ANIMAL LIFE
IN
FIELD AND GARDEN
ANIMAL LIFE
IN
FIELD AND GARDEN
BY
JEAN-HENRI FABRE
Author of “The Story-Book of Science,” “Our Humble Helpers,” “Field, Forest and Farm,” “The Secret of Everyday Things,” etc.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
FLORENCE CONSTABLE BICKNELL
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
Copyright, 1921, by
The Century Co.
Printed in U. S. A. [[v]]
CONTENTS
[[1]]
ANIMAL LIFE
IN
FIELD AND GARDEN
[[3]]
CHAPTER I
WHAT UNCLE PAUL PROPOSES TO TALK ABOUT
“In these talks that we shall have together,” said Uncle Paul, as he sat with his nephews one evening in May under the big elder tree in the garden, “I propose to designate as ‘friends’ those forms of animal life that, though not domesticated or cared for by us, nevertheless come to our aid by waging war on insects and various other devouring creatures which would in the end, unless their excessive multiplication were kept in restraint by others besides ourselves, eat up all our crops and lay waste our fields; and it is these ravagers of the farmer’s carefully tilled acres that I shall speak of as ‘foes.’
“What can man’s efforts avail against those voracious hordes, multiplying as they do every year to an extent beyond calculation? Will he have the patience, the skill, the keenness of vision necessary for waging successful warfare on the tiniest species, often the most formidable, when the June-bug, despite its far greater size, baffles all his endeavors? Will he undertake to examine his fields and inspect [[4]]every lump of soil, every spear of wheat, every separate leaf on his fruit-trees? For so prodigious a task the whole human race would be inadequate, even if it united all its efforts to this one end. The devouring hordes would reduce us to starvation, my children, had we not able helpers to work for us, helpers endowed with a patience that nothing can tire, a skill that foils all ruses, a vigilance that nothing escapes. To lie in ambush for the enemy, to track it to its remotest retreats, to hunt it unceasingly, and finally to exterminate it—that is their sole care, their never-ending occupation. Urged on by the pangs of hunger, they are relentless in their pursuit, both for their own sake and on behalf of their progeny. They live on those that live on us; they are the enemies of our enemies.
“Engaged in this work are the martins that just at present are circling over our heads, the bats that fly around our house, the owls that call to one another from the hollow willow trunks in the meadow, the warblers that sing in the grove, the frogs that croak in the ditches, and many more besides, including the toad, which is an object of loathing to most people. Thanks be to God who has given us, to serve as guardians of our daily bread, the owl and the toad, the bat and the viper, the frog and the lizard! All these creatures, wrongfully cursed and shamefully abused by us, and foolishly looked upon with repugnance and hatred, in reality lend us valiant assistance and should take a high place in our esteem. To repair the injustice they have suffered [[5]]shall be my first duty as we come to each of them in turn. Thanks be to God who, to protect us from that great eater the insect, has given us the swallow and the warbler, the robin redbreast and the nightingale! These, the delight of our eye and ear, creatures of infinite grace—must I again raise my voice in their defense? Alas, yes, for their homes are ravaged by the barbarous nest-hunter.
“It is my purpose now to acquaint you, my children, with these various helpers of man in his labors as tiller of the soil. I will tell you about their ways of living, their habits and their aptitudes, and the services they render us. My object will be attained if I succeed in imparting to you a little of the interest they deserve. I will begin with those that have teeth. But first let us take a glance at the shape and structure of teeth in general; for it is this that determines the kind of food required by the animal.” [[6]]
CHAPTER II
TEETH
“Is it not true,” resumed Uncle Paul, “that each kind of work demands its own special tool? The plowman must have the plow, the blacksmith the anvil, the mason the trowel, the weaver the shuttle, the carpenter the plane; and these different tools, all excellent for the work to which they are applied, would be of no use in any other. Could the mason rough-cast his wall with a shuttle? Could the weaver weave his cloth with a trowel? Evidently not. Is it not true, then, that from the tool one may easily guess the kind of work it does?”
“Nothing could be easier, it seems to me,” replied Jules. “If I see planes and saws hanging on the wall, I know that I am in a carpenter’s shop.”
“And I should know,” said Emile, “from seeing an anvil, a hammer, and a pair of tongs, that I was in a blacksmith’s shop. But if I saw a mortar-board and a trowel, I should look around for the mason.”
“Well,” Uncle Paul went on, “every creature has its special task in creation’s great workshop, where all take part, all work, according to the design of Divine Wisdom. Each species has its mission—I might say its trade to follow—a trade that requires special tools just as does any work done [[7]]by man. Now, among the innumerable trades of animals there is one that is common to all without exception, the most important trade of all, as without it life itself would be impossible: it is the business of eating.
“But all animals do not take the same kind of food. Some need prey, raw flesh, others fodder; some eat roots, others seeds and fruit. In every instance teeth are the tools used in the work of eating; so they must have the shape appropriate to the kind of food eaten, whether that be tough or tender, hard or easy to chew. Therefore, just as from his tool the artisan’s work may be inferred, so from the shape of its teeth one can usually tell the kind of food eaten by any animal.
“Herbivorous animals are those that live on grass, fodder, hay; and carnivorous animals are those that eat flesh. The horse, the donkey, the ox, and the sheep are herbivorous; the dog, the cat, and the wolf, carnivorous. The food of the herbivorous animal is tough, hard, fibrous, and must be ground for a long time by the teeth in order to be reduced to a paste-like mass suitable for swallowing and, after that, for easy digestion. In this case the teeth in both upper and lower jaw must have broad and almost flat surfaces that will come together and grind the food as millstones grind grain. On the other hand, the flesh eaten by the carnivorous animal is soft, easy to swallow, and easy to digest. All that the animal has to do is to tear it apart and cut it into shreds. So the teeth here must have sharp [[8]]edges that come together and operate like the blades of a pair of scissors.
“I think I have said enough on that subject. Now, which of you will tell me what kind of food goes with each of the teeth I show you here?”
And Uncle Paul laid before his hearers the two teeth pictured on these pages, with others to follow.
Tooth of a Horse
A, the tooth entire; B, cross-section of an unworn tooth; C, cross-section of a worn tooth; e, enamel; c, cement; i, ivory; p, dental pulp.
