THE DOWNS--THE ENTRENCHMENT--WAYS OF LARKS--HARES--A COMBAT--HAPPINESS
OF ANIMALS--ANTS--A LONG JOURNEY.
The most commanding down is crowned with the grassy mound and trenches
of an ancient earthwork, from whence there is a noble view of hill and
plain. The inner slope of the green fosse is inclined at an angle
pleasant to recline on, with the head just below the edge, in the summer
sunshine. A faint sound as of a sea heard in a dream--a sibilant `sish,
sish,'--passes along outside, dying away and coming again as a fresh
wave of the wind rushes through the bennets and the dry grass. There is
the happy hum of bees--who love the hills--as they speed by laden with
their golden harvest, a drowsy warmth, and the delicious odour of wild
thyme. Behind the fosse sinks, and the rampart rises high and steep--
two butterflies are wheeling in uncertain flight over the summit. It is
only necessary to raise the head a little way, and the cool breeze
refreshes the cheek--cool at this height while the plains beneath glow
under the heat.
Presently a small swift shadow passes across--it is that of a hawk
flying low over the hill. He skirts it for some distance, and then
shoots out into the air, comes back half-way, and hangs over the fallow
below, where there is a small rick. His wings vibrate, striking the air
downwards, and only slightly backwards, the tail depressed counteracting
the inclination to glide forwards for awhile. In a few moments he
slips, as it were, from his balance, but brings, himself up again in a
few yards, turning a curve so as to still hover above the rick. If he
espies a tempting morsel he drops like a stone, and alights on a spot
almost exactly below him--a power which few birds seem to possess. Most
of them approach the ground gradually, the plane of their flight sloping
slowly to the earth, and the angle decreasing every moment till it
becomes parallel, when they have only to drop their legs, shut their
wings, and, as it were, stand upright in the air to find themselves safe
on the sward. By that time their original impetus has diminished, and
they feel no shock from the cessation of motion. The hawk, on the
contrary, seems to descend nearly in a perpendicular line.
The lark does the same, and often from a still greater height descending
so swiftly that by comparison with other birds it looks as if she must
be dashed to pieces; but when within a few yards of the ground, the
wings are outstretched, and she glides along some distance before
alighting. This latter motion makes it difficult to tell where a lark
actually does alight. So, too, with snipe: they appear to drop in a
corner of the brook, and you feel positive that a certain bunch of
rushes is the precise place; but before you get there the snipe is up
again under your feet, ten or fifteen yards closer than you supposed,
having shot along hidden by the banks, just above the water, out of
sight.
Sometimes, after soaring to an unusual elevation, the lark comes down,
as it were, in one or two stages: after dropping say fifty feet, the
wings are employed, and she shoots forward horizontally some way, which
checks the velocity. Repeating this twice or more, she reaches the
ground safely. In rising up to sing she often traces a sweeping spiral
in the air at first, going round once or twice; after which, seeming to
settle on the line she means to ascend, she goes up almost
perpendicularly in a series of leaps, as it were--pausing a moment to
gather impetus, and then shooting upwards till a mere speck in the sky.
When ten or twelve larks are singing at once, all within a narrow
radius--a thing that may be often witnessed from these downs in the
spring--the charm of their vivacious notes is greater than when one
solitary bird alone discourses sweet music which is lost in the blue
dome overhead.
At that time they seem to feed only a few minutes consecutively, and
then, as if seized with an uncontrollable impulse, rush up into the air
to deliver a brief song, descend, and repeat the process for hours.
They have a way, too, of rising but six or eight yards above the earth,
spreading the wings out and keeping them nearly still, floating slowly
forward, all the while uttering one sweet note softly. The sward by the
roadside appears to have a special attraction for them; they constantly
come over from the arable fields, alight there, and presently return.
In the early spring, when love-making is in full progress, the
cornfields where the young green blades are just showing, become the
scene of the most amusing rivalry. Far as the eye can see across the
ground it seems alive with larks--chasing each other to and fro, round
and round, with excited calls, flying close to the surface, continually
alighting, and springing up again. A gleam of sunshine and a warm south
wind brings forth these merry antics. So like in general hue is the
lark to the lumps of brown earth that even at a few paces it is
difficult to distinguish her. Some seem always to remain in the
meadows; but the majority frequent the arable land, and especially the
cornfields on the slopes of the downs, where they may be found in such
numbers as rival or perhaps exceed those of any other bird.
