loose in the skin, and when dry, fall backward and forward upon being
moved; yet, from the peculiar manner in which they are inserted, it
requires more force to draw them out than may be at first sight
expected. The hair of most creatures seems to arise from a bulbous root
fixed in the skin; but the spines of the hedgehog have their lower ends
fined down to a thin neck or thread, which, passing through a small
orifice in the skin, is secured on the under side by a round head like
that of a pin, or are riveted as it were, by the termination being
enlarged and rounded, and these heads are all visible when the skin
becomes dry, as if studded by small pins thrust through. Hence they are
movable in all directions, and resting upon the muscle of the creature,
must be the medium of a very sensible perception to the animal, and more
so than hair could be, which does not seem to penetrate so far as the
muscular fibre. Now this little quadruped, upon suspicion of harm, rolls
itself up in a ball, hiding his nose and eyes in the hollow of his
stomach, and thus the common organs of perception, hearing, seeing,
smelling, are precluded from action: but by the sensibility of the
spines, he seems fully acquainted with every danger that may threaten
him; and upon any attempt to uncoil himself, if these spines be touched,
he immediately retracts, assuming his globular form again, awaiting a
more secure period for retreat:—
[Illustration:
_A_, _A_, are spines of the hedgehog enlarged; _B_, a segment, to show
the numerous tubes of communication.
]
The harvest mouse (mus messorius) in some seasons is common with us,
but, like other species of mice, varies much in the numbers found. I
have seen their nests as late as the middle of September, containing
eight young ones entirely filling the little interior cavity. These
nests vary in shape, being round, oval, or pearshaped, with a long neck,
and are to be distinguished from those of any other mouse, by being
generally suspended on some growing vegetable, a thistle, a beanstalk,
or some adjoining stems of wheat, with which it rocks and waves in the
wind; but to prevent the young from being dislodged by any violent
agitation of the plant, the parent closes up the entrance so uniformly,
with the whole fabric, that the real opening is with difficulty found.
[Illustration:
_The Harvest Mouse and Nest._
]
They are the most tame and harmless of little creatures; and, taking
shelter in the sheaves when in the field, are often brought home with
the crop, and found in little shallow burrows on the ground after the
removal of a bean-rick. Those that remain in the field form stores for
the winter season, and congregate in small societies in holes under some
sheltered ditch-bank. An old one, which I weighed, was only one dram and
five grains in weight.
Mankind appear to be progressively increasing. It was an original
command of his Creator, and the animals domesticated by him, and
fostered for his use, are probably multiplied in proportion to his
requirements; but we have no reason to suppose that this annual
augmentation proceeds in a proportionate degree with the wild creatures
upon the surface of the globe; and we know that many of them are yearly
decreasing, and very many that once existed have even become extinct.
That there are years of increase and decrease ordained for all the
inferior orders of creation, common observation makes manifest. In the
years 1819 and 1820, all the country about us was overrun with mice;
they harbored under the hassocks of our coarse grasses (aira cæspitosa),
perforated the banks of ditches, occasioned much damage by burrowing
into our potato heaps, and coursed in our gardens from bed to bed even
during daylight. The species were the short-tailed meadow-mouse, and the
long-tailed garden mouse, and both kinds united in the spring to destroy
our early-sown pease and beans. In the ensuing summer, however, they
became so greatly reduced, that few were to be seen, and we have not had
any thing like such an increase since that period. It is probable that
some disease afflicted them, and that they perished in their holes, for
we never found their bodies, and any emigration of such large companies
would certainly have been observed; yet the appearance and disappearance
of creatures of this kind leads us to conclude that they do occasionally
change their habitations.
