Book: The Human Side of Animals

R >> Royal Dixon >> The Human Side of Animals




A few years ago, many of the sheep in the northern part of Wales had
become quite wild, and they usually grazed in parties of twelve to
twenty, always having a sentinel so stationed as to command a prominent
view of the surrounding territory. If any animal or person came near, he
would give a peculiar hiss or whistle, repeating it two or three times,
at which the whole herd would scamper away to places of safety.

One of the most striking facts about migration is its never-failing
regularity and success. Most animals migrate at the recurrence of the
breeding season. Of these, the great sea-turtle, which seeks the shallow
water and deep sandy hills when ready to lay her eggs, is well known.
Notwithstanding the great risks that practically all travelling animals
assume, they are successful as a whole in their travels, and many return
to bear testimony to a successful trip even across continents and
sometimes the ocean. They migrate, for a variety of reasons. When it is
not for a more desirable climate, nor more food, nor even better
breeding grounds, we must either believe it is because of the natural
desire to travel, or frankly admit that we do not understand it.

The Icelandic mice have probably the most curious methods of travelling
of all migratory animals. Dr. Henderson, an authority on Iceland, not
only verifies the fact himself, but gives the names of many prominent
investigators who have seen the mice crossing small rivers and streams
on thin pieces of dry board, dragging them to the water, launching them,
and then going aboard their little rafts. They then turn their heads to
the centre, and their tails, which hang in the water, are used as
paddles and rudders until they reach the destined shore.

Among travellers none are more famed than the camels. In their sphere
and use they are supreme, and Nature has prepared them especially for
travelling on the dry, hot, and barren deserts. They are truly the
"ships of the desert" for they travel on a sea of sand, and their
pad-like feet, so poorly adapted for travel on moist soil, is admirably
suited to the desert sands. They are capable of travelling many days
without food or water, and are used extensively in the desert regions of
the East not only as beasts of burden but for their milk, which is an
important article of diet in those countries where the camel is at home.

Animals that do not migrate, especially those living in cold climates,
change their clothing at regular intervals. Their hair or fur increases
in thickness in winter. If we compare the Indian and African elephants
of to-day, whose delicate thin hair is scarcely noticeable, with the
great extinct mammoth, which had an enormous amount of woolly fur, we
readily see the great difference in their clothing. Yet these animals
are members of the same great family. The same difference may be
noted with horses: the Arabian horse, for example, has short,
glistening fur, while those of Iceland and Norway have very thick fur;
the same is true of Northern and Southern sheep. Animals which live in
temperate regions, put on much thicker coats in winter, and shed them as
summer approaches.

[Illustration: _American Museum of Natural History, New York_

THE BLACK BEAR IS NOT ONE OF THE GREAT MIGRATING ANIMALS. THE THICKNESS
OF HIS COAT MUST THEREFORE CHANGE WITH THE SEASONS.]

[Illustration: _American Museum of Natural History, New York_

RABBITS SEEM TO HAVE A WELL-DEVISED SYSTEM IN THEIR ROAD-BUILDING,
RUNNING THEIR PATHS IN AND OUT OF UNDERBRUSH IN A TRULY INGENIOUS
MANNER.]

The love of their original homes is one of the most striking features of
certain animal travellers. The fierce struggle for existence and the
territory required for an animal's home largely determine the amount of
effort they make to seize and hold certain possessions. A pair of
wildcats, for example, require a comparatively small hunting ground. But
this they will defend against invasion even to the point of death. There
are many more evidences showing the animals' love of home, and that they
also know the meaning of home-sickness.

Not a few animals have learned definitely to lay out and obtain
recognition for the boundaries of their respective ranging-grounds. This
is amply proven by their respect and recognition of rights of way.
Animals of certain farms seem to know the exact boundaries of their
grazing lands and pastures, and to teach this knowledge to their young.
In addition they often police their lands and pastures against
intruders. Woe unto any traveller found on the wrong highway! It is not
uncommon for the transgressor to be pushed from a right of way to the
rocks below. More than once a court's decision regarding disputable
territory has been based on the sheep's recognition of boundary; those
sheep slain in battle or otherwise injured while trying to invade the
questionable territory have been paid for by the owner of the
transgressing sheep.

