thirst in the richer South. As the brackish pools which have afforded
water to the zebras, quaggas, antelopes, buffaloes, ostriches, and
other animals of the steppes, dry up more and more under the burning
heat of a South African winter, all the animals whose necessities have
hitherto been supplied by the steppes assemble about the pools which
still contain a little water, and these become scenes of stirring,
active life. But when these, too, evaporate, the animals which have
congregated around them are compelled to migrate, and it may happen
that despair takes possession of them, as it did of the little rodents
already described, and that, collecting in herds like the wild horses
and Chinese antelopes (dzieren) of the steppes of Central Asia, or
the bisons of the North American prairies, they rush straight on for
hundreds of miles, to escape the hardships of winter.
In the South, too, the wild horses are the first to turn their
backs on the inhospitable country. Till the drought sets in, these
beautifully-marked, strong, swift, self-confident children of the
Karroo, the zebra, quagga, and dauw, wander careless and free through
their vast domain, each herd going its own way under the guidance of
an old, experienced, and battle-tried stallion. Then the cares of the
winter season begin to make themselves felt. One water-pool after
another disappears, and the herds which gather about those which
remain become more and more numerous. The general distress makes even
the combative stallions forget to quarrel and fight. Instead of small
companies, herds of more than a hundred head are formed, and these move
and act collectively, and finally forsake the wintry region altogether
before want has enfeebled their powers or broken their stubborn wills.
Travellers describe with enthusiasm the spectacle presented by such
a herd of wild horses on the march. Far into the distance stretches
the sandy plain, its shimmering red ground-colour interrupted here
and there by patches of sunburnt grass, its scanty shade supplied by
a few feathery-leaved mimosas, and, as far away as the eye can reach,
the horizon is bounded by the sharp lines of mountains quivering in a
bluish haze. In the midst of this landscape appears a cloud of dust
which, disturbed by no breath of air, ascends to the blue heavens like
a pillar of smoke. Nearer and nearer the cloud approaches, until at
length the eye can distinguish living creatures moving within it. Soon
the brightly-coloured and strangely-marked animals present themselves
clearly to the spectator’s gaze; in densely thronged ranks, with heads
and tails raised, neck and neck with the quaintly-shaped gnus and
ostriches which have joined their company, they rush by on their way to
a new, and possibly far-distant feeding-ground, and ere the onlooker
has recovered himself, the wild army has passed by and is lost from
view in the immeasurable steppe.
[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Springbok Antelopes.]
The antelopes, which are also driven out by winter, do not always
follow the same paths, but usually travel in the same direction. None
is more numerous or more frequently seen than the springbok, one of
the most graceful and beautiful gazelles with which we are acquainted.
Its unusual beauty and agility strike everyone who sees it in its wild
state, now walking with elastic step, now standing still to feed, now
springing about in playful leaps, and thus disclosing its greatest
ornament, a mane-like snow-white tuft of hair, which at a quieter pace
is hidden in a longitudinal groove of the back. None of the other
antelopes, when forced to migrate, assemble in such numerous herds as
this one. Even the most vivid description cannot convey to one who has
not seen a herd of springboks on their journey any adequate idea of
the wonderful spectacle. After having congregated for weeks, perhaps
waiting for the first shower of rain, the springboks at last resolve to
migrate. Hundreds of the species join other hundreds, thousands other
thousands, and the more threatening the scarcity, the more torturing
the thirst, the longer the distances which they cover; the flocks
become herds, the herds armies, and these resemble the swarms of
locusts which darken the sun. In the plains they cover square miles;
in the passes between the mountains they throng together in a compact
mass which no other creature can resist; over the low grounds they
pour, like a stream which has overflowed its banks and carries all
before it. Bewildering, intoxicating, and stupefying even the calmest
of men, the throng surges past for hours, perhaps days together.[61]
Like the greedy locusts, the famishing animals fall upon grass and
leaves, grain, and other fruits of the field; where they have passed,
not a blade is left. The man who comes in contact with them is at once
thrown to the ground, and so sorely wounded by the tread of their
hoofs, light indeed, but a thousand times repeated, that he may be glad
if he escapes with his life; a herd of sheep feeding in the way is
surrounded and carried off, never to be seen again; a lion, who thought
to gain an easy prey, finds himself forced to relinquish his victim,
and to travel with the stream. Unceasingly those behind press forward,
and those in front yield slowly to the pressure; those cooped up in the
middle strive continually to reach the wings, and their efforts are
strenuously resisted. Above the clouds of dust raised by the rushing
army the vultures circle; flanks and rear are attended by a funeral
procession of various beasts of prey; in the passes lurk sportsmen, who
send shot after shot into the throng. So the tortured animals travel
for many miles, till at length spring sets in and their armies are
broken up.
