eighteen
centuries. Here and there some enthusiast strove unaided, but only a
fragmentary superstructure was reared. In fact, men were pre-occupied
with tasks of civilization more serious than the prosecution of
zoology, though that is not trivial. Gradually, however, great social
movements, such as the Crusades and the collapse of Feudalism; great
intellectual and emotional movements, such as those of the Renaissance;
great inventions, such as that of printing, gave new life to Europe,
and zoology shared in the re-awakening. Yet the natural history of the
Middle Ages was in great part mystical; fancy and superstition ran riot
along paths where science afterwards established order, and, for all
practical purposes, the history of zoology, apart from the efforts of a
few pioneers, may be said to date from the sixteenth century.
Now, one indubitable factor in the scientific renaissance of the
sixteenth century was the enthusiasm of the early travellers, and this
stimulus, periodically recurrent, has never failed to have a similar
effect--of giving new life to science. But while science, and zoology
as a branch of it, has been evolving during the last three centuries,
the traveller, too, has shared in the evolution. It is this which we
wish to trace.
I. THE ROMANTIC TYPE. Many of the old travellers, from Herodotus
onwards, were observant and enthusiastic; most were credulous and
garrulous. In days when the critical spirit was young, and verification
hardly possible, there could not but be a strong temptation to tell
extraordinary “travellers’ tales”. And they did. Nor need we scoff at
them loudly, for the type dies hard; every year such tales are told.
Oderico de Pordenone and other mediæval travellers who give some
substance to the mythical Sir John de Maundeville were travellers of
this genial type. Oderico describes an interesting connecting link
between the animal and vegetable kingdom, a literal “zoophyte”, the
“vegetable lamb”, which seems to have been a woolly Scythian fern, with
its counterpart in the large fungus which colonials sometimes speak of
as the “vegetable sheep”. As for the pretended Sir John, he had in his
power of swallowing marvels a gape hardly less than that of the great
snakes which he describes. But even now do we not see his snakes in
at least the picture-books on which innocent youth is nurtured? The
basilisk (one of the most harmless of lizards) “sleyeth men beholding
it”; the “cocodrilles also sley men”--they do indeed--“and eate them
weeping, and they have no tongue”. “The griffin of Bactria hath a body
greater than eight lyons and stall worthier than a hundred egles, for
certainly he will beare to his nest flying, a horse and a man upon his
back.” He was not readily daunted, Sir John, for when they told him of
the lamb-tree which bears lambs in its pods, his British pluck did not
desert him, and he gave answer that he “held it for no marvayle, for in
his country are trees which bear fruit which become birds flying, and
they are good to eate, and that that falleth on the water, liveth, and
that that falleth on earth, dyeth; and _they_ marvailed much thereat”.
The tale of the barnacle-tree was a trump card in those days!
Another example of this type, but rising distinctly above it in
trustworthiness, was the Venetian Marco Polo, who in the thirteenth
century explored Asia from the Black Sea to Pekin, from the Altai
to Sumatra, and doubtless saw much, though not quite so much as he
describes. He will correct the fables of his predecessors, he tells us,
demonstrating gravely that the unicorn or rhinoceros does _not_ allow
himself to be captured by a gentle maiden, but he proceeds to describe
tailed men, yea, headless men, without, so far as can be seen, any
touch of sarcasm. Of how many marvels, from porcupines throwing off
their spines and snakes with clawed fore-feet, to the great Rukh, which
could bear not merely a poor Sinbad but an elephant through the air, is
it not written in the books of Ser Marco Polo of Venezia?
II. THE ENCYCLOPÆDIST TYPE.--This unwieldy title, suggestive of
an omnivorous hunger for knowledge, is conveniently, as well as
technically, descriptive of a type of naturalist characteristic of the
early years of the scientific renaissance. Edward Wotton (d. 1555),
the Swiss Gesner (d. 1565), the Italian Aldrovandi (d. 1605), the
Scotsman Johnson (d. 1675), are good examples. These encyclopædists
were at least impressed with the necessity of getting close to the
facts of nature, of observing for themselves, and we cannot blame them
much if their critical faculties were dulled by the strength of their
enthusiasm. They could not all at once forget the mediæval dreams, nor
did they make any strenuous effort to rationalize the materials which
they so industriously gathered. They harvested but did not thrash.
