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CREATURES OF THE NIGHT
_By the same Author._
IANTO THE FISHERMAN
AND OTHER SKETCHES OF COUNTRY LIFE.
_Illustrated with Photogravures. Large Crown 8vo._
_The Times._--"The quality which perhaps most gives its individuality to
the book is distinctive of Celtic genius.... The characters ... are
touched with a reality that implies genuine literary skill."
_The Standard._--"Mr Rees has taken a place which is all his own in the
great succession of writers who have made Nature their theme."
_The Guardian._--"We can remember nothing in recent books on natural
history which can compare with the first part of this book ...
surprising insight into the life of field, and moor, and river."
_The Outlook._--"This book--we speak in deliberate superlative--is the
best essay in what may be called natural history biography that we have
ever read."
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
[Illustration: "THE BROAD RIVER, IN WHICH SHE HAD SPENT HER EARLY LIFE."
(_See_ p. 50.) _Frontispiece._]
[Illustration: Decoration]
CREATURES OF THE NIGHT
A BOOK OF WILD LIFE IN
WESTERN BRITAIN
BY ALFRED W. REES
AUTHOR OF
"IANTO THE FISHERMAN"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1905
TO
MYFANWY AND MORGAN
"All life is seed, dropped in Time's yawning furrow,
Which, with slow sprout and shoot,
In the revolving world's unfathomed morrow,
Will blossom and bear fruit."
MATHILDE BLIND.
PREFACE.
The Editors of _The Standard_ have kindly permitted me to republish the
contents of this book, and I tender them my thanks.
The original form of these Studies of animal life has been extensively
altered, and, in some instances, the titles have been changed.
I am again greatly indebted to my brother, R. Wilkins Rees. His wide and
accurate knowledge has been constantly at my disposal, and in the
preparation of these Studies he has given me much indispensable advice
and assistance.
Similarity in the habits of some of the animals described has made a
slight similarity of treatment unavoidable in certain chapters.
I may also remark that, in unfrequented districts where beasts and birds
of prey are not destroyed by gamekeepers, the hare is as much a creature
of the night as is the badger or the fox.
ALFRED W. REES.
[Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
and standardized the hyphenations, otherwise the text has been left as
the original]
CONTENTS.
THE OTTER.
I.
THE HOLT AMONG THE ALDERS.
PAGE
Late fishing--A summer night--River voices--A master-fisher--
The old mansion--Lingering beauty--The otters' "oven"--Observant
youngsters--Careful motherhood--The meadow playground--Falling
leaves--A swollen river--Dabchick's oar-like wings--Mysterious
proceedings--Migrating salmon--Hoar-fringed river-banks--An
adventure with a sheep-dog--Slip-shod builders--Signs of
spring--A change of diet--Fattening trout--The capture of a
"kelt"--"The otter's bite"--Lone wanderings. 1-23
II.
THE POOL BENEATH THE FARMSTEAD.
A song of autumn--The salmon pool--Angling difficulties--Bullying
a sportive fish--An absent-minded fisherman--At dawn and nightfall--A
deserted home--Practical joking--A moorhen's fate--Playfulness
of youth--The torrent below the fall--The garden ponds--Feasting
on frogs--A watcher of the night--Hounds and hunters--Lutra's
discretion--The spell of fear 24-40
III.
THE GORGE OF ALLTYCAFN.
The Hunt again--Fury of despair--A "strong place"--The terrier's
discomfiture--Lutra's widowhood--Summer drought--Life at the
estuary--Returning to the river--Scarce provender--A rare and
unexpected sight--The blacksmith's baited trap--The Rock of
Gwion--Peace 41-50
THE WATER-VOLE.
I.
OUR VILLAGE HOUNDS.
Quiet life--Leisure hours--A winter pastime--A miscellaneous
pack--The bobtail, and his fight with an otter--The terrier,
and his friendship with fishermen--A family party--Expert
diving--Hunt membership, and the landlord as huntsman--Fast
and furious fun--A rival Hunt--The bobtail's death--The terrier's
eccentricities--A pleasant study begins--Brown rats--Yellow
ants--Brighteye's peculiarities--Evening sport 51-67
II.
THE BURROW IN THE RIVER BANK.
At dusk--A picturesque home--Main roads and lanes of the riverside
people--A heron's alertness--A rabbit's danger signal--The
reed-bed--The vole in fear--The wildest of the wild--Tell-tale
footprints--The significance of a blood-stain--A weasel's
ferocity--Maternal warnings--A rat-hunting spaniel--An invaded
sanctuary--The terrier's opportunity--The water-vole chatters
and sings--A gladsome life--Dangers sharpen intellect 68-82
III.
WILD HUNTING.
An otter-hunt--Fading afterglow--Spiritual influence of night--Lutra
and Brighteye--Brighteye's song--Chill waters--A beacon in
the gloom--A squirrel's derision--A silvery phantom--An old,
lean trout--Restless salmon--Change of quarters--Brighteye's
encounter with a "red" fish 83-98
IV.
SAVED BY AN ENEMY.
The "redd" in the gravel--In company with a water-shrew--Ravenous
trout--The salmon's attack--An otter appears--Brighteye's
bewilderment--Increasing vigilance--Playful minnows--A new
water-entrance--The winter granary--Careful harvesting--The
dipper's winter carol--The robin and the wren at vespers--Unsafe
quarters--Rats on the move--A sequestered pool--Icebound
haunts 99-115
V.