Shall I go on to consider other compulsory migrations, such as those of
the arctic foxes and polar bears when an ice-floe on which they were
hunting is loosened and floated off by the waves till, under favourable
circumstances, it touches some island? I think not, for journeys such
as these are not migrations, they are simply passive driftings.
LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS.
An irresistible instinct, an all-compelling law of nature, moves every
living creature to seek a mate of its own species but of opposite sex,
to unite a second existence with its own, to awaken responsive emotions
through complete self-surrender, and thus to form the closest bond
which links being to being, life to life. No power is strong enough to
set aside this law, no command authoritative enough to influence it.
Yielding to no hindrance this instinct overcomes every obstacle, and
presses victorious to its goal.
The almighty power through which this law works we call Love, when
we speak of its influence on man; we describe it as Instinct when we
discuss its operation on the lower animals. But this is a mere play
upon words, nothing more; unless by the former word we intend to imply
that every natural instinct in man should by man himself be ennobled
and moralized. If it be not so, it will be difficult to distinguish
between the two. Man and beast are subject to the same law, but the
beast yields it a more absolute obedience. The animal does not weigh or
reflect, but gives itself up without resistance to the sway of love,
which man often fondly imagines he can withstand or escape.
Of course, he who ventures at the outset to dispute man’s belonging to
the animal world at all, sees in an animal nothing more than a machine
which is moved and guided, stimulated to action, incited to sue for the
favour of the opposite sex, impelled to songs of rejoicing, provoked to
combat with rivals, by forces outside of itself; and, naturally enough,
he denies to such a machine all freedom and discretion, all conflict
between opposing motives, all emotional and intellectual life. Without
raising himself by thus claiming a monopoly of intelligent action, or
at least of intellectual freedom, he degrades the lower animals to
false creations of his own hollow vanity, suggesting that they lead a
seeming rather than a real life, and that they are without any of the
joys of existence.[62]
An exactly contrary position would be undoubtedly more just, as it
certainly is more accurate. Indeed, it is scarcely too much to say
that he who refuses to credit the lower animals with intelligence
raises anxiety on the score of his own, and that he who denies them
all emotional life has himself no experience of what emotional life
is. Whoever observes without prejudice is sooner or later forced to
admit that the mental activity of all animal beings, diverse as its
expression may be, is based upon the same laws, and that every animal,
within its own allotted life-circle and under the same circumstances,
thinks, feels, and acts like any other, and is not, in contrast to
man, impelled to quite definite actions by so-called higher laws. The
causes of the actions of animals may perhaps be termed laws, but, if
so, we must not forget that man is subject to the same. His intellect
may enable him to make some of these laws of nature subservient to his
purposes, to modify others, sometimes even to evade them, but never to
break or annul them.
Let me attempt to prove the correctness of these opinions by giving
examples to show how essentially the expressions of life in man and
in the lower animals may resemble each other, how both are alike
all-powerfully influenced by the most important of the laws of nature,
that which has for its aim, or its consequence, the continuance of
the species. Man and bird: how wide the gulf which separates them
and their lives! how vast the differences between their habits and
behaviour! Is there a power which can bridge over this gulf? Are
conditions conceivable which can incite them to essentially similar
expressions of life? We shall see.
The birds are more unreservedly dependent on the rotation of the
seasons than man is. “They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns”, and they must perforce adapt themselves to the seasons if
they are to find sufficient food, if they are to live at all. Therefore
they blossom in spring, bring forth their fruits in summer, conceal
these and themselves in autumn, and rest in winter like the motherly
earth. The chapters of their life-history are closely bound up with the
seasonal progress of the year.
In this respect they are indeed governed by an iron law which, within
a certain limit, renders anything like freedom and caprice impossible.
But whither should spontaneity tend save to want and misery, to the
imperilling of their own lives and those of their young? So they bow
submissively to nature’s law, and enjoy, in consequence, a freedom
which we men might envy them, and should envy them, were we not more
capable of withdrawing ourselves from the influence of the seasons than
they. But do not we also blossom in spring, and rest in winter? And
must not we, too, bow before iron necessity?
If the birds are in bondage in certain respects, they preserve their
freedom and power of choice in others, and they exercise both more
joyously and unrestrainedly than man himself.
No bird voluntarily renounces the joys of love; very few evade the
bonds of marriage; but everyone seeks to attain to and enjoy love as
early as possible. Before it has laid aside its youthful dress the
young bird has learnt to recognize and respect the distinctions of
sex; much earlier than that, the young male fights with his fellows as
if in boyish wantonness; as soon as he is full-grown he woos ardently
and persistently some female of his own species. No male bird condemns
himself to bachelorhood, no female bird hardens her heart against a
deserving suitor. For lack of a mate, the male wanders restlessly and
aimlessly over land and sea; for a worthy mate the female forgets pain
and oppressive grief, however deep these may have been; for the wooer
who seems to her most worthy she breaks even her conjugal bonds.