Ostrich-like, their appetite was greater than their power of digesting.
A hasty judgment might call them mere compilers, for they gathered all
possible information from all sources, but, on closer acquaintance,
the encyclopædists grow upon one. Their industry was astounding, their
ambition lofty; and they prepared the way for men like Ray and Linnæus,
in whom was the genius of order.
Associated with this period there were many naturalist-travellers,
most of whom are hardly now remembered, save perhaps when we repeat
the name of some plant or animal which commemorates its discoverer.
José d’Acosta (d. 1600), a missionary in Peru, described some of the
gigantic fossils of South America; Francesco Hernanded published about
1615 a book on the natural history of Mexico with 1200 illustrations;
Marcgrav and Piso explored Brazil; Jacob Bontius, the East Indies;
Prosper Alpinus, Egypt; Belon, the Mediterranean region; and there were
many others. But it is useless to multiply what must here remain mere
citations of names. The point is simply this, that, associated with
the marvellous accumulative industry of the encyclopædists and with
the renaissance of zoology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
there were numerous naturalist-travellers who described what they saw,
and not what they fancied might be seen.
III. THE GENERAL NATURALIST TYPE.--As Ray (d. 1705) and Linnæus (d.
1778) began to reduce to order the accumulations of the encyclopædists,
and as the anatomists and physiologists began the precise study of
structure and function, the naturalist-travellers became more definite
in their aims and more accurate in their observations. Linnæus
himself sent several of his pupils on precisely scientific journeys.
Moreover, in the eighteenth century there were not a few expeditions
of geographical and physical purpose which occasionally condescended
to take a zoologist on board. Thus Captain Cook was accompanied
on his first voyage (1768-1781) by Banks and Solander, and on his
second voyage by the Forsters, father and son. On his third voyage he
expressly forbade the intrusion of any naturalist, but from all that we
can gather it would have been better for himself if he had not done so.
In these combined voyages there was nascent the idea of co-operative
expeditions, of which the greatest has been that of the _Challenger_.
In illustration of travellers who were not specialists, but in varying
degrees widely interested naturalists, it will be sufficient to cite
three names--Thomas Pennant, Peter Pallas, and, greatest of all,
Alexander von Humboldt.
Of Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) we may note that he was one of the early
travellers in Scotland, which was then, as he says, almost as unknown
as Kamchatka, and that he extorted from Dr. Johnson the admission,
“He’s a Whig, sir, a sad dog; but he’s the best traveller I ever read;
he observes more things than any one else does”. He knew Buffon and
corresponded with Linnæus, and was the author of several works on
British and North American zoology. His so-called _Arctic Zoology_ is
mainly a sketch of the fauna in the northern regions of North America,
begun “when the empire of Great Britain was entire, and possessed the
northern part of the New World with envied splendour”. His perspective
is excellent! the botanist, the fossilist, the historian, the
geographer must, he says, accompany him on his zoological tours, “to
trace the gradual increase of the animal world from the scanty pittance
given to the rocks of Spitzbergen to the swarms of beings which enliven
the vegetating plains of Senegal; to point out the causes of the local
niggardness of certain places, and the prodigious plenty in others”.
It was about the same time (1777) that E. A. W. Zimmermann, Professor
of Mathematics at Brunswick, published a quarto in Latin, entitled
_Specimen Zoologiæ Geographicæ Quadrupedum_, “with a most curious
map”, says Pennant, “in which is given the name of every animal in
its proper climate, so that a view of the whole quadruped creation is
placed before one’s eyes, in a manner perfectly new and instructive”.
It was wonderful then, but the map in question looks commonplace enough
nowadays.
Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) was a student of medicine and natural
science, and did good work as a systematic and anatomical zoologist.