“The first tooth,” said Emile, “is flattened and very wide at the top; it must crush and grind by rubbing against a tooth of the same kind in the opposite jaw. So it is the tooth of an animal that eats fodder.”
“It is indeed,” Uncle Paul replied, “the tooth of an herbivorous animal, a horse.”
“The second,” continued Emile, “is composed of several broad points with edges almost as sharp as knife blades. It must be meant for cutting flesh.” [[9]]
“Those winding folds that you see in the horse’s tooth—what are they for?” asked Jules. “There is nothing like them in the wolf’s tooth.”
“I was going to tell you about them,” his uncle replied. “If the horse’s teeth had perfectly smooth surfaces, without any roughness to act as a grater, is it not true that in pressing and rubbing, each against the opposite tooth, they would simply crush the fodder or hay as you would crush it between two smooth stones without changing it into fine powder? Millstones, if they were polished like marble tables, would flatten the grain without making flour of it; they must be rough on the surface in order to seize the wheat during the grinding of the upper stone on the stationary lower one and to make it into powder. When by long use the surface is worn smooth, the stones are of no service until they are dented again with the hammer. Well, the folds of a horse’s teeth may be likened to the roughness of a millstone: they project a little above the general surface of the tooth, making a sort of coarse file that tears to pieces blades of grass or hay when rubbed by the opposite tooth.”
Tooth of a Wolf
a, the tooth entire; b, cross-section; e, enamel; c, cement; i, ivory; p, dental pulp.
“I think I see a danger threatening the herbivorous animal,” put in Jules at this point. “Those [[10]]projecting folds must soon be worn down by rubbing against one another, just the same as the roughness on the millstone. If smooth millstones can’t make flour without being roughened again, no more can the herbivorous animal’s worn teeth go on grinding.”
“That is provided for, admirably provided for, my boy. Everything in the world is arranged so that it can do its work: a wisdom that nothing escapes watches over the smallest details; everything, even to a donkey’s jaw, shows this to be so. Listen, and judge for yourselves.
“There are two different substances in a tooth: one very hard, a little like glass and called enamel; the other quicker to wear out, but very difficult to break, and known as ivory. These two substances are combined in different ways, according to the animal’s diet. In the horse, the sheep, the ox, the donkey, and many other herbivorous animals the ivory makes up the main part of the tooth, while the harder substance, the enamel, extends in winding sheets throughout the former, projecting a little above its surface in a fold which varies in form in the different kinds of animals. So, then, it is the enamel, a substance as hard as a pebble, that composes the folds in the herbivorous animal’s teeth. From the rubbing of the lower teeth against the upper the ivory wears away faster than the enamel, so that the folds of the latter embedded in the mass of the tooth have their cutting edges brought above the general level as fast as required, and thus the grinding surfaces are kept in constant repair. You [[11]]see how it is: in the donkey’s food-mill, for instance, the millstones re-roughen themselves as fast as necessary for the chewing of a thistle; the machinery is self-repairing even while at work.”
“What you tell us, Uncle, is wonderful,” commented Jules. “I never should have guessed that such an arrangement was necessary for chewing a thistle.”
“And only the other day,” put in Louis, “I kicked out of my way a jaw-bone that was lying in the road. How gladly should I have looked at it closely if I had known all these things!”
“Ignorance always kicks things aside like that, my boy, but science is interested in everything, knowing that it can always learn something. But let us return to the teeth of the carnivorous animals and examine those of the wolf.
“Here the irregularities of the nutmeg-grater, the parallel ridges of the file, and the roughness of the millstone would be of no use, since the animal’s food is to be torn into shreds and not chewed into paste. For the wolf’s food cutting blades are needed—sharp scissors which are hard enough not to become blunt. Hence the working edges of the wolf’s teeth are not flat like millstones, but shaped rather like pointed chisels. The ivory forms the central body of the tooth, making it tough and strong, while the enamel, harder but more brittle, is spread as a continuous layer over the tooth and furnishes the requisite cutting edges. In like manner a skilful cutler, when he wishes to make an edged tool that will cut well and [[12]]at the same time withstand violent blows, makes its central mass of iron, a tough material that bears considerable violence without injury, but is not hard enough to furnish a keen cutting edge. He then overlays it, to obtain such an edge, with fine steel, which combines excessive hardness with the fragility of glass. The best that man can contrive in the making of edged tools is met with in perfection in the teeth of carnivorous animals.”
“If I understand you, then,” said Jules, “ivory, which is not so hard as enamel, but less brittle, forms the interior of the teeth of carnivorous animals, and enamel, which is harder and more brittle, forms the outside layer. Ivory makes the teeth strong; enamel makes them cut.”
“Yes, that is it.”
“Now, I don’t know which is the more wonderful, the donkey’s or the wolf’s set of teeth.”
“Both are wonderful, as both are admirably adapted to the kind of work they have to do.”
“What surprises me most,” Emile interposed, “is that a lot of things we should never pay any attention to turn out to be very interesting when Uncle Paul explains them to us. I never should have thought that the time would come when I should listen with pleasure to the history of a tooth.”
“Since that interests you,” said Uncle Paul, “I will continue the subject a little further and will tell you about human teeth, about yours, my boy, so white and so well arranged, and so admirably adapted for biting a slice of bread and butter.” [[13]]
CHAPTER III
THE DIFFERENT SHAPES OF TEETH
“Man has thirty-two teeth, sixteen to each jaw,” Uncle Paul continued.
Emile already had his finger in his mouth, passing it from one tooth to another, to count them. His uncle paused until he had finished the count.
“But I have only twenty, all told,” declared the boy; “twenty, and not thirty-two.”
“The other twelve will come some day, my boy; at present you have the right number of teeth for a child of your age. They do not all come at one time, but one after another. We begin with twenty, and no more. They are called milk teeth, or first teeth. When we are about seven years old they begin to fall out and are replaced by others stronger and set in more firmly. In addition to this second score of teeth there appear later twelve others, bringing the total number up to thirty-two. Those farthest back, in the inmost cavity of the mouth, come late, when we are eighteen or twenty years old, or even older, for which reason they are called wisdom teeth to signify that they appear at an age when the reason is well developed. These thirty-two last teeth constitute the second cutting. I call them last because they are never replaced by any others; if [[14]]we lose them, that is the end of our teeth; no more will come.”