At first sight starlings seem more numerous; but this arises from their
habit of gathering together in such vast flocks, blackening the earth
where they alight. But you may walk a whole day across the downs and
still find larks everywhere; so that though scattered abroad they
probably equal or exceed the starlings, who show so much more. They are
by no means timid, being but little disturbed here: you can get near
enough to watch every motion, and if they rise it is only to sing. They
never seem to know precisely where they are going to alight--as if,
indeed, they were nervously particular and must find a clod that pleases
them, picking and choosing with the greatest nicety.
Many other birds exhibit a similar trait: instead of perching on the
first branch, they hesitate, and daintily decline the bough not quite to
their fancy. Blackbirds will cruise along the whole length of a hedge
before finding a bush to their liking; they look in several times ere
finally deciding. Wood-pigeons will make straight for a tree, and
slacken speed and show every sign of choosing it, and suddenly, without
the slightest cause apparently, go half a mile farther. The partridge
which you could vow had dropped just over the hedge has done no such
thing; just before touching the ground she has turned at right angles
and gone fifty yards down it.
The impression left after watching the motions of birds is that of
extreme mobility--a life of perpetual impulse checked only by fear.
With one or two exceptions, they do not appear to have the least idea of
saving labour by clearing one spot of ground of food before flying
farther: they just hastily snatch a morsel and off again; or, in a tree,
peer anxiously into every crack and crevice on one bough, and away to
another tree a hundred yards distant, leaving fifty boughs behind
without examination. Starlings literally race over the earth where they
are feeding--jealous of each other lest one should be first, and so they
leave a tract all around not so much as looked at. Then, having run a
little way, they rise and fly to another part of the field. Each
starling seems full of envy and emulation--eager to outstrip his fellow
in the race for titbits; and so they all miss much of what they might
otherwise find. Their life is so gregarious that it resembles that of
men in cities: watching one another with feverish anxiety--pushing and
bustling. Larks are much calmer, and always appear placid even in their
restlessness, and do not jostle their neighbours.
See--the hawk, after going nearly out of sight, has swept round, and
passes again at no great distance; this is a common habit of his kind,
to beat round in wide circles. As the breeze strikes him aslant his
course he seems to fly for a short time partly on one side, like a
skater sliding on the outer edge.
There is a rough grass growing within the enclosure of the earthwork and
here and there upon the hills, which the sheep will not eat, so that it
remains in matted masses. In this the hares make their forms; and they
must, somehow, have a trick of creeping into their places, since many of
the grass-blades often arch over, and if they sprang into the form
heedlessly this could not be the case, as their size and weight would
crush it down. When startled by a passer-by the hare--unless there is a
dog--goes off in a leisurely fashion, doubtless feeling quite safe in
the length of his legs, and after getting a hundred yards or so sits
upon his haunches and watches the intruder. Their `runs' or paths are
rather broader than a rabbit's, and straighter--the rabbit does not
ramble so far from home; he has his paths across the meadow to the hedge
on the other side, but no farther. The hare's track may be traced for a
great distance crossing the hills; but while the roads are longer they
are much fewer in number. The rabbit makes a perfect network of `runs,'
and seems always to feed from a regular path; the hare apparently feeds
anywhere, without much reference to the `runs,' which he uses simply to
get from one place to another in the most direct line, and also, it may
be suspected, as a promenade on which to meet the ladies of his
acquaintance by moonlight.
It is amusing to see two of these animals drumming each other; they
stand on their hind legs (which are very long) like a dog taught to beg,
and strike with the fore-pads as if boxing, only the blow is delivered
downwards instead of from the shoulder. The clatter of their pads may
be heard much farther than would be supposed. Round and round they go
like a couple waltzing; now one giving ground and then the other, the
fore-legs striking all the while with marvellous rapidity. Presently
they pause--it is to recover breath only; and, `time' being up, to work
they go again with renewed energy, dancing round and round, till the
observer cannot choose but smile. This trick they will continue till
you are weary of watching.
There are holes on the hills, not above a yard deep and entering the
slope horizontally, which are said to be used by the hares more in a
playful mood than from any real desire of shelter. Yet they dislike
wet; most wild animals do. Birds, on the contrary, find it answer their
purpose, grubs and worms abounding at such times. Though the hare is of
a wandering disposition he usually returns to the same form, and, if
undisturbed, will use it every day for a length of time, at night
perhaps being miles away. If hard pressed by the dogs he will leap a
broad brook in fine style, but he usually prefers to cross by a bridge.
