Cessation of song--Oak woods less silent than others--Mixed
gatherings of birds in oak woods--Abundance of
caterpillars--Rapacious insects--Wood ants--Alarm cries of woodland
birds--Weasel and small birds--Fascination--Weasel and short-tailed
vole--Account of Egyptian cats fascinated by fire--Rabbits and
stoats--Mystery of fascination--Cases of pre-natal
suggestion--Hampshire pigs fascinated by fire--Conjectures as to the
origin of fascination--A dead squirrel--A squirrel's fatal
leap--Fleas large and small--Shrew and fleas--Fleas in woods--The
squirrel's disposition--Food-hiding habit in animals--Memory in
squirrels and dogs--The lower kind of memory.
The nightingale ceases singing about 18th or 20th June. A bird here
and there may sing later; I occasionally hear one as late as the
first days of July. And because the nightingale is not so numerous
as the other singers, and his song attracts more attention, we get
the idea that his musical period is soonest over. Yet several other
species come to the end of their vocal season quite as early, or but
little later. If it be an extremely abundant species, as in the case
of the willow-wren, we will hear a score or fifty sing for every
nightingale. Blackcap and garden warbler, whitethroat and lesser
whitethroat, are nearly silent, too, at the beginning of July; and
altogether it seems to be the rule that the species oftenest heard
after June are the most abundant.
{90}
The woodland silence increases during July and August, not only
because the singing season is ended, but also because the birds are
leaving the woods: that darkness and closeness which oppresses us
when we walk in the deep shade is not congenial to them; besides,
food is less plentiful than in the open places, where the sun shines
and the wind blows.
Woods, again, vary greatly in character and the degree of
attractiveness they have for birds: the copse and spinney keep a part
of their population through the hottest months; and coming to large
woods the oak is never oppressive like the beech and other deciduous
trees. It spreads its branches wide, and has wide spaces which let
in the light and air; grass and undergrowth flourish beneath it, and,
better than all, it abounds in bird food on its foliage above all
trees.
My favourite woods were almost entirely of oak with a holly
undergrowth, and at some points oaks were mixed with firs. They were
never gloomy nor so silent as most woods; but in July, as a rule, one
had to look for the birds, since they were no longer distributed
through the wood as in the spring and early summer, but were
congregated at certain points.
[Sidenote: Mixed bird-companies]
Most persons are familiar with those companies of small birds which
form in woods in winter, composed of tits of all species, with
siskins, goldcrests, and sometimes other kinds. The July gatherings
are larger, include more species, and do not travel incessantly like
the winter companies. They are composed of families--parent birds
and their young, {91} lately out of the nest, brought to the oaks to
be fed on caterpillars. It may be that their food is more abundant
at certain points, but it is also probable that their social
disposition causes them to congregate. Walking in the silent woods
you begin to hear them at a considerable distance ahead--a great
variety of sounds, mostly of that shrill, sharp, penetrative
character which is common to many young passerine birds when calling
to be fed. The birds will sometimes be found distributed over an
acre of ground, a family or two occupying every large oak tree--tits,
finches, warblers, the tree-creeper, nuthatch, and the jay. What,
one asks, is the jay doing in such company? He is feeding at the
same table, and certainly not on them. All, jays included, are
occupied with the same business, minutely examining each cluster of
leaves, picking off every green caterpillar, and extracting the
chrysalids from every rolled-up leaf. The airy little leaf-warblers
and the tits do this very deftly; the heavier birds are obliged to
advance with caution along the twig until by stretching the neck they
can reach their prey lurking in the green cluster, and thrust their
beaks into each little green web-fastened cylinder. But all are
doing the same thing in pretty much the same way. While the old
birds are gathering food, the young, sitting in branches close by,
are incessantly clamouring to be fed, their various calls making a
tempest of shrill and querulous sounds in the wood. And the
shrillest of all are the long-tailed tits; these will not sit still
and wait like the others, {92} but all, a dozen or fifteen to a
brood, hurry after their busy parents, all the time sending out those
needles of sound in showers. Of hard-billed birds the chaffinch, as
usual, was the most numerous, but there were, to my surprise, many
yellowhammers; all these, like the rest, with their newly brought out
young. The presence of the hawfinch was another surprise; and here I
noticed that the hunger call of the young hawfinch is the loudest of
all--a measured, powerful, metallic chirp, heard high above the
shrill hubbub.