THE COURAGE OF FEAR.
The dawn--Restlessness of spring--A bold adventurer--A sharp
fight--Cleared pathways--Differences of opinion--A tight
snuggery--In defence of home--A monster rat--Temporary refuge--The
voles and the cannibal trout--Family troubles--A winter evening
in the village 116-129
THE FIELD-VOLE.
I.
HIDDEN PATHWAYS IN THE GRASS.
A pleasant wilderness--Pitying Nature--Hedgerow sentinels--The
story of the day--Familiar signs--An unknown scent--The agony of
fear--A change of mood--The weasel's raid--A place of slaughter--Autumn
preparations--A general panic--Hibernation--Winter sunshine--The
red bank-voles--Owls and hawks 131-150
II.
THE VALLEY OF OLWEN.
The last of winter's stores--Renewed activity--The field-vole's
food--A lively widow vole--An unequal encounter--First fond
passion--Ominous sounds--A clumsy rabbit--An unimportant "affair"--An
elopement--Nesting time--A fussy parent--A fox pays a visit--Also
a carrion crow--Repairing damages 151-166
III.
A BARREN HILLSIDE.
A secluded pasture--Poachers and owls--An astute magpie--The
vole a sire of many families--Plague--Nature's caprice--Privation
and disease--Unexpected destroyers--A living skeleton--Starvation
and death--An owl once more 167-175
THE FOX.
I.
THE LAST HUNT.
A baffled marauder--The flesh of breeding creatures tough and
tasteless--An unsavoury rat--The arrival of the Hunt--The fox sees
his foes--The view-halloo--No respite, no mercy, no sanctuary--The
last hope--A fearless vixen--Defiant to the end 177-193
II.
A NEW HOME.
Life in an artificial "earth"--Longing and despair--Contentment
of maternity--Prisoners--A way of escape--Careless infancy--A
precocious cub--First lessons--An obedient family--A fox's
smile--Inborn passion for flesh--Favourite food of fox-cubs--The
huntsman's desire 194-209
III.
THE CUB AND THE POLECAT.
Patience and watchfulness--How to capture field-voles--Winding
trails--Ill-luck--A painful surprise--A fresh line of scent--Cost
of a struggle--A luckless fortnight--The old hound and the "young
entry"--A curiously shaped monster--Pursued by a lurcher--
Desertion--A vagrant bachelor 210-223
IV.
A CRY OF THE NIGHT.
The hunting call--A recollection--A joyous greeting--A woodland
bride--The sting of a wasp--Preparation of a "breeding earth"--Meddlesome
jays and magpies--A rocky fastness on the wild west coast--Vulp's
retreat--The end of a long life--The fox's mask--Memories 224-240
THE BROWN HARE.
I.
THE UPLAND CORNFIELD.
Midsummer--The leveret's birth--First wanderings--Instinct and
teaching--The "creeps"--In the stubble--Habits change with
seasons--The "sweet joint" of the rye--Lessons from a net and a
lurcher--Rough methods--The man-scent--On the hills above the
river-mists 241-260
II.
MARCH MADNESS.
March winds--Reckless jack-hares--Courtship and rivalry--Motherhood--A
harmless conflict--An intruding fox--The faithless lover--Maternal
courage--The falcon's "stoop"--The "slit-eared" hare--Countryside
superstitions--On the river island--Patience rewarded--The hare
as a swimmer--Bloodless sport--Habits of the hare in wet weather--The
"form" in the root-field--Bereavements--Increasing caution--
Productiveness in relation to food--A poacher's ruse 261-277
III.
THE CHASE.
The basset-hound--Mirthful and dignified--A method of protecting
hares--A suggestion--Formidable foes--"Fouling" the scent--A
cry of distress--The home in the snow-drift--The renegade cat--An
inoffensive life--A devastating storm 278-291
THE BADGER.
I.
A WOODLAND SOLITUDE.
Haunts of a naturalist--Why certain animals are unmolested--Means
of security--Fear of dogs and men--A place of interest--The
"nocturnal" instinct--Droll revelry--Serious pastimes--Teaching
by reward and punishment--Animals study the disposition of
their young--Voices of the wilderness 293-309
II.
HOME DISCIPLINE.
Unwelcome attentions--An old badger's watchfulness--A clever
trick--A presumptuous youngster--Instructions in selfishness--Harsh
measures--The badger and the stoat--A long ramble 310-324
III.
FEAR OF THE TRAP.
Wisdom in Nature's ways--The laggard of the family--A salutary
lesson--Hand-scent and foot-scent--An old Welsh law--The lesson
of a "double" scent--The sorrel as medicine--A wild bees'
nest--"In grease" 325-339
IV.
THE WINTER "OVEN."
The vixen and the hounds--The wounded rabbit--Old inhabitants
of the wood--In touch with enemies--Twilight romps--Brock's
quarrel with his sire--A bone of contention--Prompt chastisement--A
mournful chorus--Wild fancies of a bachelor--A big battle--The
terror of the flock--Unwarranted suspicion--Caught in the act 340-356
V.
HILLSIDE TRAILS.
The backward "drag"--Loyalty tested--A spiteful spouse--Spring
cleaning--Carrying litter to the "set"--A numerous family--An
eviction--Vulpicide--Important news--Old traditions of sport
revived--A long day's toil--The secret history of a "draw"--An
old burrow 357-373
THE HEDGEHOG.