In the evening, as it grows dusk, if you watch from the elevation of the
entrenchment, you may see these creatures steal out into the level
cornfield below, first one, then two, presently five or six--looming
much larger than they really are in the dusk, and seeming to appear upon
the scene suddenly. They have a trick of stealing along close to the
low mounds which divide arable fields, so that they are unobserved till
they turn out into the open ground.
It is not easy to distinguish a hare when crouching in a ploughed field,
his colour harmonises so well with the clods; so that an unpractised eye
generally fails to note him. An old hand with the gun cannot pass a
field without involuntarily glancing along the furrows made by the
plough to see if their regular grooves are broken by anything hiding
therein. The ploughmen usually take special care with their work near
public roads, so that the furrows end on to the base of the highway
shall be mathematically straight. They often succeed so well that the
furrows look as if traced with a ruler, and exhibit curious effects of
vanishing perspective. Along the furrow, just as it is turned, there
runs a shimmering light as the eye traces it up. The ploughshare, heavy
and drawn with great force, smooths the earth as it cleaves it, giving
it for a time a `face' as it were, the moisture on which reflects the
light. If you watch the farmers driving to market, you will see that
they glance up the furrows to note the workmanship and look for game;
you may tell from a distance if they espy a hare by the check of the
rein and the extended hand pointing.
The partridges, too, cower as they hear the noise of wheels or
footsteps, but their brown backs, rounded as they stoop, do not deceive
the eye that knows full well the irregular shape taken by lumps of
earth. Both hares and rabbits may be watched with ease from an
elevation, and if you remain quiet will rarely discover your presence
while you are above them. They keep a sharp look-out all round, but
never think of glancing upwards, unless, of course, some unusual noise
attracts attention.
Looking away from the brow of the hill here over the rampart, see,
yonder in the narrow hollow a flock is feeding: you can tell even so far
off that it is feeding, because the sheep are scattered about, dotted
hither and thither over the surface. It is their habit the moment they
are driven to run together. Farther away, slowly travelling up a
distant down, another flock, packed close, rises towards the ridge, like
a thick white mist stealthily ascending the slope.
Just outside the trench, almost within reach, there lies a small white
something, half hidden by the grass. It is the skull of a hare,
bleached by the winds and the dew and the heat of the summer sun. The
skeleton has disappeared, nothing but the bony casing of the head
remains, with its dim suggestiveness of life, polished and smooth from
the friction of the elements. Holding it in the hand the shadow falls
into and darkens the cavities once filled by the wistful eyes which
whilom glanced down from the summit here upon the sweet clover fields
beneath. Beasts of prey and wandering dogs have carried away the bones
of the skeleton, dropping them far apart; the crows and the ants
doubtless had their share of the carcass. Perhaps a wound caused by
shot that did not immediately check his speed, or wasting disease
depriving him of strength to obtain food, brought him low; mayhap an
insidious enemy crept on him in his form.
The joy in life of these animals--indeed, of almost all animals and
birds in freedom--is very great. You may see it in every motion: in the
lissom bound of the hare, the playful leap of the rabbit, the song that
the lark and the finch _must_ sing; the soft, loving coo of the dove in
the hawthorn; the blackbird ruffling out his feathers on a rail. The
sense of living--the consciousness of seeing and feeling--is manifestly
intense in them all, and is in itself an exquisite pleasure. Their
appetites seem ever fresh: they rush to the banquet spread by Mother
Earth with a gusto that Lucullus never knew in the midst of his artistic
gluttony; they drink from the stream with dainty sips as though it were
richest wine. Watch the birds in the spring; the pairs dance from bough
to bough, and know not how to express their wild happiness. The hare
rejoices in the swiftness of his limbs: his nostrils sniff the air, his
strong sinews spurn the earth; like an arrow from a bow he shoots up the
steep hill that we must clamber slowly, halting half-way to breathe. On
outspread wings the swallow floats above, then slants downwards with a
rapid swoop, and with the impetus of the motion rises easily. Therefore
it is that this skull here, lying so light in the palm of the hand, with
the bright sunshine falling on it, and a shadowy darkness in the vacant
orbits of the eyes, fills us with sadness. `As leaves on leaves, so men
on men decay;' how much more so with these creatures whose generations
are so short.
If we look closely into the grass here on the slope of the fosse it is
animated by a busy throng of insects rushing in hot haste to and fro.
They must find it a labour and a toil to make progress through the green
forest of grass-blade and moss and heaths and thick thyme bunches,
over-topping them as cedars, but cedars all strewn in confusion,
crossing and interlacing, with no path through the jungle. Watch this
ant travelling patiently onward, and mark the distance traversed by the
milestone of a tall bennet.