He was the first, we believe, to express the relationships of animals
in a genealogical tree, but his interest for us here lies in his
zoological exploration of Russia and Siberia, the results of which
are embodied in a series of bulky volumes, admirable in their careful
thoroughness. We rank him rather as one of the forerunners of Humboldt
than as a zoologist, for his services to ethnology and geology were of
great importance. He pondered over the results of his explorations, and
many of his questionings in regard to geographical distribution, the
influence of climate, the variation of animals, and similar problems,
were prophetic of the light which was soon to dawn on biological
science.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was undoubtedly one of the greatest
naturalists of the century which his life well nigh covered. Geologist,
botanist, zoologist, and more, he was almost the last of the all-round
naturalists. In this indeed lay his weakness as well as his strength,
for great breadth of view is apt to imply a lack of precision as to
details. In boyhood, “when life”, as he says, “appears an unlimited
horizon”, he had strong desires after travel, which were in part
gratified by excursions with George Forster and by Swiss explorations
with the sagacious old geographer Leopold von Buch. These, however,
only whetted his enthusiasm for journeys with a larger radius. At
length, after many discouragements, he sailed in 1799 from Corunna,
with Aimé Bonpland as companion, and spent five years in exploring the
equinoctial regions of the New World. The full record of his voyage
one cannot be expected to read, for there are about thirty volumes of
it in the complete edition, but what we should all know is Humboldt’s
_Personal Narrative_, in which the chief results of his explorations
are charmingly set forth. Later in life (1829) he went with Ehrenberg
and Rose to North Asia, and his crowning work was the publication of
_Cosmos_ (1845-58), which originated in a series of lectures delivered
in the University of Berlin. In front of that building his statue now
stands, along with that of his not less famous brother Wilhelm.
We think of Humboldt not so much as an early explorer of tropical
America, nor because he described the habits of the condor and made
observations on electric eels, nor because he furnished Cuvier and
Latreille with many new specimens, but rather as a magnificent type
of the naturalist-traveller, observant, widely interested, and
thoughtful, who pointed forward to Darwin in the success with which
he realized the complexity of inter-relations in nature. Many a
traveller, even among his contemporaries, discovered more new plants
and animals than the author of _Cosmos_, but none approached him as
an all-round naturalist, able to look out on all orders of facts with
keenly intelligent eyes, a man, moreover, in whom devotion to science
never dulled poetic feeling. His work is of real importance in the
history of geographical distribution, for he endeavoured to interpret
the peculiarities of the various faunas in connection with the peculiar
environment of the different regions--a consideration which is at least
an element in the solution of some of the problems of distribution. It
is especially important in regard to plants, and one may perhaps say
that Humboldt, by his vivid pictures of the vegetable “physiognomy” of
different regions, and by his observations on the relations between
climate and flora, laid the foundations of the scientific study of
the geographical distribution of plants. We find in some of his
_Charakterbilder_, for example in his _Views of Nature_, the prototype
of those synthetic pictures which give Brehm’s popular lectures their
peculiar interest and value.
IV. THE SPECIALIST TYPE.--It would say little for scientific discipline
if it were true that a man learned, let us say, in zoology, could
spend years in a new country without having something fresh to tell us
about matters outside of his specialism--the rocks, the plants, and
the people. But it is not true. There have been few great travellers
who have been narrow specialists, and one might find more than one
case of a naturalist starting on his travels as a zoologist and
returning an anthropologist as well. Yet it is evident enough that
few men can be master of more than one craft. There have been few
travellers like Humboldt, few records like Darwin’s _Voyage of the
Beagle_ (1831-6). Hence we recognize more and more as we approach our
own day that naturalist-travellers have been successful either as
specialists, or, on the other hand, in so far as they have furnished
material for generalization (Type V.). The specialism may of course
take various forms: a journey may be undertaken by one who is purely an
ornithologist, or it may be undertaken with one particular problem in
view, or it may be organized, like the _Challenger_ expedition, with
the co-operation of a number of specialists.
The French took the lead in organizing zoological expeditions. As early
as 1800 they sent out the _Géographe_, _Naturaliste_, and _Casuarina_,
zoologically conducted by Bury de St. Vincent, Péron, and Lesueur.
