or rather all of them but one, for scientific people do not allow us to
call spiders insects. Insects have six legs and six legs only, while
spiders and mites and those sort of people have eight, and there are a
great many other differences between spiders and true insects which
would make it quite a dreadful blunder to put them in the same case in
the Museum, or to speak of them in the same breath when you know you are
talking to clever people.
The Spider, as you might guess, is one of the Wolves, and so is the
Dragon in the Water-weed, who turns into one of our largest dragon
flies, if he is lucky; while the caterpillars and the Giant Wood Wasp
are just silly harmless sheep.
Have you ever thought of the wonderful struggles which are always going
on in the insect world--the struggles to eat, and the struggles not to
be eaten? Nearly all insects seem to be the food for something or other.
Most animals enjoy them thoroughly, so do many birds, and many reptiles
and amphibians (frogs and toads) and many fish. I think that spiders
live on them entirely, and they have also cannibals to fear among their
own kind, for though most insects feed on plant-juice, quite a large
number of them turn to stronger meat, and spend their lives in hunting
their poor relations. It sounds rather horrible, doesn't it? But we may
be quite sure that everything of the kind has been mercifully arranged
so that this beautiful world of ours, with all its joy and colour, and
its millions and millions of happy children--I do not think that any
lives but those of human beings are ever really unhappy--may keep its
beauty always. That is why the ichneumon flies have to kill down the
caterpillars, for, if there were too many caterpillars, there would be
no hedgerows, let alone vegetables for dinner; and the Rove Beetles, who
have curly cock-up tails, have to kill down the little boring beetles,
for, if there were too many little boring beetles there would be no
trees; and the Crabros have to kill down the blue-bottles, for if there
were too many blue-bottles--well, goodness knows what _would_ happen to
some excitable people.
We must believe then that things are best as they are--that a struggle
for life is part of a Great Plan, Greater than our human minds can
grasp, and that the lives of the hunters are as useful in their way as
the lives of the hunted.
Now how would we ourselves act, if our lives depended on catching
things? And how would we act if our lives depended on not being caught?
I don't think we could add much to what the insects and spiders have
taught us. To hunt successfully you must get so near to your quarry that
you can kill it. If you are quicker-footed, well and good. If you are
slower-footed you may employ something quicker-footed than
yourself--this is what happens in fox-hunting; or you may approach
without being seen--this is what happens in deer-stalking: or you may
hide yourself and wait for your quarry to approach you--this is what
happens in tiger-shooting; or, lastly, you may employ traps and snares,
which is how most fishing is done. I don't think that any creatures but
ourselves employ lower creatures to hunt for them, but the other ways
are used by all sorts of animals, and the last two are used more
skilfully by insects and spiders than by anything else.
[Illustration: THE SPIDER ON THE BRAMBLE BLOSSOM]
Look at the pictures of the spider on the bramble-blossom. This
particular spider belongs to a family called _Thomisus_ (I don't know
why) and he varies in colour from a bright sulphur yellow to a delicate
green, which is an exact match to the green of an unopened bramble-bud.
In three of the pictures (a fly has settled close to the spider in two
of them) you will be able to make out the spider pretty soon, I expect,
for he has stretched his legs out. He keeps quite still in this
position, and I think he fancies that he is a bramble-bud. But in the
other picture I am pretty sure that, if he did not happen to be a rather
fat spider, you would find it very difficult to distinguish him, and you
may be certain that a fly would find it just as difficult. He is a wolf
in sheep's clothing, and the sheep are bramble-buds.
[Illustration: THE DRAGON IN THE WATER-WEED]
[Illustration: THE DRAGON IN THE WATER-WEED
This is the back of him, and you can see that he is covered
with a delicate water-weed]
And now for the Dragon in the Water-weed. You will not be able to make
him out at all at first, but if you look long enough you will see his
body which is too thick to be a piece of weed, and if you then let your
eyes travel upwards, you will see his "mask," which is like a pair of
folding-doors. These open and let his jaws out when he wants to use
them. And his disguise is even more slim than that of the spider, for
not only does he mimic the Water-weed round him--his straggly legs,
which you should be able to make out also, help him in this--but he
actually becomes part of his surroundings, for all over him grows a
delicate water-weed, and when he is at the bottom of the pond, where he
spends most of his time, he is _part_ of the bottom of the pond, and the
creatures which he would eat walk past him carelessly. He is a wolf in
sheep's clothing, and the sheep are water-weeds.
