[173] "Wilson's Life," p. 28.
HARES, RABBITS, GUINEA-PIG.
All gnawing creatures, belonging to the Glirine or Rodentia order.
Charles Lamb has written on the hare, in one view of that
finely-flavoured beast, as only Elia could write. But the poet Cowper
has made the hare's history peculiarly pleasing and familiar. How often
in his letters he alludes to his hares! Mrs E. B. Browning, in her
exquisitely delicate and pathetic poem, "Cowper's Grave," thus alludes
to Cowper's pets--
"Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home caresses,
Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses;
The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing,
Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving."
Not many years ago the compiler saw traces of the holes the poet had cut
in the skirting-boards of the room for their ingress and egress, that
they might have ampler room for wandering. His epitaphs on two of them
are often quoted. Rabbits are peculiarly the pets of boys, and though,
when wild, often great vermin, from their destructive habits and their
mining operations, are yet said to contribute much to the revenue of one
European monarch.
How Mr Malthus ought to have hated guinea-pigs, those fertile little
lumps of blotched fur! Few creatures can be more productive.
WILLIAM COWPER ON HIS HARES.
What a model description of the habits of an animal we have in the
gentle Cowper's account of his hares! Would that he had made pets of
other animals, and written descriptions of them, like that which
follows, and which is here copied from the original place to which he
contributed it.[175]
"_May_ 28.
"MR URBAN,--Convinced that you despise no communications that may
gratify curiosity, amuse rationally, or add, though but a little, to the
stock of public knowledge, I send you a circumstantial account of an
animal, which, though its general properties are pretty well known, is
for the most part such a stranger to man, that we are but little aware
of its peculiarities. We know indeed that the hare is good to hunt and
good to eat; but in all other respects poor Puss is a neglected subject.
In the year 1774, being much indisposed, both in mind and body,
incapable of diverting myself either with company or books, and yet in
a condition that made some diversion necessary, I was glad of anything
that would engage my attention without fatiguing it. The children of a
neighbour of mine had a leveret given them for a plaything; it was at
that time about three months old. Understanding better how to tease the
poor creature than to feed it, and soon becoming weary of their charge,
they readily consented that their father, who saw it pining and growing
leaner every day, should offer it to my acceptance. I was willing enough
to take the prisoner under my protection, perceiving that in the
management of such an animal, and in the attempt to tame it, I should
find just that sort of employment which my case required. It was soon
known among the neighbours that I was pleased with the present; and the
consequence was, that in a short time, I had as many leverets offered to
me as would have stocked a paddock. I undertook the care of three, which
it is necessary that I should here distinguish by the names I gave
them--Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Notwithstanding the two feminine
appellatives, I must inform you that they were all males. Immediately
commencing carpenter, I built them houses to sleep in. Each had a
separate apartment, so contrived that their ordure would pass through
the bottom of it; an earthen pan placed under each received whatsoever
fell, which being duly emptied and washed, they were thus kept perfectly
sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range of a hall, and at
night retired each to his own bed, never intruding into that of another.
"Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my lap, raise himself
upon his hinder feet, and bite the hair from my temples. He would suffer
me to take him up, and to carry him about in my arms, and has more than
once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He was ill three days, during
which time I nursed him, kept him apart from his fellows that they might
not molest him (for, like many other wild animals, they persecute one of
their own species that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him
with a variety of herbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature
could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery,--a sentiment
which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back
of it, then the palm, then every finger separately; then between all the
fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it unsaluted,--a ceremony
which he never performed but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding
him extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry him always after
breakfast into the garden, where he hid himself generally under the
leaves of a cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud till evening; in
the leaves also of that vine he found a favourite repast. I had not long
habituated him to this taste of liberty, before he began to be impatient
for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to
the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of such expression as
it was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not
immediately succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between his
teeth, and pull at it with all his force. Thus Puss might be said to be
perfectly tamed; the shyness of his nature was done away, and on the
whole it was visible, by many symptoms which I have not room to
enumerate, that he was happier in human society than when shut up with
his natural companions.