“I have two now that are loose,” said Emile.
Human Teeth
I, incisors; C, canine tooth; m, small molars; M, large molars; a, cross-section showing, e, enamel; c, cement; i, ivory; p, dental pulp.
“They must come out soon to leave room for the new teeth that are to take their place. The others will get loose, too, and the twenty that you have now will be succeeded by twenty others, to which, sooner or later, will be added twelve more which come only once. These last occupy the back part of the jaws, three on each side, top and bottom. Thus the final number will be thirty-two.
“These thirty-two teeth are divided into three classes according to their shape and the work they must do. The same names being repeated top and bottom and right and left, I show you merely the eight teeth of half a jaw. In every tooth there are two parts to be distinguished, the crown and the root. The root is the part that is embedded in the jaw-bone like a nail hammered into wood; the crown is the part that comes into view, and it may be likened to the head of a nail. The root holds the [[15]]tooth in place, fixes it firmly; the crown cuts, tears, and grinds the food.
“In the two front teeth in each half-jaw the crown grows thinner toward the top. The edge is straight and sharp, fitted for cutting food, dividing it into small mouthfuls. Therefore these teeth are called incisors, from the Latin incidere, meaning to cut. Their root is a simple pivot. The next tooth is called canine. Its root is a little longer than those of the preceding teeth, and its crown is slightly pointed. The dog, the cat, the wolf, and carnivorous animals in general have this tooth shaped like a powerful fang, which serves to catch and hold prey, but above all acts as a weapon in attack and defense. It is the canine teeth that you see crossing one another, long and pointed, two on each side, when you raise the upper lip of a cat or a dog. Because of these remarkable fangs of carnivorous animals, especially the dog, which in Latin is canis, the name canine has been given to the teeth that in man are like them, if not in form and use, at least in the position they occupy.
“The next five teeth are the most useful of all. They are called molars, from the Latin mola, a millstone, because they play the part of millstones in grinding the food. For this purpose their crowns are blunt and broad and slightly irregular, not flat like the horse’s molars or with sharp cutting edges like the wolf’s, because man’s food is not composed exclusively of either vegetables or flesh, but of both at the same time. For food as varied as man’s there [[16]]is need of molars fit for all sorts of service: they must grind like those of the herbivorous animals and cut like those of the carnivorous; in short, they must be like those of both. And, indeed, their wide crowns are suited to vegetable food, and their rather sharp irregularities are adapted to animal food.
“The first two are called little molars or, in more learned language, bicuspids, because they have each two cusps or points. They are the least strong of the five and have only one root each. The two little molars, the canine tooth, and the two incisors (of each half-jaw) are the only teeth that are renewed. Multiply them by four and you will have the twenty teeth of the first cutting, teeth that begin to fall out toward the age of seven and are gradually replaced by others. That is the state of Emile’s teeth at present, there being but twenty of them.
“The other three teeth, in each half-jaw, come only once. They are the large molars, of which the very end one is also called the wisdom tooth. As in the act of mastication the large molars have to bear strong pressure, the root is composed of several pivots or prongs reaching down each into a special cavity or socket. This makes them strong and firm, so that they can stand pressure both downward and sideways.
“To sum up, the grown man has thirty-two teeth in all, sixteen to each jaw; namely, four incisors, two canines, and ten molars. These last are divided into four bicuspids or little molars and six large molars; the milk teeth do not include these last six.” [[17]]
Here Jules had a question to ask. “Ivory and enamel,” said he, “those two substances of different degrees of hardness that you told us were arranged in such a wonderful way in horses’ and wolves’ teeth—are they in our teeth, too?”
“Yes, they are there. Ivory forms the entire root, which must serve as a firm support, and it also fills the crown, while enamel merely covers the outside as a hard protecting layer.”
“I am going to get the cat and look at her teeth,” said Emile. “Has she twenty, like me, or has she thirty-two?”
Jaws and Teeth of a Wolf
i, incisors; c, canine teeth; m, small molars; r, large molars; s, salivary glands.
“Neither twenty nor thirty-two, but thirty when full-grown. Dogs and wolves have forty-two; horses and donkeys forty-four. In fact, the number varies with different animals as much as the shape. Perhaps a few words on this subject will not be out of place.
“First, here is the picture of a wolf’s mouth. If one did not already know, one could easily guess the animal’s diet by merely looking at its teeth. Those deeply indented molars, those strong, curved canines—surely they call for wild prey and show great strength. The whole set indicates clearly enough a [[18]]carnivorous appetite. At i are the incisors, six in number. They are small and of slight use, for the animal does not cut its prey into little mouthfuls, but swallows it gluttonously in great strips. At c are the canines, veritable daggers which the bandit plunges into the sheep’s neck. The little molars are at m. The large molars come next. The first, marked r, is the strongest, and it is with this that the wolf and the dog crack the hardest bones. Finally, the picture shows the salivary glands; that is, the organs that prepare the saliva and let it ooze into the mouth through the canal s as the animal eats. Without dwelling on this point, which would take me too far from my subject, I will merely say that saliva serves to soak the food and make a soft mouthful that can be easily swallowed, and it also plays an important part in the stomach in reducing to a fluid pap the food taken in; that is to say, it helps to digest the food.
Jaws and Teeth of a Cat
“Let us pass on to the cat, another typical flesh-eater. Six small incisors are ranged in the front of the jaw like a row of elegant but useless pearls. They are ornamental rather than useful to the animal. A mouse-hunter needs very long and pointed canines for piercing the prey seized by the claws. In this respect the cat is armed in a very formidable manner. What do you think of it, Louis?” [[19]]
“I think,” he replied, “a rat must be very uncomfortable between those curved canines the picture shows us.”
“One day,” said Emile, “when I was pulling the cat’s mustache, she gave me a bite that felt like the sharp prick of a needle. It was done so quickly I had no time to draw my hand back.”
“The cat brought her canines into play and wounded you with one of them as quickly as a steel point could have done.