Further expeditions followed with Quoy and Gaimard, Lesson, Eydoux,
Souleyet, Dupetit-Thouars, and others as zoological guides. The English
whaling industry gave early opportunity to not a few naturalists; and
it is now a long time since Hooker went with Sir James Ross on the
South Polar expedition and Huxley went on the _Rattlesnake_ to the
Australian Barrier Reef. The Russians were also active, one of the more
famous travellers being Kotzebue, who was accompanied on one of his
two voyages (1823-6) round the world by Chamisso and Eschscholtz. In
the early part of this century the Americans were also enterprising,
the work of Dana being perhaps the most noteworthy. It would require
several pages to mention even the names of the naturalists who have had
their years of wandering, and have added their pages and sketches to
the book of the world’s fauna and flora, but such an enumeration would
serve no useful purpose here.
There is, however, one form of zoological exploration which deserves
a chapter to itself, that is the exploration of the Deep Sea. Several
generations of marine zoologists had been at work before a zoology of
the deep sea was dreamed of even as a possibility. It is true that in
1818 Sir John Ross had found a star-fish (_Astrophyton_) at a depth of
800-1000 fathoms, but this was forgotten; and in 1841 Edward Forbes
dredged to no purpose in fairly deep water in the Ægean Sea. Indeed
those who thought about the great depths at all deemed it unlikely that
there could be life there, and if it had not been for the practical
affair of laying the ocean cables, we might possibly have been still in
ignorance of the abyssal fauna.
But the cables had to be laid--no easy task--and it became important
to know at least the topography of the depths. Cables broke, too, and
had to be fished up again, and when that which ran between Sardinia
and Algiers was lifted, in 1860, from a depth of 60-1000 fathoms,
no less than 15 different species of animals were found on it. This
was a discovery to fire enthusiasm, and Britain led the way in
following it up. In 1868 Wyville Thomson began his explorations on the
_Lightning_, and proved that most of the types of backboneless animals
were represented at depths of at least 600 fathoms. Soon followed
the similar cruise of the _Porcupine_, famous _inter alia_ for the
discovery of Bathybius, which many sceptics regard as a mare’s nest.
From various quarters the quest after the deep-sea fauna began to be
prosecuted.
It is now more than a score of years since the world-famous
_Challenger_ sailed from Portsmouth with Wyville Thomson, Moseley,
John Murray, and Willemoes-Suhm as naturalists. During three and a
half years the explorers cruised over 68,900 nautical miles, crossed
the Atlantic no less than five times, reached with the long arm of the
dredge to depths equal to reversed Himalayas, raised treasures of life
from over 500 stations, and brought home spoils over which the savants
of Europe have hardly ceased to be busy, and the records of which, now
completed under Dr. Murray’s editorship, form a library of about forty
huge volumes.
The _Challenger_ expedition was important not only in itself, but in
the wave of scientific enthusiasm which it raised. From Germany went
forth the _Gazelle_; Norway sent the _Vöringen_ to Spitzbergen; America
has despatched the _Tuscarora_, the _Blake_, and the _Albatross_;
from Sweden the _Vega_ and the _Sophia_ sailed to Arctic seas: Count
Liechtenstein’s yacht _Hertha_ explored Adria; the Prince of Monaco’s
_Hirondelle_ darted hither and thither; the French sent forth the
_Travailleur_ and _Talisman_; the Italians the _Vettor Pisani_ and
_Washington_; Austria and Hungary organized the _Poli_ for work in
the Mediterranean; the Germans again have recently specialized in
investigating the Plankton, or surface-life of the ocean; and so, with
a range even wider than we have indicated, the wave of enthusiasm has
spread, one of the latest barques which it has borne being the Prince
of Monaco’s, which was specially built for marine exploration.
Specialism in travelling has, of course, gone much further. Thus to
cite only three examples, we have Semper’s zoological work on the
Philippines, the researches of the Sarasins in Ceylon, and the first
results of Semon’s recent visit to Australasia, all of them passing
far beyond records of zoological exploration into monographs on the
structure and development of characteristic members of the fauna
of these countries. And it is no exaggeration to say that private
enterprise, Royal Society subsidies, British Association grants, and
the like have sent scores of naturalists from Britain half round the
world in order to solve special problems, as to the larva of a worm,
for instance, or as to the bird-fauna of some little island.