"Not so Tiney. Upon him the kindest treatment had not the least effect.
He, too, was sick, and in his sickness, had an equal share of my
attention; but if, after his recovery, I took the liberty to stroke him,
he would grunt, strike with his fore-feet, spring forward, and bite. He
was, however, very entertaining in his way, even his surliness was
matter of mirth, and in his play he preserved such an air of gravity,
and performed his feats with such a solemnity of manner, that in him,
too, I had an agreeable companion.
"Bess, who died soon after he was full grown, and whose death was
occasioned by his being turned into his box, which had been washed,
while it was yet damp, was a hare of great humour and drollery. Puss was
tamed by gentle usage; Tiney was not to be tamed at all; and Bess had a
courage and confidence that made him tame from the beginning. I always
admitted them into the parlour after supper, where the carpet affording
their feet a firm hold, they would frisk, and bound, and play a thousand
gambols, in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fearless, was always
superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris of the party. One
evening, the cat, being in the room, had the hardiness to pat Bess upon
the cheek, an indignity which he resented by drumming upon her back with
such violence, that the cat was happy to escape from under his paws and
hide herself.
"You observe, sir, that I describe these animals as having each a
character of his own. Such they were in fact, and their countenances
were so expressive of that character, that, when I looked only on the
face of either, I immediately knew which it was. It is said that a
shepherd, however numerous his flock, soon becomes so familiar with
their features, that he can by that indication only distinguish each
from all the rest, and yet to a common observer the difference is hardly
perceptible. I doubt not that the same discrimination in the cast of
countenances would be discoverable in hares, and am persuaded that among
a thousand of them no two could be found exactly similar; a circumstance
little suspected by those who have not had opportunity to observe it.
These creatures have a singular sagacity in discovering the minutest
alteration that is made in the place to which they are accustomed, and
instantly apply their nose to the examination of a new object. A small
hole being burnt in the carpet, it was mended with a patch, and that
patch in a moment underwent the strictest scrutiny. They seem, too, to
be very much directed by the smell in the choice of their favourites; to
some persons, though they saw them daily, they could never be
reconciled, and would even scream when they attempted to touch them; but
a miller coming in, engaged their affections at once--his powdered coat
had charms that were irresistible. You will not wonder, sir, that my
intimate acquaintance with these specimens of the kind has taught me to
hold the sportsman's amusement in abhorrence. He little knows what
amiable creatures he persecutes, of what gratitude they are capable, how
cheerful they are in their spirits, what enjoyment they have of life,
and that, impressed as they seem with a peculiar dread of man, it is
only because man gives them peculiar cause for it.
"That I may not be tedious, I will just give you a short summary of
those articles of diet that suit them best, and then retire to make
room for some more important correspondent.
"I take it to be a general opinion that they graze, but it is an
erroneous one, at least grass is not their staple; they seem rather to
use it medicinally, soon quitting it for leaves of almost any kind.
Sowthistle, dent-de-lion, and lettuce are their favourite vegetables,
especially the last. I discovered, by accident, that fine white sand is
in great estimation with them, I suppose as a digestive. It happened
that I was cleaning a bird cage while the hares were with me; I placed a
pot filled with such sand upon the floor, to which being at once
directed by a strong instinct, they devoured it voraciously; since that
time I have generally taken care to see them well supplied with it. They
account green corn a delicacy, both blade and stalk, but the ear they
seldom eat; straw of any kind, especially wheat-straw, is another of
their dainties; they will feed greedily upon oats, but if furnished with
clean straw, never want them; it serves them also for a bed, and, if
shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry for a considerable time.