It is easy to understand how sheep can recognise their rights of way,
but somewhat difficult to account for their knowledge of boundaries.
Sheep and goats have for ages been the greatest mountain-path and
road-makers. Whether or not they have engineers, we are not sure, but
they seem to select the shortest, easiest, and best route across the
trackless hills, and never seem to change the way. In these localities,
the sheep are almost in a primitive condition, and "not the least
interesting feature of their conduct in this relapse to the wild life is
that, in spite of the highly artificial condition in which they live
to-day, they retain the primitive instincts of their race."

That this "peremptory and path-keeping" instinct is shown by the habits
of the musk-ox, is clear. He is as much akin to the sheep as to cattle,
and in habits more like those of the great prehistoric sheep as we
imagine these to have been. The musk-ox naturally assembles in large
flocks, and is migratory, just as the domesticated flocks of Spain are,
and those of Thrace and the Caspian steppe. These flocks always return
from the barren lands in the far north by the same road, and cross
rivers by the same fords. Nothing but too persistent slaughter at these
points by the enemies who beset them, induces them to desert their
ancient highways. Pictures and anecdotes of the migrations of these
animals, and of the bison in former days, represent them as moving on a
broad front across the prairie or tundra. The examples of all moving
multitudes suggest that this was not their usual formation on the march,
and their roads prove that they moved on a narrow front or in file. On
the North American prairie, though the bison are extinct, their great
roads still remain as evidence of their former habits. These trails are
paths worn on the prairie, nearly all running due north and south (the
line of the old migration of the herds), like gigantic rabbit tracks.
They are hard, the grass on them is green and short, and, if followed,
they generally lead near water, to which a diverging track runs from the
highway.

How interesting must have been the life on this great animal highway,
before the Indian made the deadly arrow to destroy these nature-loving
travellers! There is no doubt but that, in their own way, these animals
felt all the emotions known to a human traveller; that they enjoyed the
flowery road, rested and played when weary, looked forward with joy to
their favourite watering and bathing places, and recognised old watering
places that they had visited for years.

The great roads and highways made by graminivorous animals, from those
which the hippopotamus cuts through the mammoth canes and reeds of the
African streams, to the smaller rabbit highways of England and America,
all tell their own story of how these animals live and travel. The
principal roads of rabbits over hills are as permanent as sheep and
buffalo roads. These roads, however, should not be confused with the
little trails that lead to their play and feeding grounds.

My friend and fellow-naturalist, Ralph Stuart Murray, in writing to me
from Quebec, says: "In speaking of animal road builders, I might say
that the rabbit or hare of the north woods deserves much attention, for
greatly interesting are his highways. The life of the north woods brings
one constantly in touch with these roads, which, after generations upon
generations of constant use, are worn deep and smooth into the moose
grass and muskeg through which they run. At places, several distinct
paths intersect, and it is curious to note that while these roads wind
in and out underneath the low hanging evergreens, the 'cross-roads' will
invariably be located in a clear open space, often on the top of some
small hillock.

"The great age of these roads is very evident when compared with the
newer, shallower paths of more recent years. So deep are the old ones,
in fact, that the quiet watcher in the woods will occasionally see two
large, upright ears--unmistakably those of a rabbit, seemingly sticking
out of a hole in the ground--yet moving at a rapid pace, and all the
while no rabbit in view. For all the world these vertical ears belonging
to an unseen owner resemble in use and appearance the periscope of a
submarine--the difference being that the rabbit uses his 'periscopes'
for hearing, in order to locate and avoid his foe, the submarine its
periscope to locate and attack its enemy."

The sheep terraces, which are so common on the sides of hills, though
made by sheep, are not roads, but feeding grounds. Sheep, when walking
on a hillside, invariably graze on the upper side, as they cannot reach
the lower grass. Therefore they walk backwards and forwards on the
slope, just as a reaping machine is driven over a hillside wheat-field.
As the sheep takes a "neck's length" each time, the little ridges or
roads correspond exactly with the measurements of the sheep's neck.