V. THE BIOLOGICAL TYPE. In some ways the most important scientific
journey ever made was Darwin’s voyage on the _Beagle_. It was the
Columbus-voyage of zoology. There is a great deal to be said for the
_Wanderjahre_ of the old students, for to have time to think is one of
the conditions of intellectual progress. Not that the _Beagle_ voyage
was one of idleness, but it gave Darwin, at the age of twenty-two, a
wealth of impressions and some measure of enforced leisure wherein
to gloat intellectually over what he saw. He has said, indeed, that
various sets of facts observed on his voyage, such as the aspect of the
Galapagos Islands, started him on paths of pondering which eventually
led to his theory of the origin of species.
We take Darwin as the type of the biological, or, we may almost
say, evolutionist travellers; but he must share this position with
his magnanimous colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace, whose journeyings
were more prolonged and not less fruitful. Before Darwin the
naturalist-travellers had been, for the most part, describers,
systematists, and analysts, and it goes without saying that such work
is indispensable, and must continue; but in the light of the conception
of evolution all things had become new; the present world of life was
henceforth seen as a stage in a process, as a passing act in a drama,
not merely as a phantasmagoria to be admired and pictured, but as a
growth to be understood.
It is within this group of biological travellers, which includes
such men as Bates and Belt, that we must also place Brehm. For
although he perhaps had not the firmness of grasp or the fineness of
touch necessary for the successful handling of the more intricate
biological problems, especially those which centre around the factors
of evolution, he had unusual power as an observer of the habits of
animals. His contributions, which must be judged, of course, from his
great _Tierleben_,[A] as well as from his popular lectures, were rather
to the old natural history than to biology in the stricter sense. His
works show that he was as much interested in men as in beasts, that he
was specially an ornithologist, that he was beneath the naturalist a
sportsman; but so scores of other travellers have been. His particular
excellence is his power of observing and picturing animal life _as
it is lived in nature_, without taking account of which biology is a
mockery and any theory of evolution a one-sided dogma.
[A] This well-known treasure-house of Natural History appeared
originally in 1863-69 in six big volumes, which have since increased
to ten. Even the first edition took a foremost place among similar
works on the Natural History of Animals. With a wealth of personal
observation on the habits of animals in their native haunts, it
combined the further charm of very beautiful pictorial illustration.
Let us now bring together briefly the outstanding facts of this
historical outline.
In early days men followed their wandering herds or pursued their prey
from region to region, or were driven by force of competition or of
hunger to new lands. Many of the most eventful journeys have been among
those which had to be taken.
I. Gradually, intellectual curiosity rather than practical need became
the prompter, and men travelled with all manner of mixed aims seeking
what was new. When they returned they told travellers’ tales, mostly
in as good faith as their hunting ancestors had done in the caves of
a winter night, or as the modern traveller does after dinner still.
We pass insensibly from Herodotus to Marco Polo, from “Sir John
Maundeville” to Mr. X. Y. Z., whose book was published last spring.
This is the type romantic.
II. But when science shared in the renaissance there ensued the
extraordinary industry of the encyclopædist school, with which many
naturalist-travellers were associated. Some of these were great
men--perhaps Gesner was greatest of all--but all had the defects of
their qualities. They gathered into stackyards both wheat and tares,
and seldom found time to thrash. The type survives afield in the mere
collector, and its degenerate sedentary representatives are called
compilers.
III. Just as Buffon represents the climax of the encyclopædists, and
is yet something more, for he thrashed his wheat, so Humboldt, while
as ambitious as any encyclopædist traveller, transcended them all by
vitalizing the wealth of impressions which he gathered. He was _the_
general naturalist-traveller, who took all nature for his province, and
does not seem to have been embarrassed. Of successful representatives
of this type there are few, since Darwin perhaps none.
IV. Meanwhile Linnæus had brought order, Cuvier had founded his school
of anatomists, Haller had re-organized physiology, the microscope
had deepened analysis, and zoology came of age as a specialism.
Henceforth travellers’ tales were at a discount; even a Humboldt might
be contradicted, and platitudinarian narratives of a voyage round the
world ceased to find the publisher sympathetic or the public appetized.