A large stagnant piece of water in an inland county, with which I was
intimately acquainted, and which I very frequently visited for many
years of my life, was one summer suddenly infested with an astonishing
number of the short-tailed water rat, none of which had previously
existed there. Its vegetation was the common products of such places,
excepting that the larger portion of it was densely covered with its
usual crop, the smooth horsetail (equisetum limosum). This constituted
the food of the creatures, and the noise made by their champing it we
could distinctly hear in the evening at many yards’ distance. They were
shot by dozens daily; yet the survivors seemed quite regardless of the
noise, the smoke, the deaths, around them. Before the winter, this great
herd disappeared, and so entirely evacuated the place, that a few years
after I could not obtain a single specimen. They did not disperse, for
the animal is seldom found in the neighborhood, and no dead bodies were
observed. They had certainly made this place a temporary station in
their progress from some other; but how such large companies can change
their situations unobserved in their transits, is astonishing. Birds can
move in high regions and in obscurity, and are not commonly objects of
notice; but quadrupeds can travel only on the ground, and would be
regarded with wonder, when in great numbers, by the rudest peasant.[40]
That little animal the water shrew (sorex fodiens) appears to be but
partially known, but is probably more generally diffused than we
imagine. The common shrew in particular seasons gambols through our
hedge-rows, squeaking and rustling about the dry foliage, and is
observed by every one; but the water shrew inhabits places that secrete
it from general notice, and appears to move only in the evenings, which
occasions its being so seldom observed. That this creature was an
occasional resident in our neighborhood was manifest from the dead
bodies of two or three having occurred in my walks; but it was some time
before I discovered a little colony of them quietly settled in one of my
ponds, overshadowed with bushes and foliage. It is very amusing to
observe the actions of these creatures, all life and animation in an
element they could not be thought any way calculated for enjoying; but
they swim admirably, frolicking over the floating leaves of the
pondweed, and up the foliage of the flags, which, bending with their
weight, will at times souse them in the pool, and away they scramble to
another, searching apparently for the insects that frequent such places,
and feeding on drowned moths (phalæna potamogeta) and similar insects.
They run along the margin of the water, rooting amid the leaves and mud
with their long noses for food, like little ducks, with great
earnestness and perseverance. Their power of vision seems limited to a
confined circumference. The smallness of their eyes, and the growth of
the fur about them, are convenient for the habits of the animal, but
impediments to extended vision; so that, with caution, we can approach
them in their gambols, and observe all their actions. The general
blackness of the body, and the triangular spot beneath the tail, as
mentioned by Pennant, afford the best ready distinction of this mouse
from the common shrew. Both our species of sorex seem to feed by
preference on insects and worms; and thus, like the mole, their flesh is
rank and offensive to most creatures, which reject them as food. The
common shrew, in spring and summer, is ordinarily in motion even during
the day from the sexual attachment, which occasions the destruction of
numbers by cats, and other prowling animals; and thus we find them
strewed in our paths, by gateways, and in our garden walks, dropped by
these animals in their progress. It was once thought that some
periodical disease occasioned this mortality of the species; but I think
we may now conclude that violence alone is the cause of their
destruction in these instances. The bite of this creature was considered
by the ancients as peculiarly noxious, even to horses and large cattle,
and a variety of the most extraordinary remedies for the wound, and
preventives against it, are mentioned by Pliny and others. The
prejudices of antiquity, long as they usually are in keeping possession
of the mind, have not been remembered by us; and we only know the hardy
shrew now as a perfectly harmless animal, though we still retain a name
for it expressive of something malignant and spiteful.
I think we have reason for suspecting that a shrew new to Britain exists
in this neighborhood. A pale blue shrew (sorex Daubentonii? Cuvier) has
been seen about the margins of our reenes, and the deep marsh ditches
cut for draining the water from the low lands of the Severn; and
something of the same kind, in a half-digested state, has been found in
the stomach of the heron. If it exist with us, a similar tract of land
in more fenny countries may contain it plentifully, though it has as yet
escaped detection.
The mole,[41] want, mouldwarper or mouldturner (talpa europea), is
common with us, as it appears to be in most places; and no creature
gives more certain indication of its presence, haunting, from
preference, such places as its predecessors have done, though years may
have intervened since they were frequented, and rains, and the treading
of heavy cattle, have compressed to solid earth the ancient runs; and
however assiduously we may destroy them, should they appear again, it
will probably be in the same places that have been formerly perforated
by others. The earth that these animals eject from their runs, being
obtained from very near the surface, and finely pulverized, has tempted
me more than once to have it collected for my green-house plants, but
not with the success that I had conjectured. Some persons have advocated
the cause of moles, as being beneficial to vegetation, by loosening the
soil about the roots of plants. Evelyn and others, again, censure them
as injurious creatures; and there is a strange narration in Buffon,
accusing them of eating all the acorns of a newly-set soil.[42] I am not
aware of any benefit occasioned by their presence; their warpings
certainly give our pastures in the spring a very unsightly appearance,
and in grounds designed to be mowed, occasion much trouble, by obliging
us frequently to spread and remove them; and in newly-sown corn-lands,
they disturb by their runnings the earth at the roots of the grain. But,
perhaps, these trifling complaints, these almost imaginary grievances,
are the only evils that can be attributed to them. In those wild
creatures that are not immediately applicable to our use or amusement,
we are more generally inclined to seek out their bad than their good
qualities; and though I cannot produce any instance in which the utility
of the mole is manifested, yet it is reasonable to conclude, that they
are eminently so, either directly or collaterally, nature having
provided in an especial manner for a constant supply,[43] and their
increase is prodigious when they are not molested. I have killed for two
years in succession, between forty and fifty each season, in a very few
acres of ground; and notwithstanding all our stratagems for their
destruction, and the ease with which they are entrapped, still plenty
always remain to recruit our annual waste of them. These creatures are
supposed to have a very imperfect vision, and, like insects, have not
any external ear, or manifest organ through which sounds can be
received; yet we can in no way for a moment suppose that they have been
created with any deficiency of power to accomplish all the objects of
their being, but that every possible exigency has been provided for.