I.
A VAGABOND HUNTER.
The nest in the "trash"--Quaint wildlings--Neighbours and
enemies--A feast--Spines and talons--The gipsy boy--A vagabond's
sport--The nest in the wild bees' ruined home--Insects killed
by frost--Winter quarters of the lizard and the snail 377-391
II.
AN EXPERIENCE IN SNAKE-KILLING.
An iron winter--March awakening--A coat of autumn leaves--The
Rip Van Winkle of the woods--Sunshine and strength--Faulty
eyesight--The hedgehog and the viper--Worsting an enemy--The
moorhen's nest--Antics of weasels and snakes--The hedgehog's
bleat--Odd and awkward courtship 392-406
NIGHT IN THE WOODS.
I.
HAUNTS OF THE BADGER AND THE FOX.
Wild life at night--Long watching--A "set" with numerous inhabitants--The
vixen and her cubs--Tolerant badgers--Vigilance--A moorland
episode--"Chalking the mark"--Fox-signs--A habit of voles and
rabbits--Patience, in vain--Sulky badgers--The vixen's lair--Foxes
at play 407-426
II.
THE CRAG OF VORTIGERN.
Difficulties of night watching--Powers of observation in wild
creatures--Night wanderers dislike rain--Eager helpers--A tempting
invitation--Cry of young owls--Philip, the silent watcher--The
fern-owl's rattle--The leaping places of the hare--Night gossip--The
meaning of the white and black markings on a badger's head--The
secrets of the cave 427-443
INDEX 445-448
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
From Drawings by
Florence H. Laverock.
"THE BROAD RIVER, IN WHICH SHE HAD SPENT HER
EARLY LIFE." See p. 50 _Frontispiece._
"AN OPPORTUNITY CAME, WHICH, HAD SHE BEEN POISED
IN THE AIR, COULD SCARCELY HAVE BEEN MISSED." _To face p._ 88
"THE BIG TROUT, IN HIS TORPEDO-LIKE RUSH TO CUT OFF
BRIGHTEYE FROM SURE REFUGE." See p. 105 " " 104
"SHE WAS HOLDING ONE OF HER OFFSPRING BY THE NECK,
IN PREPARATION FOR FLIGHT." See p. 139 " " 138
"HE RETIRED TO A ROCKY FASTNESS ON THE WILD WEST
COAST." " " 238
"WHEN THE EARLY AUTUMN MOON ROSE OVER THE CORN." " " 290
"HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS,
WITH UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH
OF SCENT." " " 364
"AS HE MEASURED HIS FULL LENGTH AGAINST THE TREE."
See p. 419 " " 418
THE OTTER.
I.
THE HOLT AMONG THE ALDERS.
I first saw Lutra, the otter-cub, while I was fishing late one summer
night. Slow-moving clouds, breaking into fantastic shapes and spreading
out great, threatening arms into the dark, ascended from the horizon and
sailed northward under the moon and stars. Ever and anon, low down in
the sky, Venus, like a clear-cut diamond suspended from one of its many
twinkling points, glittered between the fringes of the clouds, or the
white moon diffused soft light among the wreathing vapours that twisted
and rolled athwart the heavens. In the shelter of the pines on the
margin of the river, a ringdove, awakened by a bickering mate,
fluttered from bough to bough; and his angry, muffled coo of defiance
marred the stillness of the night. The gurgling call of a moorhen,
mingling with the ripple of the stream over the ford, came from the
reeds at a distant bend of the river. Nearer, the river, with varying
cadence, rose and fell in uneven current over a rocky shelf, and then
came on to murmur around me while I waded towards the edge of a deep,
forbidding pool. In the smooth back-wash beyond the black cup of the
pool a mass of gathered foam gleamed weirdly in the dark; and, further
away, broad tangles of river-weed, dotted with the pale petals of
countless flowers, floated on the shallow trout-reach extending from the
village gardens to the cornfields below the old, grey church.
In one of the terraced gardens behind me a cottager was burning garden
refuse; tongues of flame leaped up amid billows of smoke, and from the
crackling heap a myriad sparks shot out on every side. While the
cottager moved about by the fire, his shadow lengthened across the
river, which, reflecting the lurid glare, became strangely suggestive
of unfathomable depths. The moorhen called again from the reeds near the
ford, then flew away over the fire-flushed river and disappeared into
the gloom; and a water-vole dropped with a gentle plash into the pool.
Casting a white moth quietly over the stream, I noticed beyond the
shadows a round mass rising from the centre of the current, moving
against the flood, and sinking noiselessly out of sight. There could be
no doubt that the shape and motion were those of an otter. To continue
my sport would have been in vain with such a master-fisher in the pool,
so I reeled in my line, and stood still among the ripples as they
circled, muttering, around my knees. Presently the dim form of the otter
reappeared a little further up-stream, and I caught sight of a
glistening trout in the creature's mouth.
The otter swam, with head just above water, towards the alders skirting
the opposite bank, and then, turning sharply, was lost to sight near the
overhanging roots of a sycamore. Immediately afterwards, a strange,
flute-like whistle--as if some animal, having ascended from the depths
of the river, had blown water through its nostrils in a violent effort
to breathe--came from the whirlpool in the dense shadows of the pines:
the otter's mate was hunting in the quiet water beyond the shelf of
rock. Then a slight, rattling sound on the pebbly beach of a little bay
near the sycamore indicated that the animal had landed and was probably
devouring the captured fish. The leaping flames of the cottager's fire
had been succeeded by a fitful glow, but the moon glided from behind the
clouds and revealed a distinct picture of the parent otter standing on
the shingle, in company with Lutra, her little cub.