The naturalist-traveller was now a zoologist, or a botanist, or an
ornithologist, or an entomologist; at any rate, a specialist. But it
was sometimes found profitable to work in companies, as in the case of
the _Challenger_ expedition.
V. Lastly, we find that on the travellers, too, “evolution” cast its
spell, and we have Darwin and Wallace as the types of the biological
travellers, whose results go directly towards the working out of a
cosmology. From Bates and Belt and Brehm there is a long list down
to Dr. Hickson, _The Naturalist in Celebes_, and Mr. Hudson, _The
Naturalist in La Plata_. Not, of course, that most are not specialists,
but the particular interest of their work is biological or bionomical.
I have added to this essay a list of some of the most important works
of the more recent naturalist-travellers with which I am directly
acquainted, being convinced that it is with these that the general, and
perhaps also the professional student of natural history should begin,
as it is with them that his studies must also end. For, not only do
they introduce us, in a manner usually full of interest, to the nature
of animal life, but they lead us to face one of the ultimate problems
of biology--the evolution of faunas.
II.
Alfred Edmund Brehm (1829-1884) was born at Unter-Renthendorf in
Sachsen-Weimar, where his father--an accomplished ornithologist--was
pastor. Brought up among birds, learning to watch from his earliest
boyhood, accompanying his father in rambles through the Thuringian
forest, questioning and being questioned about all the sights and
sounds of the woods, listening to the experts who came to see the
famous collection in the _Pfarr-haus_, and to argue over questions of
species with the kindly pastor, young Brehm was almost bound to become
a naturalist. And while the father stuffed his birds in the evenings
the mother read aloud from Goethe and Schiller, and her poetic feeling
was echoed in her son. Yet, so crooked are life’s ways, the youth
became an architect’s apprentice, and acted as such for four years!
But an opportunity presented itself which called him, doubtless most
willing, from the desk and workshop. Baron John Wilhelm von Müller, a
keen sportsman and lover of birds, sought an assistant to accompany him
on an ornithological expedition to Africa, and with him the youth, not
yet out of his teens, set forth in 1847. It was a great opportunity,
but the price paid for it was heavy, for Brehm did not see his home
again for full five years, and was forced to bear strains, to incur
responsibilities, and to suffer privations, which left their mark on
him for life. Only those who know the story of his African journeys,
and what African travel may be with repeated fevers and inconsiderately
crippled resources, can adequately appreciate the restraint which Brehm
displays in those popular lectures, here translated, where there is so
much of everything but himself.
After he returned, in 1852, rich in spoils and experience, if otherwise
poor, he spent several sessions at the universities of Jena and Vienna.
Though earnestly busy in equipping himself for further work, he was not
too old to enjoy the pleasures of a student life. When he took his
doctor’s degree he published an account of his travels (_Reiseskizzen
aus Nordostafrica._ Jena, 1855, 3 vols.).
After a zoological holiday in Spain with his like-minded brother
Reinhold--a physician in Madrid--he settled for a time in Leipzig,
writing for the famous “_Gartenlaube_”, co-operating with Rossmässler
in bringing out _Die Tiere des Waldes_, expressing his very self in his
_Bird-Life_ (1861), and teaching in the schools. It was during this
period that he visited Lapland, of whose bird-bergs the first lecture
gives such a vivid description. In 1861 he married Matthilde Reiz, who
proved herself the best possible helpmeet.
In 1862, Brehm went as scientific guide on an excursion to Abyssinia
undertaken by the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, and subsequently published a
characteristic account of his observations _Ergebnisse einer Reise nach
Habesch_: Results of a Journey to Abyssinia (Hamburg, 1863). On his
return he began his world-famous _Tierleben_ (Animal Life), which has
been a treasure-house to so many naturalists. With the collaboration
of Professors Taschenberg and Oscar Schmidt, he completed the first
edition of this great work, in six volumes, in 1869.
Meanwhile he had gone to Hamburg as Director of the Zoological Gardens
there, but the organizing work seems to have suited him ill, and he
soon resigned. With a freer hand, he then undertook the establishment
of the famous Berlin Aquarium, in which he partly realized his dream of
a microcosmic living museum of nature. But, apart from his actual work,
the business-relations were ever irksome, and in 1874 he was forced by
ill-health and social friction to abandon his position.