[Illustration: THE LOBSTER MOTH CATERPILLAR
As he looks when angry]
And now for the sheep who are just as clever really as the wolves. Two
of these are caterpillars--quite the most curious pair of caterpillars
to be met with in this country--and the third is a sawfly. Sawflies get
their name from having an instrument with which they can bore or saw, as
the case may be, into leaves or trees, and this is the largest one we
have in England.
The hunter-insects, as we have seen, disguise themselves so as to get
near their victims unawares, and the hunted disguise themselves very
often in the same way so as to avoid being seen, but sometimes in such a
way that if they _are_ seen they may appear to be much more terrible
creatures than they really are. And so we have the sheep in wolves'
clothing.
[Illustration: THE ICHNEUMON FLY]
The hunters of the caterpillars are the ichneumon flies. Ichneumon flies
do not eat caterpillars but lay their eggs inside them. They have a
special instrument for the purpose, and when the grubs hatch out they
gradually eat away the fleshy parts of the caterpillar so that it seldom
has strength enough to turn into a chrysalis, let alone a butterfly, or
moth, or beetle, as the case may be. Now what is the chief enemy of a
fly? Why, of course, a spider. If then something which dreads an
ichneumon fly can make itself look like that fly's worst enemy, a
spider, it will have a good chance of scoring off the fly.
The Caterpillar of the Lobster Moth, of which I show you two pictures,
can do this to a nicety. He has, as you see, an extraordinary shape for
a caterpillar, I don't think that any other caterpillar in this country
has the same long skinny legs--and he is able to strike extraordinary
attitudes which make him look very spidery indeed, particularly from in
front, for then the two little spikes at the end of his lobster body
appear over the top of his head and look like a spider's pincers. Mother
Nature has been very careful of her Lobster Moth caterpillar. When he is
quite a baby he looks just like a little black ant. When he is asleep he
folds up his legs and looks like a shrivelled beech-leaf--he usually
feeds on beech--and, when he is attacked by an ichneumon fly (you can
make him think he is being attacked by tickling him with a paint-brush)
he turns himself at once into a sham spider, by throwing back his head
as far as it will go and shuddering his skinny legs in the air.
[Illustration: THE PUSS MOTH CATERPILLAR
As he looks when angry]
The Puss Moth caterpillar is almost as curious. He, too, strikes
fearsome attitudes. He has eye-markings to help him (you will have read
about these elsewhere) and he can also squirt out an acid from
underneath his chin. These two defences are probably most useful against
animals and birds and lizards and creatures of that kind, but they do
not seem to be much use against an ichneumon fly, and so Mother Nature
has helped him further, by giving him two little pink whiplashes, which
shoot out from the prongs at his tail end when he is really annoyed.
When a fly comes near him he brandishes them as you see in the picture.
[Illustration: THE GIANT WOOD WASP
It has no poisonous sting, though it looks as if it had a
very fine one]
Our last sheep is the Giant Wood Wasp, who is not a wasp at all, and is
much more common in this country than he used to be. He is a handsome
black and yellow insect with a body about an inch long, and his wolf's
clothing is his black and yellow colour. This is the commonest wolf's
clothing of all. You know I expect that a number of stinging insects,
wasps and bees, have a black and yellow, or black and red colouring, and
you know too, I dare say, that there are a great many flies who have no
stings but are coloured in much the same way. Well, it is thought that
these flies without stings, of which the Giant Wood Wasp is one, may
sometimes avoid attack because they frighten their enemies by looking as
if they _had_ stings. Suppose a young sparrow ate a wasp, he would
probably get stung, and it might happen that next time he saw a black
and yellow fly, he would mistake it for a wasp and so not eat it. If
this _did_ happen, the fly would have owed his life to being black and
yellow.
THE BEASTIES' BEDTIME
(OCTOBER)
[Illustration: THE QUEEN WASP IN HER WINTER SLEEP
She puts her wings _underneath_ her body, so that they
sha'n't get damaged, and holds on chiefly with her mouth]
How would you like to sleep straightaway through the winter, and miss
Guy Fawkes, and Christmas, and New Year, and Valentine's Day, and
skating, and snowballing, and round games in the evening, and having
stories read to you by the fire, and all those delightful things which
come to cheer us when the weather is damp and gloomy, making us feel
somehow that summer is a queer, impossible kind of time, just as in
summer we find it hard to imagine what it feels like to be really cold?