There are as many kinds of roads and terminals in the animal world as
there are in the human, and lest our pride make us forget, we should
remember that even the Panama Canal is dug according to the plan of a
crawfish's canal, such as may be seen near any muddy stream. It is
strange that no animal has learned to build elevated roads, though
animals that live in trees, like flying squirrels, monkeys, and flying
foxes, are very skilled in going from one tree to another. They have
regular aerial highways, and some of the tree frogs are veritable
wonders in the accuracy of their leaps from tree to tree. Even more
skilled than these are the agamid lizards of India, whose chief means of
travel is a folding parachute, which at a moment's notice can be erected
and carry to another tree its lucky possessor. In Borneo is an aviator
tree-snake which is able to so spread his ribs and inflate his body that
he can actually sail from branch to branch in the tree-tops.

There are night travellers as well as day travellers; in fact, there are
more animals that roam around in a great forest at night than in the
daytime. They sleep during the day, when the day animals are roaming
about, and go forth to roam when it is night. It is then they seek for
prey, and are much feared by day animals. They see well in the dark, and
travel so lightly that their footsteps cannot be heard.

On the Island of Java are found a family of strange, dwarfish little
beings, which are called by the natives malmags, or hobgoblins. And they
are well named, for they look like creatures of a distorted imagination
more than real, living animals. They travel only at night, and so
superstitious are the natives of their evil influence that if one of
these uncanny little creatures appears near their rice fields, the
plantation is immediately abandoned. However, these small creatures are
no larger than squirrels, and are perfectly harmless. They are very rare
even in their native lands--the Oriental Archipelago and the Philippine
Islands. They rear their young in the hollow roots of bamboo trees, and
to disturb their nests means to incur the evil of all the land.

Night animals do not go forth to travel and seek prey until the night is
far advanced, and their prey is soundly sleeping. They seem to know the
exact time of the night, as if they had watches or clocks, and they
usually go forth to hunt about midnight and return to their homes about
four o'clock. Only in cases of extreme hunger do they vary from this
rule.

How marvellously skilled are they in finding their way! They pass
through a crowded forest as though it were daytime, and strangely enough
know just how to return to their lairs. This special sense or gift is
not possessed by man; he must have marks and signs to return to a
definite place.

These night-travellers number among their lot bats, flying squirrels,
leopards, and prowling snakes.

Bats are not only the most interesting of the night-travellers, but by
far the most curious and wonderful animals in the world. They are
hideously ugly, reminding one more of a miniature, closed-up umbrella
than an animal! They are coarse, awkward, when not in flight, and
repellent; yet they have such highly developed senses that they have no
rivals in the animal world. They excel most birds in flight, are able to
make long nightly journeys, in which they use their wings not only for
flight, but as air-bags in which they catch all kinds of flying insects.
Their sense of touch as we know it is really a combination of touch,
sight, and hearing.

A bat is a paradox par excellence! Nature seems to have started to make
a little bear or fox, and suddenly forgot how and changed it into a
winged freak, with tail, claws, fur, sharp teeth, small ears that stand
up, and tiny, half-buried eyes. Its queer angular-edged wings look like
an umbrella, with the cloth stretched over steel ribs; but in the case
of the bat, this framework is made of delicate bones which are covered
with a thin skin. The skin contains numerous little sense organs dotted
over its surface, which give the bat his strange power.

Bats look more like mice than they do like birds, and they are sometimes
called flittermice. But they are mammals, and the young are fed with
milk by the mother, just as a cow feeds her calf. There is no danger
that a bat will ever fly against you in the dark; for they can avoid all
mishap even when their eyes are put out. They have special sense organs
that tell them when they are nearing an object, and can fly at headlong
speed with the accuracy of a rifle bullet directly into a small opening.
This power is all due to the mysterious sense located in their wings and
ears, which causes even man to consider his senses weak in comparison.

Bats are sociable creatures and huddle together and sleep in vast
numbers during the day, but when night comes on they come forth for
their nocturnal travels and sport by the millions. I have seen them
leaving caves just at dusk in such numbers as to look like one immense
volume of smoke, twenty to thirty feet wide, and lasting for more than
five minutes. Mrs. Bat often takes her babies with her on these nightly
travels. I found one with two young clinging to her breast. How they
must enjoy these lovely trips!

There are many kinds and varieties of bats, ranging in size from the
flying foxes of the tropical world, with wings five feet in length, to
the wood bat of North America, which is not over six inches long. These
interesting friends of man are his greatest scavengers of the air. They
are doing much to check the mosquitoes throughout the regions of the
world, and in more civilized communities man makes shelters for them,
that they may eradicate mosquitoes.