* * * * *
A deserted mansion--to whose history, like the aged ivy to its crumbling
walls, clung many a fateful legend--nestled under the precipitous woods
in the valley. Time, taking advantage of neglect, had made a wilderness
of the gardens, the lawns, and the orchards, which, less than a century
ago, surrounded with quiet beauty this home of a typical old country
squire. A few garden flowers still lingered near the porch; but the once
well tended borders were overgrown with grass, or occupied with wild
blossoms brought from the fields by the hundred agents employed by
Nature to scatter seed. Owls inhabited the outhouses, and bats the
chinks beneath the eaves. A fox had his "earth" in the shrubbery beyond
the moss-grown pathway leading from the door to the gate at the end of
the drive. A timid wood-pigeon often flew across from the pines and
walked about the steps before the long-closed door. Near the warped
window of the dismantled gun-room the end of a large water-pipe formed a
convenient burrow for some of the rabbits that played at dusk near the
margin of the shrubbery. This water-pipe led to the river's brink; and
there, having been broken by landslips resulting from the ingress of the
stream during flood, one of the severed parts of the tube formed,
beneath the surface of the water, an outlet to a natural chamber high
and dry in the bank. The upper portion of the pipe was choked with
earth and leaves washed down from the fields by the winter rains.
In this hollow "oven," on a heap of hay, moss, and leaves, brought
hither by the parent otters through an opening they had tunnelled into
the meadow, Lutra was born. Her nursery was shared by two other cubs.
Blind, helpless, murmuring little balls of fur, they were tended
lovingly by the dam.
Soon the thin membrane between their eyelids dried and parted, and they
awoke to a keen interest in their surroundings. Their chamber was dimly
lit by the hole above; and the cubs, directly they were able to crawl,
feebly climbed to a recess behind the shaft, where they blinked at the
clouds that sailed beneath the dome of June, and at the stars that
peeped out when night drew on, or watched the limpid water as, flowing
past the end of the pipe below, it bore along a twirling leaf or rolled
a pebble down the river-bed. Occasionally a salmon-pink wandered across
from the shallows; for a moment or two the play of its tiny fins was
seen at the edge of the pipe; and the cubs, excited by a sight of their
future prey, stretched their necks and knowingly held their heads
askew, so that no movement of the fish might escape their observation.
Among flesh-eating mammals of many kinds, the females display signs of
intelligence earlier than the males. Lutra being the only female among
the cubs, she naturally grew to be the most keenly observant, and often
identified the finny visitor before her brothers ventured to decide that
it was not a moving twig.
The dam spent most of the day asleep in the "holt," and most of the
night fishing in the pools. Inheriting the disposition of their kind,
the cubs also were more particularly lively by night than by day.
Directly the cold dew-mist wreathed the grass at the entrance of the
burrow, they commenced to sport and play, tumbling over each other,
grunting and fighting in mimic anger, or pretending to startle their
mother directly she entered the pipe on returning at intervals from
fishing.
One night, while the cubs were rougher than ever in their fun, Lutra
slipped off the platform and fell headlong down the pipe into the
stream. But almost before she had time to be frightened she discovered
that to swim was as easy as to play; and she rose to the surface with a
faint, flute-like call. She splashed somewhat wildly, for her stroke was
not yet perfected by practice. Hearing the commotion and instantly
recognising its meaning, the dam dived quietly and swiftly right beneath
the cub, and bore her gently back to the platform, where the rest of the
family, having missed their companion, had for the moment ceased to romp
and fight.
A few nights after this incident, the mother commenced in earnest to
educate her young. Tenderly taking each in turn, she carried the
nurslings into the water, and taught them, by a method and in language
known only to themselves, how to dive and swim with the least possible
exertion and disturbance.
Henceforward, throughout the summer, and till the foliage on the trees
near the pool, chilled by the rapid fall of the temperature every
evening, became thinner in the breath of the early autumn wind, the
otter-cubs fished, and frolicked, and slept, or were suckled by their
dam. Sometimes the whole family, together with the old dog-otter,
adjourned to the middle of the meadow, and in the tall, dew-drenched
grass skipped like kittens, though with comical clumsiness rather than
with the agility they displayed in the water. Like kittens, too, the
cubs played with their mother, in spite of wholesome chastisement when
they nipped her muzzle rather more severely than even long-suffering
patience could allow. The dam was at all times loath to correct her
offspring, but the sire rarely endured the familiarity of the cubs for
long. Directly they became unduly presumptuous he lumbered off to the
river, as if he considered it much more becoming to fish than to join in
the sport of his progeny. Perhaps, indeed, he deemed a change of
surroundings essential that he might forget the liberties taken with him
by his disrespectful youngsters.
When about three months old, Lutra began to show promise of that grace
of form and motion which in later life was to be one of her chief
distinctions. Her body, tail, and head gradually lengthened; and, as her
movements in the water became more sinuous and easy, she tired less
rapidly when fishing.
Autumn passed on towards winter, the nights were long, the great harvest
of the leaves fell thickly on the meadow and the stream, the mountain
springs were loosed in muddy torrents, and the river roared, swollen and
turbid, past the "holt" under the trailing alder-twigs. The moorhens
came back from the ponds where they had nested in April and May; the
wild duck and the teal flew south from oversea, and in the night
descended circling to the pool; a dabchick from the wild gorge
down-river took up his abode in the sedges.