I want you to remember in this winter which is coming what a number of
little creatures in the wide world around you are fast, fast asleep. I
want you to think how wonderful it is that these little creatures are
able to dream away the time when there is nothing for them to eat, and
to wake again when there is food in plenty.
[Illustration: BILL THE LIZARD]
Every year when the evenings begin to come quicker and quicker, and grow
colder and colder, Mother Nature, who is the mother of our dear own
mothers, puts her babies to bed at the time which she knows is best. A
queer set of babies they are! Babies of such different kinds that it is
a wonder she can keep them all in her head, and not have to say
sometimes to herself: "Good gracious, I forgot my dormouse: and I don't
believe my brown lizard was properly tucked up in the grass-tuft; and as
for my prickly hedge-pig, I don't remember where I sent him last."
But Mother Nature never does forget, and never spoils her babies. She
whispers "bedtime," and they go.
The little insects go first--the flies, and beetles, and earwigs, and
frog-hoppers, and myriads of other tiny creatures which you can see in
the grass on any warm day by just lying down and opening your eyes.
[Illustration: TOADUMS]
For all Mother Nature's care I fear that most of these die, but some may
manage to live through the cold, and among the larger kinds of insects
some always do. You remember what I told you about the Brimstone
Butterfly! The Queen Wasp is another of the lucky ones.
She creeps into some sheltered crevice, where she can find a shred of
something small enough to take into her mouth. This sounds queer,
doesn't it? I will tell you the reason. The Queen Wasp sleeps hanging by
her jaws, and hardly trusting to her legs at all. You can see what she
looks like in the picture, and you must notice that she has tucked her
wings right underneath her body so that nothing can brush against them.
[Illustration: ROUND EYE THE DORMOUSE]
After the insects go the reptiles and the frogs. These are cold-blooded
creatures, so they have no need to make a nest to keep them warm, but
they don't like to be too cold, and always creep somewhere where the
frost will not reach them. Bill the lizard sometimes goes deep down into
a large grass-tuft, and sometimes creeps into a mouse-hole. Froggin
dives into a pond and wriggles into the mud, or underneath a stone, and
there sleeps under the water until the hot sunshine comes again, and he
knows, by the feel of things, that it is time to be moving. Toadums
prefers to sleep on land. He lies quite flat, with his hands in front of
his eyes, and wakes up a little later than Froggin.
[Illustration: THE DORMOUSE IN HIS WINTER SLEEP
He bunches himself up so as to close all the doors that the
air can get in by, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, everything]
After these the animals. Round Eye the dormouse goes to sleep about
November. He builds a nest of leaves and grass all around himself, and,
if the winter is cold, sleeps straight away into April. If the winter is
warm, however, he may wake up and eat a little food, and if he is a wise
little mouse, as he usually is, he keeps a little store of nuts and
seeds at hand in case he _does_ wake up. Prickles the hedge-pig does
much the same. He has a nest which is even warmer, for, besides the
leaves and grass which make the round of it, he rolls his spines into
anything soft which will stick to them and so has a nice warm blanket
next to his skin. Once he has dropped off to sleep he stays asleep till
the spring comes. I don't think he ever wakes up like the dormouse, or
ever makes a store of food.
[Illustration: PRICKLES THE HEDGE-PIG]
The only other animals which sleep the winter through in this country
are the bats, and some of them sleep even longer than the dormouse and
the hedge-pig; indeed, they are only awake for three or four months in
the year. Sometimes there are crowds of them sleeping together in old
caves, and tree trunks, and places like that, and it may be that they
half wake up and talk to each other to pass away the time. Indeed, if
you know their hole and can put your ear close to it, you can sometimes
hear them talking and squabbling--faint little squabblings like the
sound of a kettle simmering on the hob when you can just hear the tiny
bubbles hitting each other and bursting with bad temper.
[Illustration: THE HEDGE-PIG IN HIS WINTER SLEEP
He is not so tightly coiled as when he shuts up to defend
himself]
When bats are flying about and hunting for moths they often squeak for
joy, and then their voice is quite different. It is so high that some
people cannot hear it at all; but you can make a noise just like it by
striking two pennies sharply together, and if you can hear that being
done when you are several yards away from the person who is doing it,
you ought to be able to hear a bat squeak too.