XIII

ANIMAL SCAVENGERS AND CRIMINALS

_"A warning from these pages take,
And know this truth sublime--
Each creature is a criminal
When he commits a crime."_


No more remarkable creatures exist in the animal world than those that
play the role of Nature's scavengers and criminals. They are as numerous
and varied in their methods of working as they are interesting. The only
things they have in common are their profession and their appetites. As
individuals they are ugly, unattractive and apparently void of
personality and charm. Nevertheless, they have an important part to play
in the scheme of things.

One of the most noted of these scavengers is the jackal--the Bohemian of
the desert--whose territory extends from the Gulf of Persia to the
Strait of Gibraltar. He is equally at home in Arabia, Persia, Babylonia,
Syria, Egypt, and the entire North Coast of Africa, and no country from
Barbary to the Cape of Good Hope is ever out of reach of his ghostly
and uncouth howls. He travels only by night, and very rapidly.

When suffering with extreme hunger, he will attack man, but this he will
do only in very rare cases. As he lives entirely upon dead animals, he
is more of a thief and glutton than a robber and murderer. He depends
mostly upon flight and darkness for his protection, and rarely ventures
a direct attack. With all his unlikable habits he is truly valuable as
an agent of public salubrity, and an important officer of the desert
"commission of highways."

These public scavengers, while especially fond of carcasses and putrid
flesh, are not averse to a little fresh meat occasionally. The jackal is
truly the follower or purveyor for the lion, and oftentimes they work
together. Jackals will gather in large numbers near a lion's den and
howl and scream until the lions come forth to disperse them. As soon as
a lion appears they stop their noise, but when he is out of sight, they
immediately begin again. This is done because game is near, and the wise
jackals wish the lion to kill the game. When this is done, and the lions
have eaten all except the bones, the jackals have their small feast of
scraps.

These weird night prowlers have ways all their own, as any one who has
spent a night in a tropical desert can attest. Imagine yourself on the
Syrian plains between Bagdad and Damascus; a small white tent, and a
starry sky: the silence is appalling, and you are just about to have
your first sleep in the desert. Away, away from the distance comes a
mournful, ghostly cry. Suddenly it ceases and like myriads of echoes it
is repeated in hideous intensity--a babel of cries weird beyond
description--so fierce and screeching as to be almost blood-curdling. It
seems to come from all directions and distance out of measure! Vibrating
over the sands and through the rocks, filling the immense void, crying
out as it were for the sphinx, a veritable _de profundis_ of the wastes.
The vultures, who hold the fort during the day have given way to the
night shift, the jackals. These come from all directions; from the caves
in the earth, from among the rocks, from here, there, and from
everywhere to take up their hygienic services where it has been left off
by the day scavengers.

If you were near an oasis in the desert at the close of day, you would
suddenly hear from the hot, barren sands a deep and peculiar sound. It
swells and grows as an approaching wind, growing louder and louder as it
comes nearer. Suddenly by the light of the camp fire, you see myriads of
horrid green eyes, like ghost torches in a graveyard, and hear gnashing
teeth, greedy in anticipation of the garbage you have thrown away.

These hyena hordes are frightfully ugly, but rarely dangerous to man.
They visit every oasis settlement in immense numbers, howling, yelping,
and fighting for any bit of offal they may find. Not a particle of
garbage remains. At the first sign of dawn, they disappear like rats
from a burning building, and seek their caves to digest their ignoble
banquets.

No human street-cleaner could ever excel their work. No matter how large
the garbage pile, no matter how many dead dogs, cats, and donkeys in a
village street, no matter how unspeakable the offal, it all vanishes as
completely as though it had been burned. Not a piece of bone, not a
single chicken feather remains. The natives have no fear of the hyena; a
small child armed with a stick can put to flight a dozen of them. They
are the lowest of cowards, and will flee from their own shadows.

[Illustration: THE MONGOOSE IS A SCAVENGER OF THE WORST TYPE, FEEDING ON
RATS AND MICE AND SNAKES, AND EVEN POULTRY.]

[Illustration: _American Museum of Natural History, New York_

DIPLODOCUS. THE PREHISTORIC ANIMALS, ALSO, UNDOUBTEDLY HAD THEIR
SCAVENGERS AND CRIMINALS.]