[Sidenote: Caterpillars and ants]
Watching one of these busy companies of small birds at work, one is
amazed at the thought of the abundance of larval insect life in these
oak woods. The caterpillars must be devoured in tens of thousands
every day for some weeks, yet when the time comes one is amazed again
at the numbers that have survived to know a winged life. On July
evenings with the low sun shining on the green oaks at this place I
have seen the trees covered as with a pale silvery mist--a mist
composed of myriads of small white and pale-grey moths fluttering
about the oak foliage. Yet it is probable that all the birds eat is
but a small fraction of the entire number destroyed. The rapacious
insects are in myriads too, and are most of them at war with the
soft-bodied caterpillars. The earth under the bed of dead leaves is
full of them, and the surface is hunted over all day by the wood or
horse ants--_Formica rufa_. One day, standing still to watch a
number of these ants moving about in all directions over the ground,
I saw a green {93} geometer caterpillar fall from an oak leaf above
to the earth, and no sooner had it dropped than an ant saw and
attacked it, seizing it at one end of its body with his jaws. The
caterpillar threw itself into a horseshoe form, and then, violently
jerking its body round, flung the ant away to a distance of a couple
of inches. But the attack was renewed, and three times the ant was
thrown violently off; then another ant came, and he, too, was twice
thrown off; then a third ant joined in the fight, and when all three
had fastened their jaws on their victim the struggle ceased, and the
caterpillar was dragged away. That is the fate of most caterpillars
that come to the ground. But the ants ascend the trees; you see them
going up and coming down in thousands, and you find on examination
that they distribute themselves over the whole tree, even to the
highest and farthest terminal twigs. And their numbers are
incalculable--here in the Forest, at all events. Not only are their
communities large, numbering hundreds of thousands in a nest, but
their nests here are in hundreds, and it is not uncommon to find them
in groups, three or four up to eight or ten, all within a distance of
a few yards of one another.
I had thought to write more, a whole chapter in fact, on this
fascinating and puzzling insect--our "noble ant," as our old
ant-lover Gould called it; but I have had to throw out that and much
besides in order to keep this book within reasonable dimensions.
There is another noise of birds in all woods and copses in the silent
season which is familiar to {94} everyone--the sudden excited cries
they utter at the sight of some prowling animal--fox, cat, or stoat.
Even in the darkest, stillest woods these little tempests of noise
occasionally break out, for no sooner does one bird utter the alarm
cry than all within hearing hasten to the spot to increase the
tumult. These tempests are of two kinds--the greater and lesser; in
the first jays, blackbirds, and missel-thrushes take part, the magpie
too, if he is in the wood, and almost invariably the outcry is caused
by the appearance of one of the animals just named. In the smaller
outbreaks, which are far more frequent, none of these birds take any
part, not even the excitable blackbird, in spite of his readiness to
make a noise on the least provocation. Only the smaller birds are
concerned here, from the chaffinch down; and the weasel is, I
believe, almost always the exciting cause. If it be as I think, a
curious thing is that birds like the chaffinch and the tits, which
have their nests placed out of its reach, should be so overcome at
the sight of this minute creature which hunts on the ground, and
which blackbirds and jays refuse to notice in spite of the outrageous
din of the finches. The chaffinch is invariably first and loudest in
these outbreaks; a dozen or twenty times a day, even in July and
August, you will hear his loud passionate _pink-pink_ calling on all
of his kind to join him, and by-and-by, if you can succeed in getting
to the spot, you will hear other species joining in--the girding of
oxeye and blue tit, the angry, percussive note of the wren, the low
wailing of the robin, and {95} the still sadder dunnock, and the
small plaintive cries of the tree-warblers.