[Illustration: THE LESSER HORSESHOE BAT IN HIS WINTER SLEEP
He is hanging head-downwards and is completely shut up in
his own wings, which, you see, are beautifully folded]
You have to watch bats very closely before you can tell one kind from
another, and I expect some of you will be surprised to hear that there
are more different kinds of bats in England than there are of any other
kinds of animals. There are, at least, twelve different kinds of English
bats, and, as bats now and then seem to get blown over the sea from
France, or be brought in the rigging of ships, quite a strange foreign
bat may turn up sometimes.
THE BLUNDERS OF BARTIMÆUS
(MICHAELMAS DAY)
[Illustration: BARTIMÆUS]
Bartimæus was simply mole-tired (which is as tired as a beastie can be),
and he lay on his side, with his nose tucked into his waistcoat, and
dreamed of Nydia, fretfully. Nydia was half a field away, dozing in a
snug fortress of her own, with four fat helpless babies to attend to,
and not a passing thought for Bartimæus.
Five times within twelve hours had Bartimæus sought her. Five times had
he traversed his main-line tunnel, turned eastward at the junction by
the fence, and, breasting up the up-grade full tilt, thrust an inquiring
nose at Nydia's nest. Why shouldn't he? Why should he stand on ceremony
with four fat, squirmy, wrinkled, hairless infants?
But Nydia had been mightily offended. Each time she had boxed his ears.
Each time she had bitten him. And so he had retreated; not for fear, but
for black shame--black shame which he had brought upon himself; for
Father Moles may not approach Mole babies--that is Mole law, and that
has been Mole law since Moles first dug.
Long journeyings these to Nydia, a hundred yards each way at least, but
not of length to tire him. He had found time and energy for in-between
excursions. One to the mill-house orchard--there staring hillocks proved
it; one to the sacred croquet lawn--he left his marks here also; one to
the mid-field partridge nest, which meant one egg the less.
[Illustration: HE HEADED STRAIGHT FOR WATER]
A cheerful strenuous day's work; on which, but for the finish of it, he
might have slept at ease.
Nydia's last bite and buffet had been real.
She swept her right hand cross-ways, baring her teeth in line with it,
and screwing round her shoulders for the swing. Then she lunged
backwards viciously. This meant a dragging wound which hurt, and
Bartimæus had bitten too, and, as ill-luck would have it, bitten a baby.
Nydia flung at him squealing, and, when a Mother Mole flings at you
squealing, one prudent course and only one is open.
His nose was bleeding as he started home, and he was hot and thirsty. He
headed straight for water. A ten-yard down-slant brought him to the
brook. He drank his fill, then, tempted by the coolness, set off
swimming. He swam as deftly as a water-shrew, high out of water, with
his stumpy tail cocked upward in his wake.
[Illustration: THE BANK ROSE STEEPLY OVER HIM]
He reached the farther side without mishap, rustled the moisture off his
fur, then started climbing. The bank rose steeply over him, but here and
there a naked root gave hand-hold, and, shoulder-hoisted over these, he
scrambled to the level. On this he travelled easily, using his
paddle-hands as sweeps, and scuttling with his feet. From the brookside
half-way across the field, and almost to the dried-up middle-ditch, bent
grass-stems marked his trail. He checked close by the alder-stump, nosed
at the ground, and started digging.
Perhaps he scented supper.
The alder-stump is populous still. Its core, now sapless, lifeless
touchwood, is riddled through and through. Here moths-to-be, and
flies-to-be, and beetles-to-be have spent their youth and fattened.
Virtue still lingers in the roots, and, hidden by the forks and bends of
them, quiet lives consume, or bide their time. Now and again a human
hand "collects" them, now and again a mole, the skilfullest pupa hunter
in the world.
Yet Bartimæus was not really hungry--he dug more from ill-humour,
wrenching the grass-tufts sideways with his teeth, and slashing fiercely
with his hands, until he forced an entrance for his shoulders.
Then his whole action changed.
He stabbed his nose into the soil, and, twisting from the shoulders,
screwed it home. Then he drew back his head, turned over sideways, and,
with one shoulder and one hand thrust out, gained purchase where his
nose had been, and scratched at the soft earth. As one side tired he
turned about, and thrust its fellow forward. Sometimes he lay upon his
back, and heaved and squirmed and shuffled. Sometimes he screwed his
way, his whole frame twisted spirally, half prostrate, half supine.