“Now look at the molars. There are four above, the last one very small, and three below. Their cusps or points are still sharper than the wolf’s; so, too, the cat’s appetite—like that of its kindred, the tiger, the panther, the jaguar, and others—demands more flesh than that of the wolf and animals like it, such as the fox, the jackal, and especially the dog. Have you ever noticed how disdainful the cat is when you throw her only a piece of bread? Scarcely has she smelt it when she makes a movement of superb scorn, tail in the air, back raised, and looks at you as if to say: ‘Are you making fun of me? I want something else.’ Or, if very hungry, she reluctantly bites the bread, chews it awkwardly, and swallows it with distaste. The dog, on the contrary, our good Azor for example, catches the bread joyfully in his mouth without letting it touch the ground, and if he finds any fault with the piece it is for being too small. You call the cat a glutton. I take her part and maintain that it is not the vice of gluttony she shows, but that her teeth [[20]]must have meat. What could you expect her pointed canines and keen-edged molars to do with a crust of bread? They demand, above all, a prey that bleeds, a quivering bit of flesh.
Jaws and Teeth of a Horse
“What a difference between the teeth of the hunter and those of the peaceful chewer of grass! Let us examine this picture of a horse’s head. Here the incisors, six in number, are powerful; they seize the forage and cut it, a mouthful at a time. The canines, of no use here, show only as little knobs on the jaw-bone. Next beyond comes a long vacant space called the bar; that is where the bit is held in the horse’s mouth. Back of the bar you see the real grinding mechanism, composed of twelve pairs of strong molars with square, flat crowns furnished with slightly projecting folds whose usefulness I have already pointed out to you. If I am not much mistaken, here we have a mill capable of grinding tough straw and fibrous hay.
“Finally, here is a rabbit’s head. Each jaw is furnished with two enormous incisors set deep into the [[21]]bone, bent backward above, and ending each in a sharp-edged crown. What are such incisors as those made for?”
“I know,” Jules quickly replied. “The rabbit is always nibbling. For want of better food it will gnaw the bark of a tree and even the wood. It uses its incisors to cut its food very fine, to gnaw it.”
Jaws and Teeth of a Rodent
a, hamster’s jaws and teeth; b, upper incisor of a rabbit.
“To gnaw it—that is the right word; hence we give the name of rodents or gnawers to the various animals having incisors of that kind. Such are the squirrel, the hare, the rabbit, the rat, and the mouse, those poor creatures which must gnaw the toughest vegetable substances and fill their bellies with wood, paper, rags even, when there is nothing better for supplying the mill that is kept always going. But it is not merely to satisfy their hunger that these animals are almost incessantly gnawing; there is another reason for their doing it. Their incisors grow all their lives and tend to lengthen indefinitely; consequently, the animal must wear them away by continual friction, as otherwise their crowns would at last so far overlap that they could not be made [[22]]to meet. Then the poor beast would be unable to seize its food and would perish. In order to be able to eat when hungry, the rat and the rabbit must eat when not hungry, so as to sharpen their incisors and keep them the right length. It is true that they often turn their attention to very poor fodder. A splinter of wood, a straw, a mere nothing suffices to maintain the play of their indefatigable incisors. Remember, children, the expressive term rodents (which means gnawers), applied to a whole class of animals akin to the rabbit and the rat; remember their curious incisors, for we shall have occasion to speak of them again hereafter. For the present let us finish our examination of the rabbit’s teeth.
“The canines are lacking; in their place the jaw shows a bar or, in other words, a large open space. At the extreme back of the mouth are the molars, few in number but strong, with flat crowns and several folds of enamel. In fact, they make an excellent grinding machine.
“In giving you these details concerning the different shapes of teeth in different species of animals, I wished particularly to point out the following truth: Each species eats a particular kind of food for which the teeth are especially formed, so that one might say of any animal, ‘Show me its teeth and I will tell you what it eats.’ In many instances where we cannot examine the teeth we do not know what such and such a creature feeds on, and in our hasty judgment we mistake a friend for an enemy, a helper for a destroyer. If the animal [[23]]is ugly we condemn it on the spot and hate it, accusing it of any number of misdeeds. We declare war against it, and never suspect, in our foolishness, that it is a war at our own expense. But there is a very simple precaution by which we can avoid these regrettable mistakes: let us yield to no prejudice, however wide-spread, and before condemning an animal as harmful let us find out what sort of teeth it has. They will tell us the animal’s way of living, as you shall soon see for yourselves.” [[24]]
CHAPTER IV
BATS
“Which of you three can tell me what bats feed upon?” asked Uncle Paul the next day.
At this question Emile put on his thinking-cap, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead; but no ideas came. Nor were Jules and Louis any prompter with an answer.
“Nobody knows? Well, then, so much the better, for you will have the satisfaction of finding it out for yourselves, from the shape of the teeth. The incisors, small and weak, which you see on an enlarged scale in this picture of a bat’s set of teeth—do they look as if they were made for gnawing vegetable substances, after the manner of rats and rabbits? Could they cut any such tough fodder?”
“Certainly not,” replied Jules; “they are too weak to be of much use. And then it seems to me those two sharp, curved fangs must belong to a flesh-eating animal.”
“The long, pointed canines do indicate as much, but the molars show it perhaps still more plainly. With their strong and sharp indented crowns fitting so well into the sharp-edged depressions of the opposite jaw—are those molars designed to crush grain, to grind, slowly and patiently, fibrous substances?” [[25]]
“No,” said Jules; “they are the teeth of a flesh-eater, not the grist-mill of an herbivorous animal.”
“I am sure now,” affirmed Louis, “that the bat lives on prey.”
“It is a greedy hunter of flesh and blood,” Emile declared. “The cat’s teeth are not more savage-looking.”
Jaws and Teeth of a Bat
“All that is quite correct,” said Uncle Paul. “The teeth have taught you the chief thing about the animal’s habits. Yes, the bat is a hunter, an eater of live prey, a little ogre always demanding fresh meat. It only remains to find out the kind of game it likes. Evidently the size of the prey must suit the size of the hunter. A bat’s head is no bigger than a large hazelnut. It is true the mouth is split from ear to ear and can, when wide open, swallow mouthfuls larger than the smallness of the animal would lead one to suppose. Nevertheless the bat can attack only small creatures. What can it be that it goes chasing through the air when, after sunset, it flies hither and thither unceasingly?”