After recovery from serious illness he took up his rôle as popular
lecturer and writer, and as such he had many years of happy success. A
book on Cage Birds (1872-1876), and a second edition of the _Tierleben_
date from this period, which was also interrupted by his Siberian
journeys (1876) and by numerous ornithological expeditions, for
instance to Hungary and Spain, along with the Crown Prince Rudolph
of Austria. But hard work, family sorrows, and finally, perhaps, the
strain of a long lecturing tour in America aged Brehm before his time,
and he died in 1884.
For these notes I am indebted to a delightful appreciation of Brehm
which Ernest Krause has written in introduction to the third edition
of the _Tierleben_, edited by Pechuel-Loesche, and as regards
the naturalist’s character I can only refer to that essay. As to
his published work, however, every naturalist knows at least the
_Tierleben_, and on that a judgment may be safely based. It is a
monumental work on the habits of animals, founded in great part on
personal observation, which was always keen and yet sympathetic. It is
a classic on the natural history of animals, and readers of Darwin will
remember how the master honoured it.
Doubtless Brehm had the defects of his qualities. He was, it is said,
too generous to animals, and sometimes read the man into the beast
unwarrantably. But that is an anthropomorphism which easily besets the
sympathetic naturalist. He was sometimes extravagant and occasionally
credulous. He did not exactly grip some of the subjects he tackled,
such as, if I must specify, what he calls “the monkey-question”.
It is frankly allowed that he was no modern biologist, erudite as
regards evolution-factors, nor did he profess to attempt what is called
zoological analysis, and what is often mere necrology, but his merit
is that he had seen more than most of us, and had seen, above all, the
naturalist’s supreme vision--the vibrating web of life. And he would
have us see it also.
III.
The success of the pictures which Brehm has given us--of bird-bergs
and tundra, of steppes and desert, of river fauna and tropical
forest--raises the wish that they had been complete enough to embrace
the whole world. As this ideal, so desirable both from an educational
and an artistic standpoint, has not been realized by any one volume,
we have ventured to insert here a list of some more or less analogous
English works by naturalist-travellers, sportsmen, and others--
Adams, A. Leith. _Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta_
(Edinburgh, 1870).
Agassiz, A. _Three Cruises of the “Blake”_ (Boston and New York,
1888).
Baker, S. W. _Wild Beasts and their Ways: Reminiscences of Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America_ (London, 1890).
Bates, H. W. _Naturalist on the Amazons_ (6th Ed. London, 1893).
Belt, T. _Naturalist in Nicaragua_ (2nd Ed. London, 1888).
Bickmore, A. S. _Travels in the East Indian Archipelago_ (1868).
Blanford, W. T. _Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia_
(London, 1870).
Bryden, H. A. _Gun and Camera in Southern Africa_ (London, 1893).
_Kloof and Karroo_ (1889).
Burnaby, F. _A Ride to Khiva_ (8th Ed. London, 1877).
Buxton, E. N. _Short Stalks, or Hunting Camps, North, South, East, and
West_ (London, 1893).
Chapman, A. and C. M. Buck. _Wild Spain_ (London, 1892).
Cunningham, R. O. _Notes on the Natural History of the Straits of
Magellan_ (Edinburgh, 1871).
Darwin, C. _Voyage of the “Beagle”_ (1844, New Ed. London, 1890).
Distant, W. L. _A Naturalist in the Transvaal_ (London, 1892).
Drummond, H. _Tropical Africa_ (London, 1888).
Du Chaillu, P. B. _Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa_
(London, 1861). _Ashango Land_ (1867).
Eha. _A Naturalist on the Prowl, or in the Jungle_ (London, 1894).
Forbes, H. O. _A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_
(London, 1885).
Guillemard. _Cruise of the “Marchesa”_ (London, 1886).
Heilprin, A. _The Bermuda Islands_ (Philadelphia, 1889).
Hickson, S. J. _A Naturalist in North Celebes_ (London, 1889).
Holub, Emil. _Seven Years in South Africa_ (1881).
Hudson, W. H. _The Naturalist in La Plata_ (London, 1892). _Idle Days
in Patagonia_ (London, 1893).