[Illustration]
He drove a six-inch downward slant, then, for one yard, a level course,
then upwards half a foot again. His pink nose broke the surface crust,
snuffed, and dropped back. The first stage was accomplished, but only
the first stage. His tube was choked and littered end to end. He backed
nine inches through the loose, reversed, ducked down his head, and
charged. Part of the rubble caked as he drove past, and part was swept
before him to the outlet. It spurted through and sprayed upon the grass.
Six charges raised a mole hill, and left a half-yard tunnel clear. His
hands compressed the sides of it to smoothness.
He made a cave and four runs leading from it. Three plunged deep down,
and hillocks marked their course. The fourth was near the surface. Its
flimsy roof, pressed upwards from below, and dotted end to end with
spits of soil, cast a betraying shadow.
It was good feeding-ground. In it were worms innumerable, slow-minded
worms which held their ground too long, and footless leathern-coated
grubs, grubs of beetles and flies, and eggs innumerable, grasshoppers'
eggs, earwigs' eggs, and eggs of smaller fry, some massed in sticky
clutches, some dispersed.
He toiled and fed alternately. He made a nest inside his cave, a mass of
leaves and grasses dragged down into his surface run (to thrust his
mouth out was sufficient), and pulled or pushed into their proper
station.
This done he slept, his head tucked down between his hands, his hind
feet curled up under him.
All but his ears slept soundly.
* * * * *
_One-Two--One-Two--One-Two._ Twin footfalls almost over him, and with
them a soliloquy deep-toned.
"Comin' right down valley they be. That's them water-works. Down goes
springs. Up comes nunkey-tumps. I'll get this one for sure. Here!
Tatters!"
Out like a loosened spring leapt Bartimæus, and plunged into his surface
run. Half-way along it he stopped dead and listened, the tip of his pink
nose thrust through the roof.
[Illustration]
Man's booted tread he knew full well; man's voice he knew, but something
else was coming,--something which lilted pit-a-pat, something with
yielding velvet pads, something four-footed. It danced towards him,
louder still and louder, till a hoarse whisper checked it. "Steady you
fool! Here good dog! Steady!"
The pink nose dropped. Only one grass-blade stirred, but Tatters saw it.
His every muscle tautened as he pointed. His hair stood stiff upon his
back, his eyes stared fixedly.
[Illustration: ONLY ONE GRASS-BLADE STIRRED, BUT TATTERS SAW IT]
For half a minute he stood tense; then Bartimæus breathed, and at his
breath a grass-stem twitched and flickered.
Tatters upreared and poised himself, stayed poised a moment, then, with
a vicious dropping lunge, stabbed with his forefeet downward. His muzzle
followed instantly, and screwed and ploughed along the run until the
weight of roof upcurled checked further progress.
Then only did he raise his head and look back shamefaced at his master.
He had completely missed.
"Tatters, you'm grown old, I reckon--like your Master. Never mind, lad,
we'll have 'im yet. We'll put a trap down tea-time. Come off it now!
Think you can scratch him out?"
Tatters was burrowing tooth and nail, uprooting grass clumps with his
teeth, drumming with his forefeet, and showering sods between his hind
feet backwards. He raised a wistful, mud-stained face and whined, shook
himself doubtfully, started, turned back for one more scratch, then
galloped to his master's call.
And Bartimæus had been burrowing too--opening a bolt-hole which should
close behind him, passing the dislodged earth beneath himself, and
piling it to cover his retreat.
Tatters had all but pinned his body, and that would have meant death to
him. Tatters _had_ pinned his tail, but, with a wriggle, he had freed
himself, out-distanced the pursuing nose, dived through the nest, and
twisting sharply right, reached the west outlet shaft. Fist over feet he
scuttled down and screwed himself into the blinded end. He bored two
yards zigzagging, then paused for breath. He pricked his stumpy whiskers
up, starred the grey fur about his eyes, spread wide his pinhole ears.
He was quite safe. The ground before, behind, and on all sides of him,
was dead. Ten minutes passed before he moved, then he worked quickly
upwards, and broke the ground beneath a clump of thistles.
[Illustration]
"They've gone," said a small piping voice above him.
The nose of Bartimæus, pink and quivery, had issued first, his bullet
head had followed, then his great hands and shoulders. The sunbeams
played upon his coat, and waves of limpid shimmery blue crept softly to
and fro in it.
"They've gone," the Harvest Mouse repeated.