“Gnats, perhaps, and night-moths,” Jules suggested.
“Exactly. Those are its prey. The bat lives on insects exclusively. All are food for its maw: hard-winged beetles, slender mosquitoes, plump moths, flying insects of all sorts; in fact, all the little winged foes of our cereals, vines, fruit-trees, woolen stuffs[[26]]—all those creatures of the air that come in the evening, attracted by our lighted rooms, and singe their wings in the flames of our lamps. Who would undertake to say how many insects bats destroy when they fly around a house? The game is so small, and the hunter is so hungry.
“Notice what happens on a calm summer evening. Lured abroad by the balmy atmosphere of the twilight hours, a host of insects leave their lurking-places and come forth, guests at life’s garden party, to sport together in the air, hunt for food, and mate with one another. It is the hour when the sphinx-moths fly abruptly from flower to flower and thrust their long probosces into the depths of the corollas, where honey is stored; the hour when the mosquito, thirsting for human blood, sounds its war-cry in our ears and selects our tenderest spot to stab with its poisoned lancet; the hour when the June-bug leaves the shelter of the leaf, spreads its buzzing wings, and goes humming through the air in quest of its fellows. The gnats dance in joyous swarms which the slightest breath of wind disperses like a column of smoke; butterflies and moths, in wedding-garments, their wings powdered with silvery dust and their antennæ spread out like plumes, join in the frolic or seek places in which to deposit their eggs; the wood-borer comes forth from its hidden retreat under the bark of the elm; the weevil breaks its cell hollowed out in a grain of wheat; the plume-moths rise in clouds from the granaries and fly toward the fields of ripe cereals; other moths explore here the [[27]]grape-vines, there the pear-trees, apple-trees, cherry-trees, busily seeking food and shelter for their evil progeny.
A Bat in Flight
“But in the midst of these festive assemblies suddenly there comes a killjoy. It is the bat, which flies hither and thither, up and down, appearing and disappearing, darting its head out this side and that, and each time snapping up an insect on the wing, crushing and swallowing it immediately. The hunting is good; gnats, beetles, and moths abound; and every now and then a little cry of joy announces the capture of a plump June-bug. As long as the fading twilight permits, the eager hunter thus pursues its work of extermination. Satisfied at last, the bat flies back to its somber and quiet retreat. The next evening and all through the summer the hunt is resumed, always with the same ardor, always at the expense of insects only.
“To give you an idea of the multitude of harmful insects, especially of moths, from which the bat delivers us, I will quote a passage from the celebrated French naturalist Buffon, the most graphic historian of the animal kingdom. But first I must tell you that bats are in the habit of making their homes in old towers, grottoes, and abandoned quarries. There, in great numbers, they pass the daylight [[28]]hours, hanging motionless from the roof, and thence they sally forth at the approach of darkness. The floor of these retreats becomes covered at last with a deep layer of droppings, from which we can learn the kind of food eaten by bats and judge of the importance of their hunting. Now here is what Buffon has to say of a grotto frequented by these creatures:
“Having one day descended into the grottoes of Arci, I was surprised to find there a kind of earth of a singular nature. It formed a bed of blackish matter several feet thick, almost entirely composed of parts of the wings and feet of flies and moths, as if these insects had gathered here in immense numbers, coming together for the express purpose of dying and rotting in company. It was nothing but bats’ dung that had been accumulating for years.”
“What a curious kind of soil, made up entirely of the remains of dead insects!” Jules exclaimed.
“I will add that sometimes this soil of flies and moths at the bottom of old quarries and caves is abundant enough for the farmer to take account of it and use it as a rich fertilizer. It is called bats’ guano.”
“To make such heaps of it, then,” remarked Louis, “bats must destroy insects by millions and millions.”
“Five or six dozen flies or moths are hardly enough for a bat’s evening meal; if a few June-bugs should make their appearance, they would be eagerly [[29]]snapped up. If the band of hunters is a large one, judge of the thousands of harmful insects destroyed in a single season. Next to the birds we have no more valiant helpers than bats; and so I beg you to be friendly to these creatures which, while we are asleep and perhaps dreaming of our rich crops of pears and apples, peaches and grapes and grain, proceed with their silent warfare against the enemies of our harvests, and every evening destroy by myriads moths, mosquitoes, beetles, bugs—in short, the greater part of the insect throng that always threatens us with starvation if we do not keep vigilant watch.”
“I see now that the bat does us a good turn,” Emile admitted. “All the same, it is frightfully ugly; and, besides, they say if it touches you it will give you the itch.”
“There are any number of other sayings about it that are just as foolish, my boy. One is that the bat pricks with its pointed teeth the she-goat’s udders so as to suck her blood and milk; another is that it gnaws the sausages and bacon hung under the chimney mantel; also, that its sudden entrance into a house means misfortune. I have heard persons cry out because a bat had accidentally grazed them with the tip of its wing; and I have seen others pale with terror because they had found one of the innocent creatures fastened by a claw to their bed curtains.
“Here, as in many other things, my dear children, you must take into account the folly of mankind, [[30]]which is more given to error than to truth. If you were old enough to understand me, I should add that wherever I find a general agreement that a thing is black I think it well to look into the matter and find out whether, on the contrary, it may not be white. We are so stuffed with false notions that very often the exact opposite of the common belief is the real truth. Do you ask for examples? There are plenty of them.
“The sun, we generally say, according to all appearances revolves from east to west around the stationary earth. No, says science, no, it is the earth, on the contrary, that rotates from west to east before the stationary sun. The stars, we say again, are small bright points, little lamps in the arch of the firmament. No, answers science, the stars are not tiny sparks; they are enormous bodies which compare in light and size to the sun itself, a million and a half times as large as the earth. The bat, it is commonly asserted, is a harmful, hideous, venomous creature of ill omen that must be crushed without mercy under the heel. No, affirms science, a thousand times no; the bat is an inoffensive creature that, instead of doing us harm and bringing misfortune, renders us an immense service by protecting the good things of the earth from their countless destroyers.