[Sidenote: Weasel and small birds]
What an idle demonstration, what a fuss about nothing it seems! The
minute weasel is on the track of a vole or a wood-mouse and cannot
harm the birds. Yes, he can take the nestlings from the robin's and
willow-wren's nests, and from other nests built on the ground, but
what has the chaffinch to do with it all? Can it be that there is
some fatal weakness in birds, in spite of their wings, in this bird
especially, such as exists in voles, and mice, and rabbits, and in
frogs and lizards, which brings them down to destruction, and of
which they are in some way conscious? Some months ago there was a
correspondence in the _Field_ which touched upon this very subject.
One gentleman wrote that he had found three freshly-killed adult cock
chaffinches in a weasel's nest, and he asked in consequence how this
small creature that hunts on the ground could be so successful in
capturing so alert and vigorous a bird as this finch.
For a long time before this correspondence appeared I had been trying
to find out the secret of the matter, but the weasel has keen senses,
and it is hard to see and follow his movements in a copse without
alarming him. One day, over a year ago, near Boldre, I was fortunate
enough to hear a commotion of the lesser kind at a spot where I could
steal upon without alarming the little beast. There was an oak tree,
with some scanty thorn-bushes growing beside the trunk, and stealing
quietly to the spot I peeped {96} through the screening thorns, and
saw a weasel lying coiled round, snakewise, at the roots of the oak
in a bed of dead leaves. He was grinning and chattering at the
birds, his whole body quivering with excitement. Close to him on the
twigs above the birds were perched, and fluttering from twig to
twig--chaffinches, wrens, robins, dunnocks, oxeyes, and two or three
willow-wrens and chiffchaffs. The chaffinches were the most excited,
and were nearest to him. Suddenly, after a few moments, the weasel
began wriggling and spinning round with such velocity that his shape
became indistinguishable, and he appeared as a small round red object
violently agitated, his rapid motions stirring up the dead leaves so
that they fluttered about him. Then he was still again, but
chattering and quivering, then again the violent motion, and each
time he made this extraordinary movement the excitement and cries of
the birds increased and they fluttered closer down on the twigs.
Unluckily, just when I was on the point of actually witnessing the
end of this strange little drama--a chaffinch, I am sure, would have
been the victim--the little flat-headed wretch became aware of my
presence, not five yards from him, and springing up he scuttled into
hiding.
[Sidenote: Fascination]
If, as I think, certain species of birds are so thrown off their
mental balance by the sight of this enemy as to come in their frenzy
down to be taken by him, it is clear that he fascinates--to use the
convenient old word--in two different ways, or that his furred and
feathered victims are differently affected. In the {97} case of the
rabbits and of the small rodents, we see that they recognise the
dangerous character of their pursuer and try their best to escape
from him, but that they cannot attain their normal speed--they cannot
run as they do from a man, or dog, or other enemy, or as they run
ordinarily when chasing one another. Yet it is plain to anyone who
has watched a rabbit followed by a stoat that they strain every nerve
to escape, and, conscious of their weakness, are on the brink of
despair and ready to collapse. The rabbit's appearance when he is
being followed, even when his foe is at a distance behind, his
trembling frame, little hopping movements, and agonising cries, which
may be heard distinctly three or four hundred yards away, remind us
of our own state in a bad dream, when some terrible enemy, or some
nameless horror, is coming swiftly upon us; when we must put forth
our utmost speed to escape instant destruction, yet have a leaden
weight on our limbs that prevents us from moving.
I have often watched rabbits hunted by stoats, and recently, at
Beaulieu, I watched a vole hunted by a weasel, and it was simply the
stoat and rabbit hunt in little.