Perceptions may be conveyed in very many instances by intelligences
unknown to us, and unquestionably are so. The defect of one power is
frequently supplied by the increased activity of another; and the sense
of smelling in the mole must be unusually acute, to enable it to pursue
and capture its prey with the facility that it does. Its sole food, we
believe, is worms; and these sensitive creatures retire immediately upon
the smallest moving of the earth in which they reside. Now, as it
follows them through all their meanderings, in which neither eyes nor
ears would assist it, a fine sense of smelling seems necessary to enable
it to catch them; and that its success is equal to its wants, and that
it feeds plentifully, is manifest by the excellent condition in which
the mole is at all seasons of the year. It will penetrate banks of earth
after worms lodged in their interior, hunt for them in the richest parts
of the field, or on the edges of dung-heaps: in all which pursuits some
unknown faculties may direct it; but no sense, that we are acquainted
with, could promote its objects so effectually as that of smell. My
talparius, a very skilful capturer of these animals, is so sensible of
the power that moles are gifted with of readily discriminating smells,
that his constant practice is, to draw the body of a captured animal
through his traps, and the adjoining runs, and passages, to remove all
suspicious odors, which might arise from the touch of his fingers. Its
feeling, too, must be acute; as, when casting up the earth, it is
sensible of the pressure of a very gentle foot; and, unless our
approaches are conducted with great caution, it ceases from its
operation, and instantly retires. Should I be censured for needless
prolixity in detailing these sensations of a common mole, and “telling
of the mouldwarp and the ant,” I trust forgiveness may be granted me, as
endeavoring to remove all conceptions, should they exist, that any
thing, however vile and worthless it may seem to be, could be created
with powers or means inadequate to supply its wants. Whoever will
examine the structure of the body of a mole will, perhaps, find no
creature more admirably adapted for all the purposes of its life. The
very fur on the skin of this animal manifests what attention has been
bestowed upon the creature, in providing for its necessities and
comforts. This is singularly, most impalpably, fine, yielding in every
direction, and offering no resistance to the touch. By this construction
the mole is in no degree impeded in its retreat from danger while
retiring backwards, as it always does upon suspicion of peril, not
turning round, which the size of its runs does not permit, its tail
foremost, until it arrives at some collateral gallery, when its flight
is head foremost, as with other creatures. If this fur had been strong,
as in the rat, or mouse, in these retreats for life it would have doubly
retarded the progress of the creature; first by its resistance, and then
acting as a brush, so as to choke up the galleries, by removing the
loose earth from the sides and ceilings of the arched ways; thus
impeding at least, if not absolutely preventing, retreat; but the
softness of the fur obviates both these fatal effects.
The construction of the hair and fur of different creatures is very
various and beautiful; and if we believe in the beneficence of the All-
wise Creator, we must conclude that such peculiar fabrications were
resorted to for the purpose of being immediately useful, or as necessary
to the condition of the animal. In a mere sketch like this, it would
conduct me infinitely beyond my intentions, to enumerate the many
varieties of hair that are rendered manifest by the microscope; but
three or four may be mentioned. The fur or clothing of the mole is
internally composed of collateral bars. In man the hairs have at times a
central tube, for the conveyance of medullary matter, as in bones, or
some nutriment analogous to it; but in the mole there appears to be no
communication with the body of the animal, unless the perspirable matter
is conducted alternately from side to side along the bars. The fur of
the bat has knots like the rudiments of branches. The hairs of the
hamster mouse have a central perforation, apparently uninterrupted
throughout their whole length. Some of the caterpillars (callimorpha
caja) have spines proceeding from the hair that invests their
bodies.[44] All these, and the other various contrivances so manifest in
the coverings of animals, are probably designed to convey off the
perspirable fluids conducive to health in an appropriate manner; to
discharge the superabundant heat, and keep the body temperate in some
cases: in others, again, to retard perspiration, and thus augment the
warmth, by every possible gradation, or to increase the sensibility and
perceptions of the animal. Many instances of these effects and
modifications might be advanced, deserving a more extensive
consideration.