“No, we should not vent our hatred upon it and pitilessly kill it; on the contrary, we should like and respect it as one of our best helpers. The poor creature does not deserve the bad reputation that [[31]]ignorance has given it. Its touch does not communicate either lice or the itch; its teeth do not pierce the goat’s udders or attack our stores of bacon; its chance entrance into a room is no more to be dreaded than a butterfly’s. For my part I should like to have it visit my bedroom often at night, for then I should soon be rid of the mosquitoes that torment me. All things considered, we have nothing, absolutely nothing to reproach it with, and we are indebted to it for very valuable services. That is the answer of science to ignorant prejudice. Henceforth, then, crush the bat under your heel if you dare.”
“I will take good care,” said Louis, “never to do such a thing now that I know what an army of enemies we are guarded against by the bat.”
“But what a pity,” Jules remarked, “that it is such a hideous creature!”
“Hideous?” his uncle repeated. “That is a slander which I hope to make you take back.”
“Surely you can’t deny that the bat is horribly ugly,” persisted the boy.
“Perhaps I can.”
“I should like to know,” said Emile, “how you can make out that the frightful shape of the creature is beautiful.”
“To discuss ugliness and beauty with you, my children,” replied Uncle Paul, “is not an undertaking that I should care to enter upon. To follow me in such a discussion you would need a maturity of mind that does not go with your years. Even if you [[32]]were grown up, it might still be impossible for us to come to an agreement, inasmuch as it is not with the bodily eyes that ugliness and beauty should be judged, but with the eyes of reason ripened by reflection and study and free from the trammels of first impressions, which are generally erroneous. Also, how few possess that intellectual clearness of vision that remains untroubled by prematurely conceived opinions and can thus contemplate things in all the clarity of truth! Trusting the testimony of our eyes and yielding to daily habit, we call beautiful the creatures whose general structure shows a certain conformity with that of the animals most familiar to us and unthinkingly accepted as standards for all future judgments. We call ugly those that differ from these accepted models, and if very unlike we call them hideous. Enlightened reason refuses to be hemmed in by the narrow circle of first impressions; it rises above petty prejudices and says to itself: Nothing is ugly that God has made; everything is beautiful, everything is perfect in itself, as everything is the work of the Creator.
“An animal’s form should not be judged by its greater or less resemblance to the forms that are already familiar to us and serve us as standards of comparison, but rather by its fitness for the kind of life for which it was created. Where the structure is in perfect harmony with the functions to be performed, there too is beauty. From this higher point of view ugliness no longer exists; or, rather, it exists all too abundantly, but only in the moral world. Intemperance, [[33]]laziness, stupid pride—all forms of vice, in short—constitute ugliness and hideousness. To tell the truth, I know of none besides.
“But I must return to the bat, if not in the hope of making you find it beautiful, at least with the certainty of interesting you in its remarkable structure. I will wager, too, that not one of you knows what a bat is.”
“It is a kind of bird,” declared Emile.
“It is an old rat that has grown a pair of wings,” Jules ventured to assert.
“You are both talking nonsense,” returned their uncle. “That is the way with us all: we speak at random of animals and persons, giving to one our esteem, to another our scorn, without knowing what they are, what they do, what they are good for. You don’t know the first thing about the bat, and yet you overwhelm the poor animal with abuse.
“The bat has nothing in common with birds; it has neither beak nor feathers; nor is it a rat that has acquired wings in its old age. It is really a peculiar creature that is born, lives, and dies with wings, without in any way belonging to the bird family. Its body has the size, the fur, and somewhat the shape of a mouse; but its wings are bare.
“The most highly organized animals have as a distinctive mark teats or udders, which furnish milk, the first food of their young. These animals do not feed their young family from the beak, as birds do; they do not abandon their offspring to all the hazards of good or ill fortune, careless of their [[34]]future, as do the stupid races of reptiles and fish. The females rear their young with maternal care, feeding them from time to time with milk from their udders. All the various species that suckle their young, all that are provided with udders, are classed together by men of learning and called mammals, from the Latin mamma, a breast or teat. I will add that in the great majority of instances these animals have the body covered with fur or hair, and not with feathers or scales. Feathers belong to birds, scales to reptiles and fishes. As examples of mammals you will immediately think of our domestic animals, the dog, the cat, the cow, the sheep, the goat, the horse, and others.”
“I have often noticed,” said Emile, “how carefully the cat raises her family. While the kittens press her teats with their little pink paws to make the milk flow faster, the old cat washes them with her tongue and shows her happiness by her soft purring.”
“Well, then,” resumed Uncle Paul, “the bat is a mammal just as much as is the cat, and like that of the cat its body is protected from the cold by fur, and the female has teats for nursing her little ones. The number of teats varies widely in the different kinds of animals, being greater in the species that have many young at a birth, and less in the others; which is as it should be, in order that the nurslings may all be suckled at the same time. The bat has only two, situated on the breast and not under the stomach. The female bears only a single young one [[35]]at a time. Emile rightly admires the love of the cat for her kittens; yet the bat is a still tenderer mother. When in the evening she goes out in search of food, instead of leaving her nursling in some hole in the wall after suckling it, she carries it with her, clinging to her breast; and it is while weighted with this load that she chases the nimble moths on the wing. Doubtless the pursuit of prey is thus rendered less fruitful and more difficult; but no matter, the loving mother prefers not to abandon her feeble charge, and allows it to continue peacefully sucking during the evolutions of the hunt. With the deepening darkness the bat regains its retreat, suspends itself from the roof by a toe-nail, and holds its nursling by wrapping it in her wings.”
“That is not so bad a way to behave,” admitted Jules. “I begin to find the bat less ugly than I thought.”
“That is what I just told you,” returned his uncle. “Ugliness is begotten of ignorance; it diminishes as knowledge increases. But let us continue our theme.” [[36]]
CHAPTER V
THE BAT’S WINGS
“Wings, real wings, perfectly adapted to flying, are the bat’s most striking feature. How can a mammal, an animal whose general structure is that of a dog or a cat for example, possess the flying-apparatus of a bird? How can two organs so entirely different be combined? In the bat’s wing, my children, we find an admirable example of the infinite resources at the command of the Creator, who, without adding to or subtracting from the fundamental plan, has adapted the same organs to the most widely different functions. The fore feet of mammals—of the dog, or the cat we will say—are changed into wings in the bat without the addition or the loss of a single part in this incredible transformation. More than that, the human arms, our arms, children—are there represented, piece by piece, bone by bone. You all look at me as if you did not believe it, unable to understand how there can be anything in common between our arms and a bat’s wings.”