[Sidenote: Weasel and vole]
It is a typical case, and I will describe just what I saw, and saw
very well. I was on the hard, white road between Beaulieu village
and Hilltop, when the little animal--a common field vole--came out
from the hedge and ran along the road, and knowing from his
appearance that he was being pursued, I stood still to see the
result. He had a very odd look: {98} instead of a smooth-haired
little mouse-like creature running smoothly and swiftly over the bare
ground, he was all hunched up, his hair standing on end like
bristles, and he moved in a series of heavy painful hops. Before he
had gone half a dozen yards, the weasel appeared at the point where
the vole had come out, following by scent, his nose close to the
ground; but on coming into the open road he lifted his head and
caught sight of the straining vole, and at once dashed at and
overtook him. A grip, a little futile squeal, and all was over, and
the weasel disappeared into the hedge. But his mate had crossed the
road a few moments before--I had seen her run by me--and he wanted to
follow her, and so presently he emerged again with the vole in his
mouth, and plucking up courage ran across close to me. I stood
motionless until he was near my feet, then suddenly stamped on the
hard road, and this so startled him that he dropped his prey and
scuttled into cover. Very soon he came out again, and, seeing me so
still, made a dash to recover his vole, when I stamped again, and he
lost it again and fled; but only to return for another try, until he
had made at least a dozen attempts. Then he gave it up, and peering
at me in a bird-like way from the roadside grass began uttering a
series of low, sorrowful sounds, so low indeed that if I had been
more than six yards from him they would have been inaudible--low, and
soft, and musical, and very sad, until he quite melted my heart, and
I turned away, leaving him to his vole, feeling as much ashamed of
myself as if I had teased {99} a pretty bright-eyed little child by
keeping his cake or apple until I had made him cry.
With regard to these fatal weaknesses in birds, mammals and reptiles,
which we see are confined to certain species, they always strike us
as out of the order of nature, or as abnormal, if the word may be
used in such a connection. Perhaps it can be properly used. I
remember that Herodotus, in his _History of Egypt_, relates that when
a fire broke out in any city in that country, the people did not
concern themselves about extinguishing it; their whole anxiety was to
prevent the cats from rushing into the flames and destroying
themselves. To this end the people would occupy all the approaches
to the burning building, forming a cordon, as it were, to keep the
cats back; but in spite of all they could do, some of them would get
through, and rush into the flames and die. The omniscient learned
person may tell me that Herodotus is the Father of Lies, if he likes,
and is anxious to say something witty and original; but I believe
this story of the cats, since not Herodotus, nor any Egyptian who was
his informant, would or could have invented such a tale. Believing
it, I can only explain it on the assumption that this Egyptian race
of cats had become subject to a fatal weakness, a hypnotic effect
caused by the sight of a great blaze. In like manner, if our
chaffinch gets too much excited and finally comes down to be
destroyed by a weasel, when he catches sight of that small red
animal, or sees him going through that strange antic performance
which I witnessed, it does not follow that the {100} weakness or
abnormality is universal in the species. It may be only in a race.
[Sidenote: Strange weaknesses]
Again, with regard to rabbits: when hunted by a stoat they endeavour
to fly, but cannot, and are destroyed owing to that strange--one
might almost say unnatural--weakness; but I can believe that if a
colony of British rabbits were to inhabit, for a good many
generations, some distant country where there are no stoats, this
weakness would be outgrown. It is probable that, even in this
stoat-infested country, not all individuals are subject to such a
failing, and that, in those which have it, it differs in degree. If
it is a weakness, a something inimical, then it is reasonable to
believe that nature works to eliminate it, whether by natural
selection or some other means.