The smell of the flesh of the mole is remarkably rank and offensive, as,
from the nature of its food, might be expected; and it taints the
fingers, which have touched it, with its peculiar odor, so that one
washing does not remove it. It is reported of a late very eccentric
nobleman, but with what truth I do not know, who essayed himself the
flavor of every living thing, even to the eating of the large dew-worm,
that the mole alone remained untasted by him, his stomach recoiling with
disgust at the nauseous smell of the flesh of this creature. Foxes eat
moles, and will at times dig out the traps containing them. The brown
owl, too, feeds on them, when it can meet with them outside of their
runs hunting after dew-worms; and probably the smaller vermin do the
same: but the cat and the dog turn from them with manifest aversion as
food; though they will hunt and kill them as objects of the chase.
These animals, we might suppose, while in their subterranean dwellings,
would be secure from all injury by such as generally pursue their prey
upon the surface of the earth; but I have several times known the weasel
caught in the mole-traps, making it manifest, that it hunts after the
mole for its food, and in doing so, according to our comprehensions,
must encounter infinite danger from suffocation; but it is more probable
that so active a creature as the weasel is endowed with powers to
accomplish its object with impunity, which we are not acquainted with.
During the course of a life passed much in the country, and
perambulating the woods, the hedges, and the fields, I have contracted
almost insensibly an acquaintance with the creatures that frequent them.
Some have engaged my attention by their actions and manners; others have
interested me by their innocency, and the harmlessness of their lives;
and, perhaps, there is some little partial bearing toward others from
long association, or from unknown, undefined causes. I tolerate, in
despite of all their noise, and all their litter, a colony of rooks,[45]
which have taken a liking to some tall elms near my dwelling. Not being
ancient denizens there, they can claim no hereditary rights; but their
contrivances, their regularity, and even their squabbles, are amusing;
and, perhaps, there is mingled with this some little compassion for
these dark, half-domesticated families of the grove, driven by the ax
from an old abode, which may influence my forbearance.
The hedge-sparrow, or shufflewing, (motacilla modularis), is a prime
favorite. Not influenced by season or caprice to desert us, it lives in
our homesteads and our orchards through all the year, our most domestic
bird. In the earliest spring it intimates to us by a low and plaintive
chirp, and that peculiar shake of the wing, which at all times marks
this bird, but then is particularly observable, the approach of the
breeding season; for it appears always to live in pairs, feeding and
moving in company with each other. It is nearly the first bird that
forms a nest; and this being placed in an almost leafless hedge, with
little art displayed in its concealment, generally becomes the booty of
every prying boy, and the blue eggs of the hedge-sparrow are always
found in such numbers on his string, that it is surprising how any of
the race are remaining, especially when we consider the many casualties
to which the old birds are obnoxious from their tameness, and the young
that are hatched, from their situation. The plumage of this motacilla is
remarkably sober and grave, and all its actions are quiet and
comformable to its appearance. Its song is short, sweet, and gentle.
Sometimes it is prolonged; but generally the bird perches on the summit
of some bush, utters its brief modulation, and seeks retirement again.
Its chief habitation is some hedge in the rick-yard, some cottage
garden, or near society with man. Unobtrusive, it does not enter our
dwellings like the redbreast, but picks minute insects from the edges of
drains and ditches, or morsels from the door of the poorest dwelling in
the village. As an example of a household or domestic bird, none can be
found with better pretensions to such a character than the hedge-
sparrow.
I always hear with delight the earliest chirpings of that pretty
harbinger of spring, the willow wren (motacilla trochillus), trilling
its wild and gleeful “chiffchaffs,” as it chases the insects round the
branches of the old oak in the copse, or on the yellow catkins of the
sallow, itself almost like a colored catkin too. But this elegant little
bird is noticed only by the lovers and frequenters of the country; it
animates the woods by its constant activity; the frequent repetition of
its most cheerful modulation contributes essentially to the pleasing
harmony of the grove; and its voice is most sprightly and frequent, when
the morning is illumined with one of those mild, walk-enticing gleams,
that render this short season the most delightful of our year. It builds
its nest, and rears its young with us; visits our gardens, but is no
plunderer there, living almost entirely upon insect food; and its whole
life is passed in harmlessness and innocence. As it is the earliest that
arrives, so it is the last, I believe, of our feathered choir that
leaves us, except a few lingering, irresolute swallows; and we hear it
piping its final autumnal farewell even in October at times, and
sporting with hilarity and joy, when all its congeners are departed.