The quick jerk of the dabchick's oar-like wings caused much wonder to
Lutra, when, walking on the river-bed, she looked up towards the moonlit
sky, and saw the little grebe dive like a dark phantom into the deep
hole beneath the rocky ledges of Penpwll. Once the otter-cub, acting
under an irresistible impulse, swam towards the bird and tried to seize
him. She managed to grip one of his feet, as they trailed behind him
while he dived, but the grebe escaped, leaving in the assailant's mouth
only a morsel of flesh torn from a claw.
In the warm evenings of late summer and the first weeks of autumn, the
angler usually visited the shingle opposite the water-pipe, and waded
up-stream casting for trout. The otter-cubs, grown wiser than when the
angler saw them near the sycamore, discreetly stayed at home, for they
had been taught to regard this strange being, Man, known by his peculiar
footfall and upright walk, as a dreaded enemy scarcely less formidable
than the hounds and the terriers that at intervals accompanied him for
the express purpose of hunting such river-folk as otters and rats.
As yet Lutra had never seen the hounds, nor, till the following summer,
was she to know the import of her instinctive timidity. Roaming, hungry,
and venturesome, she had chanced at nightfall to catch a glimpse, during
an occasional gleam of moonlight, of a large trout struggling
frantically on the surface of the water not far from the angler, had
heard the click of the reel and the swish of the landing net, and had
concluded that these mysterious proceedings gave cause for fear.
The end of October drew nigh; and, when the last golden leaves began to
fall from the beeches, the angler ceased to frequent the riverside.
Henceforward, except when a sportsman passed with his gun, the otters'
haunt remained in peace.
Always at break of day, however, when the pigeons left their roosting
places in the pines, an old, decrepit woman tottered down the steps from
the cottage door to the rock at the brim of the pool, and filled her
pails with water. But the creatures felt little alarm: they had become
accustomed to her presence in the dawn. Lonely and childless and poor,
she knew more than any one else of the otters; but she kept their
whereabouts a secret, for the creatures lent an interest to her
cheerless, forsaken life, and recalled to her halting memory the long
past days when her husband told her tales of hunting and fishing as she
sat, a young and pretty girl, at her spinning wheel in the light of the
flickering "tallow-dip."
Warm, cloudy weather continued from the late autumn through the
winter--except for a few days of frost and snow in December--so that
food was never scarce, and Lutra thrived and grew. The great migration
of salmon took place, but she was not sufficiently big and strong to
grip and hold these monster fish. Her own weight hardly exceeded that of
the smallest of them, so she had to be content with a mixed diet of
salmon-fry and trout, varied with an occasional slug or snail that she
chanced to find in the meadow. For a brief period after the fall of snow
in December, the frost fettered the fields, and the moon shone nightly
on a white waste through which the river flowed, like a black, uneven
line, between its hoar-fringed banks. Then Lutra, bold in the unbroken
stillness of Nature's perfect sleep, climbed the steps leading to a
village garden, and searched the refuse heap for scraps discarded from
the cottager's meagre board. She even wandered further, crossed the
road, and passed under a gate into the fields near the outlying stables
of the inn. Here some birds had roosted in the hazels by the fence, and
the cub stood watching them, like the fox beneath the desired but
distant grapes.
A rough, mongrel sheep-dog, having missed his master, who had been
carousing in the inn that evening, chanced to be trotting homeward to
the farm on the hill, and, sniffing at the gate, discovered the cub in
the hedgerow. With a mad yell the dog tore through the briars at the
side of the gate-post; but Lutra was equally quick, and by the time her
enemy was in the field she had dodged under the bars and was shuffling
away, as quickly as her short legs permitted, down the garden to the
river. The dog turned, crashed back through the briars, and gained
rapidly on the otter. He reached her just as she gained the top of the
wall that, on a level with the garden, formed a barrier against the
river-floods. Lutra felt a sharp nip on her flank, and was bowled over
by the impetuous rush of her foe; but she regained her feet in an
instant, and jumped without hesitation into the water. The river was
shallow where she fell; the dog followed her; and for a moment she was
in deadly peril. But before the sheep-dog recovered from his sudden
plunge, Lutra swam into the deep water and dived straight for home,
leaving the plucky mongrel standing in the ripples, with a look of
almost human disgust and astonishment on his intelligent face. He may
have reasoned thus: "Surely I caught that otter. But stay, I must have
been dreaming. 'Tis queer, though: I'm in the river instead of on the
road to the farm." This, for Lutra, was perhaps the only noteworthy
episode of her early life.
The otter-cub was about nine months old when spring came to the valley.
The water-weed grew in long filaments from the gravelly shallows. The
angler, who had ceased to frequent the riverside at the approach of
winter, returned to the pool, but only by day, and then Lutra dozed in
her retreat. In the pines on the margin of the river the blue ringdoves
were busy constructing the rude makeshift that was to serve the purpose
of a nest. Instead of seeking how to construct a perfect dwelling place,
these slipshod builders spent most of their hours in courtship.