The main point is the origin of this flaw in certain races, and
perhaps species. How comes it that certain animals should, in
certain circumstances, act in a definite way, as by instinct, to the
detriment of their own and the advantage of some other species--in
this case that of a direct and well-known enemy? It is a mystery,
one which, so far as I know, has not yet been looked into. A small
ray of light may be thrown on the matter, if we consider the fact of
those strange weaknesses and mental abnormalities in our own species,
which are supposed to have their origin in violent emotional and
other peculiar mental states in one of our parents. "The fathers
have eaten sour grapes, and their children's teeth are set on edge,"
is one of the old proverbs quoted by Ezekiel. I know of one
unfortunate person who, if he but sees {101} a lemon squeezed, or a
child biting an unripe-looking fruit, has his teeth so effectually
set on edge, that he cannot put food into his mouth for some time
after. Here is a farmer, a big, strong, healthy man, who himself
works on his farm like any labourer, who, if he but catches sight of
any ophidian--adder, or harmless grass snake, or poor, innocent
blindworm--instantly lets fall the implements from his hands, and
stands trembling, white as a ghost, for some time; then, finally, he
goes back to the house, slowly and totteringly, like some very aged,
feeble invalid, and dropping on to a bed, he lies nerveless for the
rest of that day. Night and sleep restore him to his normal state.
I give this one of scores of similar cases which I have found. Such
things are indeed very common. But how does the fact of pre-natal
suggestion help us to get the true meaning of such a phenomenon as
fascination? It does not help us if we consider it by itself. It is
a fact that "freaks" of this kind, mental and physical, are
transmissible, but that helps us little--the abnormal individual has
the whole normal race against him. Thus, in reference to the cat
story in Herodotus, here in a Hampshire village, a mile or two from
where I am writing this chapter, a cottage took fire one evening, and
when the villagers were gathered on the spot watching the progress of
the fire, some pigs--a sow with her young ones--appeared on the scene
and dashed into the flames. The people rushed to the rescue, and
with some difficulty pulled the pigs out; and finally hurdles had to
be brought {102} and placed in the way of the sow to prevent her
getting back, so anxious was she to treat the villagers to roast pig.
This is a case of the hypnotic effect of fire on animals, and perhaps
many similar cases would be found if looked for. We know that most
animals are strangely attracted by fire at night, but they fear it
too, and keep at a proper distance. It draws and disturbs but does
not upset their mental balance. But how it came about that a whole
race of cats in ancient Egypt were thrown off their balance and were
always ready to rush into destruction like the Hampshire pigs, is a
mystery.
To return to fascination. Let us (to personify) remember that Nature
in her endeavours to safeguard all and every one of her creatures has
given them the passion of fear in various degrees, according to their
several needs, and in the greatest degree to her persecuted
weaklings; and this emotion, to be efficient, must be brought to the
extreme limit, beyond which it becomes debilitating and is a positive
danger, even to betraying to destruction the life it was designed to
save. Let us consider this fact in connection with that of pre-natal
suggestion--of weak species frequently excited to an extremity of
fear at the sight, familiar to them, of some deadly enemy, and the
possible effect of that constantly recurring violent disturbance and
image of terror on the young that are to be.
The guess may go for what it is worth. We know that the
susceptibility of certain animals--the vole {103} and the frog, let
us say--to fascination, is like nothing else in animal life, since it
is a great disadvantage to the species, a veritable weakness, which
might even be called a disease; and that it must therefore have its
cause in too great a strain on the system somewhere; and we know,
too, that it is inheritable. But the facts are too few, since no one
has yet taken pains to collect data on the matter. There is a good
deal of material lying about in print; and I am astonished at many
things I hear from intelligent keepers, and other persons who see a
good deal of wild life, bearing on this subject. But I do not now
propose to follow it any further.
I went into the oak wood one morning, and, finding it unusually
still, betook myself to a spot where I had often found the birds
gathered. It was a favourite place, where there was running water
and very large trees standing wide apart, with a lawn-like green turf
beneath them. This green space was about half an acre in extent, and
was surrounded by a thicker wood of oak and holly, with an
undergrowth of brambles. Here I found a dead squirrel lying on the
turf under one of the biggest oaks, looking exceedingly conspicuous
with the bright morning sun shining on him.