They do not indeed require aromatic herbs, but will eat a small quantity
of them with great relish, and are particularly fond of the plant called
musk; they seem to resemble sheep in this, that if their pastures be too
succulent, they are very subject to the rot; to prevent which, I always
made bread their principal nourishment; and, filling a pan with it cut
into small squares, placed it every evening in their chambers, for they
feed only at evening and in the night; during the winter, when
vegetables are not to be got, I mingled this mess of bread with shreds
of carrot, adding to it the rind of apples cut extremely thin; for,
though they are fond of the paring, the apple itself disgusts them.
These, however, not being a sufficient substitute for the juice of
summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied with water; but so
placed that they cannot overset it into their beds. I must not omit,
that occasionally they are much pleased with twigs of hawthorn and of
the common briar, eating even the very wood when it is of considerable
thickness.
"Bess, I have said, died young; Tiney lived to be nine years old, and
died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a
fall. Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year,
discovering no signs of decay nor even of age, except that he is grown
more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude, sir,
without informing you that I have lately introduced a dog to his
acquaintance, a spaniel that had never seen a hare, to a hare that had
never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, but there was no real
need of it. Puss discovered no token of fear, nor Marquis the least
symptom of hostility. There is, therefore, it should seem, no natural
antipathy between dog and hare, but the pursuit of the one occasions the
flight of the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it;
they eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all
respects sociable and friendly.--Yours &c.,
W. C.
"_P.S._--I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add,
that they have no ill scent belonging to them, that they are
indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which purpose nature
has furnished them with a brush under each foot; and that they are never
infested by any vermin."
Our readers know his fine verses or epitaphs on his hares. We may quote
from the biographer to whom Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington
left all their papers and memoirs, a sentence or two on Cowper's hares,
and on the other pets of that lovable man. Earl Stanhope[176] says of
this poet and "best letter-writer in the English language--"Such,
indeed, were his powers of description and felicity of language, that
even the most trivial objects drew life and colour from his touch. In
his pages, the training of three tame hares, or the building of a frame
for cucumbers, excite a warmer interest than many accounts compiled by
other writers, of great battles deciding the fate of empires. In his
pages, the sluggish waters of the Ouse,--the floating lilies which he
stooped to gather from them,--the poplars, in whose shade he sat, and
over whose fall he mourned, rise before us as though we had known and
loved them too. As Cowper himself declares, 'My descriptions are all
from nature, not one of them second-handed; my delineations of the heart
are from my own experience, not one of them borrowed from books.'"
HAIRS OR HARES!
A gentleman on circuit, narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat
in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before
breakfast. "Thirty-three _hairs_!" exclaimed Lord Norbury; "zounds, sir!
then you must have been firing at a _wig_."[177]
Sportsmen are very apt to exaggerate. They did so at least in Horace's
days. We have heard of a man of rank, who actually made a gamekeeper,
who was a first-rate marksman, fire whenever he discharged his piece.
The story goes, that _that_ man was regarded as having shot everything
that fell.
The Duke of L.'s reply, when it was observed to him that the gentlemen
bordering on his estates were continually hunting upon them, and that he
ought not to suffer it, is worthy of imitation. "I had much rather,"
said he, "have _friends_ than hares."[178]
The time must be coming, when every farmer or peasant will be allowed to
shoot hares. It is surely cruel to imprison or fine a man for shooting
and shouldering a hare. Having lately traversed a goodly part of the
Perthshire Highlands, we were struck with the numbers of Arctic hares
that scudded away out of our path. What a fine help one of them would be
to a poor family.
S. BISSET AND HIS TRAINED HARE AND TURTLE.
S. Bisset, whose training of other animals is elsewhere recorded, like
the poet Cowper, procured a leveret, and reared it to beat several
marches on the drum with its hind legs, until it became a good stout
hare. This creature, which is always set down as the most timid, he
declared to be as mischievous and bold an animal, to the extent of its
power, as any with which he was acquainted. He taught canary-birds,
linnets, and sparrows, to spell the name of any person in company, to
distinguish the hour and minute of time, and play many other surprising
tricks. He trained six turkey-cocks to go through a regular country
dance; but in doing this he confessed he adopted the eastern method, by
which camels are made to dance, by heating the floor. In the course of
six months' teaching, he made a turtle fetch and carry like a dog; and
having chalked the floor, and blackened its claws, could direct it to
trace out any given name of the company.[179]
A FAMILY OF RABBITS ALL BLIND OF ONE EYE.