Sometimes, owing to the carelessness of the lackadaisical doves, a dry
stick released by bill or claw would fall pattering among the branches,
and drop, with a plash, into the river, where it would be borne by the
current past the otter's lair. From every bush and brake along the
sparkling stream the carols of joyous birds floated on the morning
mists. The first green leaves of the bean peeped in the gardens; the
first broods of the year's ducklings launched forth, like heartstrong
adventurers, into the shallows by the cottage walls. In the sunny glades
the big, fleshy buds of the chestnut and the light-green, tapering
sprouts of the sycamore expanded under the influence of increasing
warmth. Finches and sparrows, on the lookout for flies, hovered above
the ankle-deep drifts of leaf-mould in the lane below the trees, or
crossed and re-crossed between the budding boughs. Only a few of these
many signs were observed by Lutra, it is true, for she spent the day in
hiding. But at dusk she heard the bleating of the lambs, and the musical
note of a bell that had been slung round the neck of the patriarch of
the flock in order to deter foxes from meddling with the new-born
weaklings then under the big ram's care. She was made aware of the
presence of spring by the "scent in the shadow and sound in the light."
The hatching of countless flies in the leaf-mould was not watched by the
birds only: Lutra also knew that the swarms had arrived; and spring was
welcome if only for this.
For months she had fed on lean and tasteless trout exhausted by
spawning. Now, instead of lying under stones or haunting the deep basin
of the pool, the trout rose to the surface and wandered abroad into the
shallows. There the languid fish became fit for food again, and more
capable of eluding the occasional long, stern chases of the otter. But
Lutra was never disconcerted by the fact that the fish were strong and
active; as with all carnivorous creatures, her sporting instincts were
so highly developed that she revelled in overcoming difficulties,
especially because she felt her own strength growing from day to day.
During winter the trout had fed on worms and "sundries." Now, their best
and heartiest meals were of flies. Daily, at noon, swarms of ephemerals
played over the water, and the trout rose from the river-bed to feed. At
first they "sported" ravenously, rising quick and sure to any insect
their marvellous vision might discern. Afterwards they fed daintily,
disabling and drowning with a flip of the tail many an insect that
fluttered at the surface, and choosing from their various victims some
unusually tasty morsel, such as a female "February red" about to lay her
eggs. At this time, also, the plump, cream-coloured larvae of the
stone-fly in the shallows were growing within their well cemented
caddis-cases and preparing for maturity. So the trout fattened on
caddis-grubs and flies, and the otter-cub, in corresponding measure,
became sleek, well-grown, and spirited.
In the winter Lutra had imperceptibly acquired the habit of swimming and
diving across-stream, just as an old fox, when hunting in the woods,
quarters his ground systematically across-wind, and so detects the
slightest scent that may be wafted on the breeze. Nature had been
specially kind to her; she was fashioned perfectly, and in the river
reigned supreme. Her body was long, supple, and tapering; her brown fur
was close and short, so that the water never penetrated to her skin and
her movements were not retarded as they would have been had she
possessed the loose, draggling coat of an otter-hound. She seemed to
glide with extraordinary facility even against a rapid current. Her skin
was so tough that on one occasion when, by accident, she was carried
down a raging rapid and thrown against a jagged rock, a slight bruise
was the only result. Her legs were short and powerful, her toes webbed,
and her tail served the purpose of a rudder. Nostrils, eyes, and
ears--all were small and water-tight, and set so high on the skull that,
when she rose to breathe, little more than a speck could be seen on the
surface, unless she felt it safe to raise her head and body further for
the sake of ease in plunging deep.
When Lutra was nine months old she caught her first salmon; and, though
the fish was only a small "kelt," returning, weak from spawning, to the
sea, the capture was a fair test of the cub's prowess and daring. It
happened thus. She was walking up the river-bed one boisterous night,
when she saw a dark form hovering close to the surface in the middle of
a deep pool. Her eyes, peculiarly fitted for watching objects
immediately above, quickly detected the almost motionless fish. The
eyes of the salmon were also formed for looking upwards, and so Lutra
remained unnoticed by her prey. She stole around the hovering fish, that
the bubbles caused by her breathing might make no noticeable disturbance
as they rose to the surface, and then, having judged to a nicety the
strength of the stream, paddled with almost imperceptible motion towards
the salmon. Before the fish had time to flee it was caught in Lutra's
vice-like jaws and borne, struggling desperately and threshing the water
into foam, to the bank. There the otter-cub killed her victim by
severing the vertebrae immediately behind its gills.
Otters well nigh invariably destroy large-sized fish by attacking them
in this particular part. And, according to a similar method, stoats and
polecats, whenever possible, seize their victims near the base of the
brain. In yet another way Lutra proved her relationship to the weasel
tribe: just as our miniature land-otters eat only small portions of the
rabbits they kill, so the cub was content with a juicy morsel behind the
salmon's head--a morsel known among sportsmen as "the otter's bite."
Soon after the cub had killed her first salmon she separated from her
parents and brothers, travelled far down-river, and wandered alone. In
the human character, development becomes especially marked directly
independence of action is assumed; henceforward parental guidance counts
for comparatively little. And so it was with Lutra.
II.
THE POOL BENEATH THE FARMSTEAD.
Last year, in autumn mornings, when the big round clouds sailing swiftly
overhead reminded me of springtide days and joyous skylarks in the
heavens, but when all parent birds were silent, knowing how dark winter
soon would chill the world, a thrush, that not long since had been a
fledgling in his nest amid a shrubbery of box, came to the fruit-tree
near my window, and, in such low tones that only I could hear them,
warbled that all in earth and sky was beautiful.