“The fact is,” Jules confessed, “it takes all my faith in your words to make me admit that there can be the least likeness between a man’s arm and a bat’s wing.” [[37]]
“I do not propose to make you admit it because of your faith in me; I propose to prove it to you. Follow along your arm so as to grasp the demonstration better.
“From the shoulder to the elbow the framework of the human arm consists of a bone known as the humerus. From the elbow to the wrist there are two bones of unequal size running side by side the whole length. The larger is the cubitus, the smaller the radius. Then comes the wrist, composed of several little bones which I will not now describe. Next is the palm of the hand, its framework formed of a row of five bones almost alike and each serving to support a finger. Finally, each finger contains a succession of small bones called phalanges, of which the thumb has two, and all the others three each. I will add that two bones serve to attach the arm to the body. One is the shoulder-blade, a broad triangular bone situated on the back behind the shoulder; the other is the collar bone, slender and curved, situated in front and extending from the shoulder to the base of the neck. Those are the collar-bones that you can feel with your hand at the right and left above the breast.”
While thus enumerating the parts of the arm, Uncle Paul guided the hand of each listener and made it feel the several bones as they were named. Emile had some difficulty with the learned terms “humerus” and “cubitus,” which he now heard for the first time; nevertheless, by paying close attention [[38]]he found that he could easily remember them. When the boys had all learned the name and the position of each bone in the human arm, their uncle continued:
“Now examine with me this picture of a bat’s skeleton. The bone marked o is the shoulder-blade. As with us, it forms the back of the shoulder, and it is triangular, wide, and flat.”
Skeleton of a Bat
o, shoulder-blade; cl, collar-bone; h, humerus; cu, cubitus; r, radius; ca, carpus or wrist; po, pollex or thumb; ph, phalanges.
“Then the part marked cl is the shoulder, and the bone that goes from there to the base of the neck is the collar-bone?” queried Emile.
“Precisely.”
“I see how the rest goes,” Louis hastened to interpose. “The bone marked h is the humerus, and the elbow is at the angle made by this bone with the next.”
“My turn now,” put in Jules. “The two bones running side by side from the elbow to the wrist are marked cu and r. The first is the cubitus, the other [[39]]the radius. Consequently ca is the wrist. But there I get lost.”
“The wrist, I told you,” explained Uncle Paul, “is composed of several small bones. That structure we find at ca, the bat’s wrist.”
“But, then, the hand?” queried Jules.
“The palm of the hand and the five fingers which it supports are represented by the ribs of the wing and by po, which is the thumb. This is the shortest of the five fingers, as with man. It forms no part of the framework of the wing, but is free and is furnished with a hooked nail which the animal uses to cling by and also in walking. Finally, this thumb has two phalanges, as in the human thumb, and at the base is a small bone which in man forms a part of the palm of the hand. So much for the thumb.
“Now let us look at those four long bones that start from the wrist (ca) and spread out through the greater part of the wing. Together with the similar but shorter bone of the thumb they represent the series of five bones composing the framework of the human palm. Next come the fingers with their phalanges (ph). In short, except for a few slight differences, the bat’s wing reproduces, piece by piece, the structure of the human arm.”
“Yes,” Jules admitted, “it’s all there, even to the small bones of the wrist and fingers. Is it possible that a poor bat can pattern after us so closely? The horrid creature copies our arms to make itself wings.” [[40]]
“Your pride need not suffer from this close resemblance, which you will find in different degrees in a multitude of other animals, especially among the mammals, our next of kin in bodily structure. In the formation of his body man enjoys no monopoly; the dog, the cat, the donkey, the ox—each and all of them—share with us a common stock of organs, modified in details and suited to the kind of life of each species. We recognize in the bat’s wings the fundamental plan of our arms; we see it also no less plainly in the fore legs of the cat, the dog, and many other animals, and we can trace a rude resemblance to our hand even in the donkey’s homely hoof. I tell you these things, my children, not to lessen in your eyes the undeniable superiority of man, but to inspire in you a fellow feeling for animals that are formed like us, suffer as we do, and are far too often the victims of our stupid cruelty. Whoever needlessly causes an animal to suffer commits a barbarous act, an inhuman act, inasmuch as he inflicts torture on flesh like our own; he brutally misuses a body having the same mechanism as our own and the same power of suffering. As to our superiority, it is established preëminently by an exceptional characteristic that places us above all comparison even with creatures that in their physical structure most closely resemble us. This characteristic is reason, the torch that lights us in our search for truth; it is the human soul, which alone knows itself and enjoys the sublime privilege of knowing its divine Author. [[41]]
“In bats four of the five bones similar to those of our palm are greatly elongated, as are also the corresponding fingers, and they together constitute the four ribs on which is stretched the membrane of the wing, just as silk is stretched on the ribs of an umbrella. Thus it is at the sacrifice of what might have been a hand that the wing is formed. Therefore the scientists call all mammals of like structure with the bat ‘chiropters,’ meaning hand-winged creatures, from two Greek words signifying hand and wing.
“Of the five fingers one only, the thumb, is left free in the bat, and it is very small. It is furnished, as I said before, with a nail or claw. The four others, destitute of nails, are lengthened to serve as supports to the membrane of the wing. This membrane is a fold of the skin which starts from the shoulder, stretches between the four long fingers of the hand, and then attaches itself to the hind leg, the toes of which are all furnished with hooked nails or claws and do not depart from the ordinary shape of such members. By virtue of the free thumb already described the wings are able to serve as feet in walking, when these members are folded close to the animal’s sides. The bat grips the ground by thrusting in first the right claw and then the left, and pushes itself forward with its hind feet in laborious and awkward leaps. Thus it gets over the ground at what might be called a fast pace, but is soon tired out with the exertion; hence it does not walk except when sure it will not be molested or when it is compelled [[42]]to do so by its position on a level surface where it cannot launch itself into the air. Then as soon as possible it gains an elevated point, from which it flies off. For in order to unfold the hampering membranes that serve as wings and to throw itself into the air, the bat needs considerable free space, which it cannot get except by hurling itself from a height. Consequently, in the caves inhabited by bats they never fail to secure an unimpeded drop. With the hooked talons of a hind foot they cling to the roof, head downward. That is the way they rest, the way they sleep. At the slightest alarm the claw lets go, the wings spread, and the animal is off.”