A poor bag! the reader may say, but it was the day of small things at
the end of July, and this dead creature gave me something to think
about. How in the name of wonder came it to be dead at that peaceful
place, where no gun was fired! I could not believe that he had died,
for never had I seen a finer, {104} glossier-coated,
better-nourished-looking squirrel. "Whiter than pearls are his
teeth," were Christ's words in the legend when His followers looked
with disgust and abhorrence at a dead dog lying in the public way.
This dead animal had more than pearly teeth to admire; he was
actually beautiful to the sight, lying graceful in death on the moist
green sward in his rich chestnut reds and flower-like whiteness. The
wild, bright-eyed, alert little creature--it seemed a strange and
unheard-of thing that he, of all the woodland people, should be lying
there, motionless, not stiffened yet and scarcely cold.
A keeper in Hampshire told me that he once saw a squirrel
accidentally kill itself in a curious way. The keeper was walking on
a hard road, and noticed the squirrel high up in the topmost branches
of the trees overhead, bounding along from branch to branch before
him, and by-and-by, failing to grasp the branch it had aimed at, it
fell fifty or sixty feet to the earth, and was stone-dead when he
picked it up from the road. But such accidents must be exceedingly
rare in the squirrel's life.
[Sidenote: Fleas large and small]
Looking closely at my dead squirrel to make sure that he had no
external hurt, I was surprised to find its fur peopled with lively
black fleas, running about as if very much upset at the death of
their host. These fleas were to my eyes just like _pulex
irritans_--our own flea; but it is doubtful that it was the same, as
we know that a great many animals have their own species to tease
them. Now, I have noticed that some very small animals have very
small fleas; and {105} that, one would imagine, is as it should be,
since fleas are small to begin with, because they cannot afford to be
large, and the flea that would be safe on a dog would be an
unsuitable parasite for so small a creature as a mouse. The common
shrew is an example. It has often happened that when in an early
morning walk I have found one lying dead on the path or road and have
touched it, out instantly a number of fleas have jumped. And on
touching it again, there may be a second and a third shower. These
fleas, parasitical on so minute a mammal, are themselves
minute--pretty sherry-coloured little creatures, not half so big as
the dog's flea. It appears to be a habit of some wild fleas, when
the animal they live on dies and grows cold, to place themselves on
the surface of the fur and to hop well away when shaken. But we do
not yet know very much about their lives. Huxley once said that we
were in danger of being buried under our accumulated monographs.
There is, one is sorry to find, no monograph on the fleas; a strange
omission, when we consider that we have, as the life-work of an
industrious German, a big handsome quarto, abundantly illustrated, on
the more degraded and less interesting _Pedicularia_.
The multitude of fleas, big and black, on my dead squirrel, seemed a
ten-times bigger puzzle than the one of the squirrel's death. For
how had they got there? They were not hatched and brought up on the
squirrel: they passed their life as larvæ on the ground, among the
dead leaves, probably feeding on decayed organic matter. How did so
many of them {106} succeed in getting hold of so very sprightly and
irritable a creature, who lives mostly high up in the trees, and does
not lie about on the ground? Can it be that fleas--those proper to
the squirrel--swarm on the ground in the woods, and that without
feeding on mammalian blood they are able to propagate and keep up
their numbers? These questions have yet to be answered.
It struck me at last that these sprightly parasites might have been
the cause of the squirrel's coming to grief; that, driven to
desperation by their persecutions, he had cast himself down from some
topmost branch, and so put an end to the worry with his life.
[Sidenote: A squirrel's disposition]
Squirrels abound in these woods, and but for parasites and their own
evil tempers they might be happy all the time. But they are
explosive and tyrannical to an almost insane degree; and this may be
an effect of the deleterious substances they are fond of eating.
They will feast on scarlet and orange agarics--lovely things to look
at, but deadly to creatures that are not immune. A prettier
spectacle than two squirrels fighting is not to be seen among the
oaks. So swift are they, so amazingly quick in their doublings, in
feints, attack, flight, and chase; moving not as though running on
trees and ground, but as if flying and gliding; and so rarely do they
come within touching distance of one another, that the delighted
looker-on might easily suppose that it is all in fun. In their most
truculent moods, in their fiercest fights, they cannot cease to be
graceful in all their motions.