To Lutra, lonely like the thrush, and, like the thrush, not yet aware of
pain and hunger, the world seemed bright and filled with happiness. At
first, like a young fox that, till he learns the fear of dogs and men,
steals chickens from a coop near which an old, experienced fox would
never venture, she was, perhaps, a little too indifferent to danger. In
her perfect health and irresponsible freedom, she paid but slight
attention to the alarm signals of other creatures of the night.
Up-river, at a bend below a hillside farmstead some distance from our
village, is a broad, deep salmon-pool, fringed with alders and willows.
Right across the upper end of this pool stretches a broken ledge of
rock, over which, in flood, the waters boom and crash into a seething
basin whence thin lines of vapour--blue and grey when the day is dull,
or gleaming with the colours of the rainbow when the sun, unclouded,
shines aslant the fall--ceaselessly arise, and quiver on the waves of
air that catch their movement from the restless swirls beneath. But in
dry summer weather the ledge is covered with green, slippery weed, the
curving fall is smooth as glass, and the rapid loses half its flood-time
strength.
This pool, though containing some of the finest salmon "hovers" in the
river, is nowadays but seldom fished. Since the old generation of
village fishermen has passed away it seems to have gradually lost its
popularity. The right bank of the river above and below the pool is for
miles so thickly wooded that anglers prefer to pass up-country before
unpacking their rods. From the left bank it is useless for any angler
who has not made a study of the pool to attempt to reach the "hovers."
Under far more favourable conditions than these, the throw necessary to
place a fly on even the nearest of the "hovers" would be almost the
longest that could with accuracy be made. But the angler is baffled at
the outset by the presence of a steep slope behind him.
I well remember two instances when I was tricked by the self-conceit
which led me to suppose that my skill in casting was of no mean order.
Once, while the river was bank-high after flood, I happened to be
throwing an unusually long line, with careless ease, over the lower end
of a pool, where, before, I had never seen a fish. I was, no doubt,
thinking of something quite unconnected with fishing, otherwise I should
not have wandered thus far from the spot where I generally reeled in my
line. A salmon effectually aroused me by a terrific rush at my fly. I
"struck" hard, and the fly, after a momentary check, flew up into the
air. I am not one of those anglers who give rest to a salmon in the
belief that, after rising, he requires time to recover from his
disappointment at having failed to catch the lure. I believe in
"sticking to" a fish, perhaps because the first I ever hooked was one I
had bullied ceaselessly during the whole of a spring evening. And so I
tried hard and often to tempt that sportive fish again; but after the
careless, easy casting which resulted in the rise, I could not by any
means throw satisfactorily over the tail of the pool. However I tried to
do so, the line would double awkwardly as it reached the water, or would
curl back into the rapid on the near side of the "hover," or the fly
would splash in a most provoking manner as it alighted on the stream. So
at last I left the riverside.
Henceforth, I attempted the same long cast whenever I passed the pool. I
lost many flies, and never again rose a fish. But I was convinced that I
had discovered a "hover" new to the village fishermen, till my old
friend Ianto chaffed me into the belief that the salmon I had seen was a
"passenger," and, probably, a "spent kelt" in such a weak condition that
for it to stay in the rough water higher up the pool was impossible.
On another occasion, in early days when my ignorance of the river and of
fishing sorely troubled both Ianto and myself, as I was wading
down-stream along the edge of a pool a grilse rose, "head and tail,"
about twenty yards below my fly. Using my long gaff-handle as a staff, I
walked slowly towards the fish, casting carefully all the way. I was so
absorbed in my work that I did not know I was moving into deep water
till I found that my wading stockings had filled. I then stopped, and,
lengthening my line at each successive "throw," sent my fly nearer and
still nearer to the grilse.
How I managed the long, straight cast that presently resulted in my fly
passing down the "hover," I do not know. The grilse rose sharply at the
lure, but I "struck" too late. I reeled in my line, and after a few
minutes began once more to cast. Now, however, try as I might, I could
not get the line out to the distance required; it would not fall
straight and true. In desperation I endeavoured to overcome the
difficulty by sheer strength. I swung my arms aloft; my old hickory rod
creaked and groaned with the increasing strain, then snapped immediately
the tension was released with the return of the line; and, a second
afterwards, the grilse took my fly and bolted away down-stream.
All caution left me; I was "into a fish"--that was enough. In haste to
catch my rod-top as it slipped down the line from the butt, I made one
step forward, and fell over head and ears into a deep hole beneath the
shelf of rock on which I had been standing. When I recognised what had
happened I was clinging to an alder-root near the bank; thence,
breathless, I lifted myself till I was safe on a tree-trunk above the
pool. My rod and cap were drifting rapidly away; but, after divesting
myself of half my dripping garments, I recovered the rod in a backwater
below the neighbouring wood. All my line had been taken out, the gut
collar had been snapped, and the fly had undoubtedly been carried off
by the grilse.
In those old days of which I have elsewhere written,[1] Ianto and I
often resorted to the wide, deep pool under the farm. Sometimes, during
summer, we were there before daybreak, fishing for the salmon that only
then or in the dusk would deign to inspect our "Dandy" fly. And there,
in the summer nights, we frequently captured, with the natural minnow,
the big trout that wandered from the rapids to feed in the quiet waters
by the alders. Ianto knew the pool so well that even in the darkest
night he would wade along the slippery, weed-grown shelf near the raging
fall, to troll in the shadows above him. Had the old man taken one false
step he would have entered on a struggle for life compared with which my
own adventure after hooking the grilse would have been insignificant.