First up on a dry white stalk of grass lingering from last autumn; then
down on to a thistle leaf, round it, and along a bent blade leading
beneath into the intricacy and darkness at the roots. Presently, after
a prolonged absence, up again on a dead fibre of grass, brown and
withered, torn up by the sheep but not eaten: this lies like a bridge
across a yawning chasm--the mark or indentation left by the hoof of a
horse scrambling up when the turf was wet and soft. Half-way across the
weight of the ant overbalances it, slight as that weight is, and down it
goes into the cavity: undaunted, after getting clear, the insect begins
to climb up the precipitous edge and again plunges into the wood.
Coming to a broader leaf, which promises an open space, it is found to
be hairy, and therefore impassable except with infinite trouble; so the
wayfarer endeavours to pass underneath, but has in the end to work round
it. Then a breadth of moss intervenes, which is worse than the vast
prickly hedges with which savage kings fence their cities to the
explorer, who can get no certain footing on it, but falls through and
climbs up again twenty times, and burrows a way somehow in the shady
depths below.
Next, a bunch of thyme crosses the path: and here for a lengthened
period the ant goes utterly out of sight, lost in the interior, slowly
groping round about within, and finally emerging in a glade where your
walking-stick, carelessly thrown on the ground, bends back the grass and
so throws open a lane to the traveller. In a straight line the distance
thus painfully traversed may be ten or twelve inches; certainly in
getting over it the insect has covered not less than three times as
much, probably more--now up, now down, backwards and sideways, searching
out a passage.
As this process goes on from morn till night through the long summer's
day, some faint idea may be obtained of the journeys thus performed,
against difficulties and obstacles before which the task of crossing
Africa from sea to sea is a trifle. How, for instance, does the ant
manage to keep a tolerably correct course, steering straight despite the
turns and labyrinthine involutions of the path? It is never possible to
see far in front--half the time not twice its own length; often and
often it is necessary to retrace the trail and strike out a fresh one--a
step that would confuse most persons even in an English wood with which
they were unacquainted.
Yet by some power of observation, perhaps superior in this respect to
the abilities of greater creatures, the tiny thing guides its footsteps
without faltering down yonder to the nest in the hollow on the bank of
the ploughed field. I say by observation, and the exercise of faculties
resembling those of the mind, because I have many times tried the
supposed unerring instinct of the ant, and found it fail: therefore it
must possess a power of correcting error which is the prerogative of
reason. Ants cannot, under certain conditions, distinguish their own
special haunts. Across a garden path I frequented there was the track
of innumerable ants; their ceaseless journeyings had worn a visible path
leading from the border on one side to the border on the other, where
was a tiny hole, into which they each disappeared in turn. Happily, the
garden was neglected, otherwise the besom of the gardener would have
swept away all traces of the highway they had made. Watching the stream
of life pouring swiftly along the track, it seemed to me that, like men
walking hurriedly in well-known streets, they took no note of marks or
bearings, but followed each other unhesitatingly in the groove.
When street-pavements are torn up, the human stream disperses and flows
out on either side till it discovers by experience the most convenient
makeshift passage. What would be the result if this Watling-street of
the ants were interrupted? With a fragment of wood I rubbed out three
inches of the path worn in the shallow film of soil deposited over the
old gravel, smoothing that much down level. Instantly the crowd came to
a stop. The foremost ant halted at the edge where the groove now
terminated, turned round, and had an excited conversation with the next
by means of their antennae; a third came up, a fourth and fifth--a crowd
collected, in fact. Now, there was no real obstruction--nothing to
prevent them from rushing across to the spot where the path recommenced.
Why, then, did they pause? Why, presently, begin to explore, right and
left, darting to one side and then to the other examining? Was it not
because an old and acquired habit was suddenly uprooted? Surely
infallible instinct could have carried them across the space of three
inches without any trouble of investigation?
In a few seconds one of the exploring parties, making a curve, hit the
other end of the path, and the news was quickly spread, for the rest
followed almost immediately. Placing a small pebble across the track on
another occasion caused almost the same amount of interference with the
traffic. Near the hole into which the ants plunged under the border,
and on the edge of the bank, so to say, the path they had worn was not
visible--the ground was hard and did not take impression; and there,
losing the guidance of the groove, they often made mistakes. Instead of
hitting the right hole, many of them missed it and entered other holes
left by boring worms, and after a short time reappeared to search again,
till, finding the cavern, they hastily plunged into it. This was
particularly the case when a solitary insect came along. Therefore it
would seem that the ant works its way tentatively, and, observing where
it fails, tries another place and succeeds.