{107}
A common action of squirrels, when excited, of throwing things down,
has been oddly misinterpreted by some observers who have written
about it. Here I have often watched a squirrel, madly excited at my
presence when I have stopped to watch him, dancing about and whisking
his tail, scolding in a variety of tones, and emitting that curious
sound which reminds one of the chattering cry of fieldfares when
alarmed; and finally tearing off the loose bark with his little hands
and teeth, and biting, too, at twigs and leaves so as to cause them
to fall in showers. The little pot boils over in that way, and
that's all there is to be said about it.
Walking among the oaks one day in early winter when the trees were
nearly leafless, I noticed a squirrel sitting very quietly on a
branch; and though he did not get excited, he began to move away
before me, stopping at intervals and sitting still to watch me for a
few moments. He was a trifle suspicious, and nothing more. In this
way he went on for some distance, and by-and-by came to a long
horizontal branch thickly clothed with long lichen on its upper
sides, and instantly his demeanour changed. He was all excitement,
and bounding along the branch he eagerly began to look for something,
sniffing and scratching with his paws, and presently he pulled out a
nut which had been concealed in a crevice under the lichen, and
sitting up, he began cracking and eating it, taking no further notice
of me. The sudden change in him, the hurried search for something,
and the result, seemed to throw some light on the question of the
animal's memory with reference {108} to his habit of hiding food. It
is one common to a great number of rodents, and to many of the higher
mammals--Canidæ and Felidæ, and to many birds, including most, if not
all, the Corvidæ.
When the food is hidden away here, there, and everywhere, we know
from observation that in innumerable instances it is never found, and
probably never looked for again; and of the squirrel we are
accustomed to say that he no sooner hides a nut than he forgets all
about it. Doubtless he does, and yet something may bring it back to
his mind. In this matter I think there is a considerable difference
between the higher mammals, cats and dogs, for instance, and the
rodents; I think the dog has a better or more highly developed
memory. Thus, I have seen a dog looking enviously at another who had
got a bone, and after gazing at him with watering mouth for some
time, suddenly turn round and go off at a great pace to a distant
part of the ground, and there begin digging, and presently pull out a
bone of his own, which he had no doubt forgotten all about until he
was feelingly reminded of it. I doubt if a squirrel would ever rise
to this height; but on coming by chance to a spot with very marked
features, where he had once hidden a nut, then I think the sight of
the place might bring back the old impression.
I have often remarked when riding a nervous horse, that he will
invariably become alarmed, and sometimes start at nothing, on
arriving at some spot where something had once occurred to frighten
him. The sight of the spot brings up the image of the {109} object
or sound that startled him; or, to adopt a later interpretation of
memory, the past event is reconstructed in his mind. Again, I have
noticed with dogs, when one is brought to a spot where on a former
occasion he has battled with or captured some animal, or where he has
met with some exciting adventure, he shows by a sudden change in his
manner, in eyes and twitching nose, that it has all come back to him,
and he appears as if looking for its instant repetition.
[Sidenote: The lower kind of memory]
We see that we possess this lower kind of memory ourselves--that its
process is the same in man and dog and squirrel. I am, for instance,
riding or walking in a part of the country which all seems
unfamiliar, and I have no recollection of ever having passed that way
before; but by-and-by I come to some spot where I have had some
little adventure, some mishap, tearing my coat or wounding my hand in
getting through a barbed-wire fence; or where I had discovered that I
had lost something, or left something behind at the inn where I last
stayed; or where I had a puncture in my tyre; or where I first saw a
rare and beautiful butterfly, or bird, or flower, if I am interested
in such things; and the whole scene--the fields and trees and hedges,
and farm-house or cottage below--is all as familiar as possible. But
it is the scene that brings back the event. The scene was impressed
on the mind at the emotional moment, and is instantly recognised, and
at the moment of recognition the associated event is remembered.
{110}