For several months free, happy Lutra made her daytime abode in a "holt"
among the alder-roots fringing this pool. She loved in the long winter
nights to hear the winnow-winnow of powerful wings as the wild ducks
circled down towards the pool, the whir of the grey lag-geese far in the
mysterious sky, and the whistle of the teal and the gurgle of the
moorhens among the weeds close by the river's brim.
Crouched on a grassy mound beside the rapids, she could see each
movement on the surface of the pool. The wild ducks splattered and
quacked as they paddled busily hither and thither, visiting each little
bay and reed-clump at the water's edge. Sometimes, surrendering
themselves wholly to sport and play, they formed little groups of two or
three; and now one group, and then another, would race, half-swimming,
half-flying, from bank to bank or from the rock to the salmon "hover" at
the lower end of the pool. The otter remembered her experience with the
dabchick, and believed that to capture a full-grown duck would tax her
utmost strength and cause a general alarm. Once, however, excited by the
wild ducks' sport, she slipped quietly from the mound, dived deep, and
from the river-bed shot up in the midst of the birds just as they had
congregated to settle a point of difference in a recent event, and to
discuss a second part of their sports' programme for the night.
As the birds, panic-stricken, scattered on every side, and, following
each other in two long lines that joined in the form of a wedge, flew up
into the starlit sky, Lutra watched them eagerly for a few moments;
then, without a ripple, she sank below the surface and returned to her
watch on the mound. For a while after the ducks had left the pool,
nothing could be heard but the ceaseless noise of falling water. But as
the night drew on, a moorhen ventured from the shelter of the alders,
and, like a tiny, buoyant boat, launched out into the pool. The otter,
with appetite whetted by recent sport among the ducks, again left her
hiding place and silently vanished into the stream. Borne by the
current, she reached, with scarcely an effort, a point in the swirling
depths from which she could catch a glimpse of the dim outline of the
floating bird. Then, rising swiftly, she gripped the moorhen from
beneath, dived across to the "hover," and, having killed and skinned her
prey, feasted at leisure.
There were times in the second summer of her existence when Lutra, like
the wild ducks, seemed to abandon every thought of the possibility of
danger. Simply for the love of exercise and in enjoyment of the tranquil
night, she played about the pool till the dawn peeped over the hills;
then, tired of her frolic, she sought her secret "holt," and, curling
her tail about her face and holding her hind-paws closely between her
fore-paws, fell asleep.
While she gambolled in the water, even her quickest movements were as
graceful as those of a salmon stemming the rapids and leaping into the
shallows above the rock. Diving into the depths, she avoided with
scarcely an effort the tangled roots and branches, that, washed thither
by the floods, had long been the dread of anglers when heavy fish were
hooked. Ceasing all exertion as she turned into the current, she floated
to the surface and was borne away down-stream. She swam at highest speed
from the tail to the throat of the pool, and drifted idly back to the
place from which she had started; then, changing her methods, she
skirted slowly the edge of the current, and with one long, straight
dive shot down from the head of the rapids to the still water near her
"holt."
From playing thus about the pool, the otter learned the power of the
current, and how it hastened or retarded her while she pursued her prey.
But most of all, during the hours of the placid night, she delighted to
frolic in the torrent immediately below the rock, where, matching her
strength against that of the river, she leaped and dived and tumbled
through the foam, or, lying on her back amid a shower of spray,
stretched wide her limbs and suffered the whirlpool to draw her,
unresisting, into its vortex deep beneath the fall.
Lutra sometimes noticed, while she drifted with the current, that the
scent of her kindred lay strong at the surface not far from her "holt."
One still, moonlit night the scent indicated that several full-grown
otters had at intervals come from the trout-reaches down-stream, and had
landed in a reed-bed at the lower end of the pool. It led away from the
river through the valley, along by a number of stagnant ponds in an old
garden near the farm, and thence to a point beyond a bend where the
river flowed almost parallel to its course at the pool. As the otter,
inquisitively following the line of the scent, came to the ponds, she
heard the croaking of countless frogs hidden in the duckweed that lay
over the entire surface of the water. Lutra made ample use of the
opportunity for a feast--frogs were the greatest delicacies known to
her, and she had never before found them to be so plentiful. Dawn was
breaking when, in her onward journey, she reached the river; so she
drifted around the bend, dived over the fall, and returned to her home
beneath the alder-roots.
It happened that the otters whose "spur" (footprints) Lutra had followed
to the frog-ponds retraced their steps towards the pool, and in doing so
suddenly discovered that the scent of a man lay strong on the trodden
grass. A villager, knowing the eagerness with which otters seek for
frogs, and that they often cross a narrow neck of land at the bend of a
stream, had for a time kept watch at the lower end of the old farm
garden. He was anxious that the hounds, which, on the previous day, had
arrived at the village, should enjoy good sport during their stay in the
neighbourhood. But he saw nothing of the animals he had come to watch;
as soon as they detected his whereabouts they retreated hastily to the
pond at the upper end of the garden, gained the river, and, like Lutra,
swam homewards around the bend. But, less familiar than Lutra with the
strength of the current, they left the water as they approached the
fall, and crept through the deep shadows of the alder-roots till they
reached a point at some distance beyond the pool.