In spite of their valuable services, mankind hates the hyenas. This is
probably because of their absolute cowardice, for they will never attack
a living creature unless it is weak from illness. Sometimes they steal a
baby, never killing it outright, but carrying it away to their dens to
starve it to death before mutilating its body. If the courage of this
beast equalled his strength, he would be the despot of the desert. But
he is like his fellow workman, the jackal, cowardly to the last degree.

Neither of them ever attempts to put an enemy to flight by legitimate
means. They resort to fakery: one howls, and the other wrinkles his face
in great anger. The jackal's greatest asset and protection, when he
meets with an enemy, is bluff. He raises his ugly mane, lifts his
ungainly shoulders and assumes the look of a Jason, while in reality he
is as harmless as a mouse, and the smallest child could drive him away
with a twig. His bravery is all pose--a make-believe game--which he
plays over and over again with every one he meets.

A noted American scavenger is the peccary, a species of wild hog, whose
home ranges from Texas to the Pampas of South America. He is a devourer
of creatures more obnoxious than himself. He moves with great rapidity,
is always on the alert, and stops at nothing from mountains to a flowing
river. When he attacks an enemy he makes short work of him.

Bands of these hogs are led by a chief, who is the swiftest and fiercest
of the herd. This aggressive leader is followed by successive lines of
males, behind which come the strong females, while the rear is brought
up by the old, the sick, and the young. In marching, they have the
discipline of a trained army, and turn neither to the right nor to the
left but go straight ahead. If the leader, for any cause, decides to
change his route, the fact is quickly made known in some way to his
followers, and the turn is made at a direct angle, with the accuracy of
a surveyor, and the peccaries go forward again directly toward their new
destination. This is another evidence of a special sense unknown to man.

But whenever a stop is made, or wherever they go, they do their work as
scavengers. Fallen fruits, dead animals, insects, snakes, and worms are
their prey. Thus they are valuable forest sweepers.

Strangely enough, in the animal world, as in the human, the lower
professions are filled with those of less mentality than the higher, and
as a result we find scavengers are nearest allied to criminals. The idea
of one creature killing and eating another seems terrible. Yet they do,
and most often do human beings commit the same crime. Cannibalism among
wild animals is a common occurrence. The demand for food usually causes
one animal to kill and devour another. But in captivity there are other
causes for cannibalism: fear and excitement will oftentimes cause a
mother to destroy her offspring.

It is a case of dog eat dog! Badgers often kill and devour their young.
Wolves, in cases of extreme hunger, will eat their puppies; and Arctic
travellers, when food for their dogs is scarce, have to guard constantly
against the stronger eating the weaker. I once caught a mother field
mouse with her two young and placed them in a cage; the next day the
young had strangely disappeared, but I am not sure that the mother had
eaten them. Hogs, cats, and rabbits will sometimes kill and eat their
young even when food is plentiful. Crocodiles show an occasional
cannibalistic tendency, while water-shrews are very pugnacious and
oftentimes fight until one is killed. The victorious one eats his enemy!
Thus it appears that Nature does not entirely disapprove of cannibalism,
or she would not allow so many of her creatures to practise it.

Theft is a common vice among these various criminals. Monkeys and
baboons form regular bands to rob and plunder. They have a chief who
sees that a sentinel is posted at each dangerous post. The plunderers
then line up in a long row, and the leader gets the booty and passes it
along the line until it reaches the last of the band--the receiver. He
deposits it in a safe place. If the sentry sounds an alarm, they all
flee away, each with as much booty as he can grab. If the enemy presses
too close, all booty is thrown away.

Passion, especially of love, causes much crime among animals as it does
among men. Jealousy burns fiercely even in the breast of a beast. It is
a common heritage of the fiercest lion and the gentle gazelle alike, and
is capable of perpetrating the most dreadful crimes.

There are types of ugly dispositioned animals, who are always in a
ferocious mood, just like certain ill-tempered human beings, who believe
everything and everybody is trying to injure them. The common shrew, for
example, is noisy, bold and fussy. He seems to delight in calling
attention to himself by his grunty, squeaky voice. He advertises himself
as a bad animal; and bad he is, for his terrible odour prevents other
animals from coming near. Horses and mules are at times quite ferocious,
and kick and bite, with no idea of obedience or kindness. They, of
course, like our human criminals, are mentally unbalanced. Skilled horse
trainers can detect at a glance a criminally inclined horse.

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