Lady Anne Barnard, in her Cape Journal,[180] referring to Dessin or
Rabbit Island at the Cape of Good Hope, says that it is "dreadfully
exposed to the south-east winds. A gentleman told me of a natural
phenomenon he had met with when shooting there; his dog pointed at a
rabbit's hole, where the company within were placed so near the opening
that he could see Mynheer, Madame, and the whole rabbit family. Pompey,
encouraged, brought out the old coney, his wife, and seven young
ones,--all, like the callenders in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments,'
blind of one eye, and that the same eye. The question was, on which side
of the island was the rabbit's hole? With a very little reasoning and
comparing, it was found that from its position, the keen blast must have
produced this effect. The oddest part of this story is, that it is true,
but I do not expect you to believe it."
THOMAS FULLER ON NORFOLK RABBITS.
"These are an army of natural pioneers whence men have learned
_cuniculos agere_, the art of undermining. They thrive best on barren
ground, and grow fattest in the hardest frosts. Their flesh is fine and
wholesome. If Scottish men tax our language as improper, and smile at
our wing of a rabbit, let us laugh at their shoulder of a capon.
Their skins were formerly much used, when furs were in fashion; till of
late our citizens, of Romans are turned Grecians, have laid down their
grave gowns and taken up their light cloaks; men generally disliking all
habits, though emblems of honour, if also badges of age.
Their rich or silver-hair skins, formerly so dear, are now levelled in
prices with other colours; yea, are lower than black in estimation,
because their wool is most used in making of hats, commonly (for the
more credit) called half-beavers, though many of them hardly amount to
the proportion of semi-demi castors."[181]
DR CHALMERS AND THE GUINEA-PIG.
Mr Aitken alludes in a pleasing manner to an instance of Dr Chalmers's
fondness for animals. He had just been appointed the head-master of one
of the Glasgow parish schools (St John's). "Early in the week following
my appointment, I received my first private call. One circumstance
occurred during the visit which I still remember most vividly. One of my
children had been presented with a pair of guinea-pigs. These had found
their way into the apartment where we were sitting, and ran about in all
directions. I could have wished to turn them out, but had not the power
to rise from my chair. He soon observed them, followed them with his eye
as they now retreated under his chair and again ventured out into his
presence--he even changed the position of his feet to give them scope.
That same kindly eye, one glance of which we all loved so much to catch
in after-life, beamed only the more warmly as the creatures frisked in
greater confidence around him. It was to me an omen for good. He who
could enjoy thus the innocent gamble of these guinea-pigs could not fail
to be accessible for good when occasion required. It was the first flush
of that largeness of heart which afterwards appeared in all I ever heard
him say or saw him do."[182]
FOOTNOTES:
[174] "Memoir of Wilson," p. 27, prefixed to his poetical works.
Belfast, 1844.
[175] _Gentleman's Magazine_, for June 1784, being the sixth number of
vol. liv., pp. 412-414, "Unnoticed Properties of that little animal the
Hare."
[176] "History of England," vol. vi. p. 486.
[177] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 59.
[178] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 182.
[179] Biography of S. Bisset in G. H. Wilson's "Eccentric Mirror," vol.
i., No. 3, p. 29.
[180] Published by Lord Lindsay in vol. iii. of his "Lives of the
Lindsays," p. 387.
[181] "Worthies of England," vol. ii. p. 445 (ed. 1840).
SLOTH.
REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH ON THE SLOTH.