Every female bird attains to the possession of a husband, but not
every male readily succeeds in gaining a wife. Even among birds so
great a good must be sought after and striven for. On an average,
there are more males than females, and many males are obliged to
suffer the severest misfortune which can befall them, and to live, at
least temporarily, unmated. For the great majority of birds, celibacy
is a state of torment from which they strive with all their strength
to escape. So they traverse wide tracts in search of a mate, seeking
diligently, and when they imagine they have found one, wooing with
equal ardour, whether she be maid, wife, or widow. If these wanderings
were usually fruitless, they would not take place so regularly as they
do.
In wooing their mates, the males exhaust all the charms with which
nature has endowed them. According to his species and capacity each
brings his best gifts into play, each seeks to show his best side, to
reveal all his amiability, to surpass in brilliance others of his kind.
This desire increases with the hope of fulfilment; his love intoxicates
him, throws him into ecstasies. The older he is the more remarkably
does he conduct himself, the more self-confident does he appear, the
more impetuously does he strive for the reward of love. The proverb,
“There are no fools like old fools”, does not apply in his case, for
it is but rarely that age condemns him to weakness and incapacity;
on the contrary, it strengthens all his capabilities and increases
his energy by mature experience. Little wonder then that at least the
younger females prefer the older males, and that these woo, if not more
ardently, at least more confidently than their younger rivals.
The means by which a male bird declares his love and conducts his
courtship are very various, but, naturally, they always accord with his
most prominent gifts. One woos with his song, another with his wings,
this one with his bill, and that with his foot; one displays all the
magnificence of his plumage, another some special decoration, and a
third some otherwise unused accomplishment. Serious birds indulge in
play and joke and dignified pranks; silent ones chatter, quiet ones
become restless, gentle ones combative, timid ones bold, cautious ones
careless: in short, all show themselves in an unwonted light. Their
whole nature appears changed, for all their movements are more active,
more excited than usual, and their conduct differs from their ordinary
behaviour in every respect; they are possessed by an intoxication
which increases the elasticity of their nature to such a degree that
no flagging is ever perceptible. They deprive themselves of sleep, or
reduce it to a minimum without weariness, and while awake they exert
all their powers to the utmost without fatigue.
All birds with a voice utter clear, articulate notes in their
courtship, and their song is nothing more than a supplication or
exultation of love. Our poet’s words:
“Hushed is the nightingale’s lay,
Which gladdened our hearts in spring;
’Tis only in love’s heyday
That we hear its minstrels sing”,
are literally true; for the song of the nightingale, and those of all
other birds which delight us with their lays, begin with the first
stirrings of love, and come to an end when the intoxication is past,
and other emotions and cares have taken its place. Singing, the bird
flies forth on his quest for a mate; in song he tells the female of
his approach, and invites her to join him; in passionate song he gives
expression to his delight when he has found her, and to his desires,
and longings, and hopes; through his song he reveals his strength, and
exalts his own bliss to the heavens; and through it, too, he challenges
all other males of his species who would presume to disturb his
happiness. Only so long as he is inspired by the intoxication of love
is the bird’s song full of fire and strength, and if he sing at other
times, his lay is certainly a reminiscence of the great joy which once
was his. Whoever maintains, as has really been maintained, that a bird
sings without any personal feeling whatever, that it sings at a given
time simply because it must, and that at another time it could not if
it would, has never understood, or sought to understand, the song of
birds, but has simply given petulant expression to his own prejudice.
A dispassionate observer must soon perceive that a bird’s song, though
it remains essentially the same, varies with every emotion, that it
flows quietly on, ascends, bursts out triumphantly, and dies away
again, according to the prevailing mood, and that it awakens an echo
in the breast of other males. If the view referred to were correct,
each bird would sing exactly like every other of the same species; it
would pour forth its appointed lay as mechanically as a musical box
emits the tunes plugged up in its rotating cylinder; none could change
or improve his song, or strive to surpass his fellows. Our own view
is exactly the opposite, for we are convinced that a bird sings with
perfect consciousness, that in his song he lays bare his soul. He is
a poet, who, within his own limits, invents, creates, and struggles
for utterance; and the motive throughout is love for the opposite sex.
Dominated by this love, the jay sings, whistles, and murmurs, the
magpie chatters, the croaking raven transforms its rough sounds into
gentle, soft notes, the usually silent grebe lets its voice be heard,
the diver sings its wild yet tuneful ocean-song, the bittern dips its
bill under water that the only cry at its command may become a dull,
far-sounding booming. A bird does indeed sing only at a certain season,
but it is not because it cannot do so at other times, but because it
has then no inducement, no inclination to sing. It is silent when it
no longer loves; to speak more prosaically, when the pairing-time
is past. This is clearly proved in the case of the familiar cuckoo.
Three-fourths of the year go by and its call is not once heard; spring
comes round in the revolution of the seasons and it sounds forth
almost incessantly from early morning till late in the evening, as
long as the pairing-time lasts. But it is silent sooner in the south
than in the north, sooner in the plains than in the mountains, exactly
corresponding to the brooding-time of the foster-parents, which begin
their nest-building earlier, and finish the rearing of their young
sooner in the south and in the plains than in the north and in the
highlands.
During courtship many birds supplement their vocal efforts by pleasing
movements, whether executed with the help of the wings or of the feet;
others by peculiar attitudes in which they display themselves, or
strut before the females; others, again, by special noises which they
produce.
While a few falcons, and all owls, express their desires chiefly, if
not exclusively, by means of loud cries, other birds of prey indulge,
either alone or in company with their mates, in a magnificent play
of wings, which is now a kind of round dance, and anon becomes a
perfect frenzy. Eagles, buzzards, peregrine falcons, kestrels, and
lesser kestrels circle round each other for hours at a time, ascend
spirally to giddy heights, exercise, obviously to their mutual pleasure
and satisfaction, all the arts of flight of which they are capable,
utter shrill cries from time to time, spread out their plumage in
the sunlight, and, finally, glide slowly down and assume a dignified
sitting posture, there to resume their caressings. Kites, which behave
in an essentially similar manner, let themselves suddenly down, with
half-closed wings, from a very considerable height, until they are
just over the ground, or a sheet of water, then begin, more quickly
than usual, to describe a series of curves, remain hovering for some
time over a particular spot, or execute other wonderful movements,
then slowly soar again to their former height. Harriers fly for some
time with apparent indifference behind the desired mate, then begin to
circle round her, describe with her a series of intersecting curves,
and, suddenly leaving her, soar, with head directed upwards, almost
perpendicularly up to a considerable height, increasing, at the same
time, the speed of their ordinarily leisurely flight to a surprising
rapidity; then, tumbling precipitately over, fall with almost closed
wings to near the ground, circle there once, twice, or oftener, ascend
again and proceed as before, till at last the female makes up her
mind to follow their example. But all these which we have mentioned
are surpassed by the bateleur, or mountebank, a harrier about the
size of an eagle, living in the interior of Africa, and one of the
most remarkable of birds of prey in form and behaviour (p. 188). Its
marvellous flight is at all times likely to attract the attention of
observers, but during the pairing-time this becomes an incomparable
mountebank performance in the air, a bewildering acrobatic display,
which seems to unite in itself all the arts of flight practised by the
other birds of prey.
Many other birds which are not specially skilful in flight act in much
the same way as the wooing birds of prey. That they call in the aid
of their wings when they strive to win the love of a mate, or wish to
express their delight in a possession already won, is intelligible
enough after what has been related. The swallow, sitting beside his
desired or chosen mate, eagerly warbles his melodious lay; but the
emotion within his breast is much too strong to allow him to sit still
during the progress of his song, so he flies upwards, singing in his
flight, and hovers and circles about the female who has followed him.
The goatsucker sits for a time lengthwise on a bough, often at some
distance from his mate, spins off his whirring strophes for some
minutes, then rises, flies about his mate in graceful curves, flapping
his wings, and calling to her such a tender “haït”, that one wonders
how a sound so soft can possibly be produced by his rough throat. The
bee-eater, whose voice is also unmelodious, sits for a long time on
his perch, pressing closely to his mate, uttering scarcely a sound,
sometimes none whatever, but apparently contenting himself with casting
tender glances from his beautiful bright red eyes; but he, too, takes
fire, moves his wings abruptly, rises high into the air, describes
a circle, utters a jubilant cry, and returns to his mate, who has
remained sitting where he left her. In the midst of its most ardent
love-song--call it cooing, murmuring, moaning, or what you will--the
dove breaks off suddenly as if inspired by its own music, then claps
its wings loudly and sharply several times, soars aloft, spreads its
wings and floats slowly down to a tree-top, there to begin its song
anew. Tree-pipits and rock-pipits, white-throats, and garden warblers
behave exactly like the doves; the wood-warblers precipitate themselves
from their high perches without ceasing to sing, fly up again to
another branch, where they finish their song, to begin it again a few
minutes later, and bring it to a conclusion with a similar play of
wings. Greenfinches, siskins, and common buntings, in the enthusiasm
of love, tumble through the air as if they had no control over their
wings; the larks soar to heaven singing their song of love; the serin
behaves as if it had taken lessons from a bat.
A similar intoxication possesses those birds which declare their love
by dancing. They, too, act contrary to all their usual habits during
the dance, and fall finally into a transport which makes them almost
forget the outside world. Few birds dance silently, most of them
utter peculiar sounds, never heard at other times, at the same time
displaying all their adornments, and often bringing the performance to
a close with a sort of round dance.