Few anecdotes can be published of this curious creature, though Waterton
and Burchell, or Dr Buckland, for him and his friend Bates, have
recorded much that is interesting of its habits. The following bit is
peculiarly happy: "The sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in
trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to
the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree; but what is most
extraordinary, he lives not _upon_ the branches, but _under_ them. He
moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and passes his
life in suspense--like a young clergyman distantly related to a
bishop."[183]
[Illustration: The Great Ant-Eater. (Myrmecophaga jabata).]
FOOTNOTES:
[182] Dr Hannah's "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers,
D.D., L.L.D.," vol. ii. p. 237.
THE GREAT ANT-EATER.
(_Myrmecophaga jubata_, L.[184])
A few months ago a handbill was distributed in the neighbourhood of
Seven Dials, inviting the public to visit a "wonderful animal fed with
ants, and possessing strength to kill the lion, tiger, or any other
animal under its claws." We entered the miserable apartment where it was
exhibited, and any spectator must at once have been struck with the
creature's want of resemblance to any other he had ever seen. Its head
so small, so long and slender; the straight, wiry, dry hair with which
it was covered, and its singularly large and bushy tail, first attracted
notice. A second glance showed its enormously thick fore-legs, and the
claws of its feet turned in, so that it walked on the sides of its
soles. Oken and St Hilaire would have said that it was "all extremity."
A cup, with the contents of one or two eggs, was brought, and it sucked
them with great avidity, every now and then darting from its small mouth
a very long tongue, which looked like a great, black worm, whisking
about in the custard. One of its showmen told us that it had attacked
the woman of the house the preceding day, and had scratched her arm.
Whether this was true or grossly exaggerated, we know not; but if so, we
suspect that the woman herself must have been in fault, and not the
inoffensive stranger.
On the payment of a handsome consideration to her owners, the poor
captive was transferred from her unwholesome lodging in St Giles's, to
the Gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park. And within
the last few weeks her solitude has been cheered by the arrival of a
companion from her native forests. The new-comer is in beautiful
condition, though not nearly so large. He has a head decidedly shorter
and stronger, and is probably not yet fully grown.
The great ant-eater seems to be scattered over a wide extent of South
America--Guiana, Brazil, and Paraguay, being its places of abode. It is
a stout animal, measuring from the end of the snout to the tip of the
long tail six or seven feet, of which the tail takes nearly the half; so
that the actual size of its body is much reduced. In Paraguay it is
named _Nurumi_ or _Yogui_. The former name is altered from the native
word for _small mouth_, and indicates a striking peculiarity in its
structure. The Portuguese call it _Tamandua_; the Spaniards, _Osa
hormiguero_ (_i.e._, ant-hill bear). In Paraguay it prefers sides of
lakes where ants, at least termites or white ants, are abundant; but it
also frequents woods. In Guiana, Mr Waterton found it chiefly "in the
inmost recesses of the forest," where it "seems partial to the low and
swampy parts near creeks, where the troely tree grows."[185] It sleeps a
great deal, reclining on its side, as the visitor to the Gardens may
frequently see it do, with its head between its fore-legs, joining its
fore and hindfeet, and spreading the tail so as to cover the whole
body. Huddled up under this thatch, it might almost be taken for a
bundle of coarse and badly dried hay. The tail is thickly covered with
long hairs, placed vertically, the hairs draggling on the ground. When
the creature is irritated, the tail is shaken straight and elevated. The
natives of Paraguay, like other persecutors of harmlessness, kill every
specimen they meet, so that the ant-eater gets rare, and so rare is it
on the Amazon that Mr Wallace, who travelled there from 1848 to 1852,
honestly tells us he never saw one. He heard, however, that during rain
it turns its bushy tail over its head and stands still. The Indians,
knowing this habit, when they meet an ant-eater, make a rustling noise
among the leaves. The creature instantly turns up its tail, and is
easily killed by the stroke of a stick on its little head.[186]