“What a queer way to sleep,” Emile exclaimed, “hanging from the roof by one foot, head downward! And do they stay that way long without getting tired?”
“If necessary, a good half of the year.”
When he went to bed that night Emile thought again of the bat’s way of sleeping; but he preferred his own. [[43]]
CHAPTER VI
THE BAT’S SENSES OF SMELL AND HEARING
“Bats are nocturnal,” Uncle Paul continued the next day; “that is, they leave their lurking-places only at nightfall, to hunt in the evening twilight. As a rule, animals addicted to nocturnal hunting have very large eyes that take in as much light as possible, and thus these animals can see with very little light. Night-birds, such as owls of all kinds, will furnish us a remarkable example a little later. By a singular exception, however, despite their nocturnal habits bats have very small eyes. How, then, are they able to direct themselves in their swift flight, so abrupt in its changes of direction? How, above all, are they aware of the presence of their tiny game—moths and gnats?
“They are guided especially by their senses of smell and hearing, which are extraordinarily acute. What do you say to the bat’s ears in this picture? What animal of its size can show anything like them? How they flare, like enormous hearing-trumpets, to receive the slightest sound! The bat that bears them has the expressive name of long-eared bat.”
“Long-eared bat,” repeated Jules; “that’s the kind of name I like; it describes the animal and [[44]]shows what there is about it that is out of the ordinary.”
“Such prodigious ears are certainly made to hear sounds inaudible to us by reason of their excessive faintness. They enable their possessor to hear at a distance the beating of a moth’s wings and the fluttering of a gnat dancing in the air.
“Other bats which have smaller ears have as a substitute a sense of smell unequaled for its acuteness. The high state of perfection of this sense is the result of the abnormal development of the nose, which covers a good part of the face and gives the animal a very strange appearance. For example, here is the head of a bat called the horseshoe bat. This broad, distended formation of curious shape that occupies almost the whole space between the eyes and the mouth is the nose. It ends above in a large triangular, leaflike expanse; laterally it spreads out in folded laminæ, all together taking the shape of a horseshoe, whence the name of the creature. What odor, however faint, could escape such a nose? The dog, so famous for its keenness of scent, chases the hare without seeing it, guided solely by the odor left behind by the animal, heated in the chase; but how much keener the scent of the horseshoe bat must be when it chases in the same manner a moth that leaves no odor for any nose but its pursuer’s! I sometimes wonder whether such a nose, so abnormally developed, may not be able to detect certain qualities that are and always will be unknown to us for want of the means to perceive [[45]]them. The horseshoe bat’s grotesque nose makes you laugh, my little friends; it makes me think. I think of the thousand secrets that nature hides from our senses and that would be as easy for us to learn as they would be valuable if we possessed the scent of a poor bat. Perhaps (who can tell?) the horseshoe bat foresees with its nose the coming storm several days in advance; it may scent the future hurricane, smell the rain-clouds coming from the other end of the earth, know by detecting their odor what winds are about to blow, foretell in similar manner what the weather is going to be; and, guided by perceptions of which we can form no idea, it may make its plans for hunting insects that are sometimes abundant and sometimes scarce according to the state of the atmosphere.”
“If the horseshoe bat’s nose can do all that,” said Jules, “we must agree that it is a first-rate sort of nose.”
“I make no positive assertions,” his uncle rejoined. “I merely have my suspicions. The only thing that seems to me beyond doubt is that such an organ as the bat’s nose serves its owner as a source of sensations unknown to man.”
“You say so many wonderful things about it, Uncle,” Emile interposed, “that I shall end by thinking the horseshoe bat’s nose much more curious than ugly. There’s another thing, too, I’ve just noticed. Why does the creature have such fat cheeks? See what a puffed-up face it has in the picture.” [[46]]
“With the bat,” Uncle Paul explained, “the chase is a short one, lasting only one or two hours—in fact, the short interval between sunset and dark. The remainder of the twenty-four hours is passed in rest, in the quiet of some cavern or grotto. Does the animal, then, have but one meal in all this time? And what if there are evenings when hunting is out of the question, the sky being overcast, the wind too strong, or rain falling, so that the insects keep under cover? The bat would then be subjected to long fasts if it were impossible for it to lay in supplies beforehand. But these supplies must be collected hastily, on the wing, with no interruption to the hunt which lasts so short a time. Hence it is that pouches are indispensable, deep pouches in which the hunter can put his game as fast as he catches it. The cheeks exactly fill this office: they can be enlarged at the creature’s will—distended so as to form roomy pockets in which the insects killed with a snap of the teeth can be stowed away. These reserve pockets are called cheek-pouches. Gluttonous monkeys have them. That is where the she-ape, fond of sweets, puts the lump of sugar given her and lets it slowly melt so as to prolong the enjoyment of it. Well, when the bat is out hunting it first satisfies its hunger, and then—especially when its nose, the famous nose that we have just been talking about, predicts unfavorable weather for the following days—it redoubles its exertions and stows away moth after moth in the depths of its elastic pouches. It returns to its quarters with cheeks all [[47]]distended. Now without fear of famine it can remain idle for several days if necessary. Hanging motionless by a hind claw, it feeds on its store of provisions, nibbling one at a time, as hunger prompts, the insects softened to taste in the reservoir of its cheeks.
“But it is high time we finished with the bats; their history would be too long if I were to tell you all about them. I will only ask Jules what he thinks now of the animal he at first called hideous.”
“Frankly, Uncle,” answered the boy, “these creatures interest me now more than they disgust me. Their singular wings, formed at the cost of what might have been hands, their prodigious nose and immense ears which make up for their poor eyesight, their cheeks swollen so as to make pouches for their supply of food—all these have interested me very much.”
“The cheek-pouches,” said Emile, “where the bat puts its game to soak, and the nose that scents the coming storm, seemed to me the most curious things about the animal.”
“And I,” said Louis, “shall never forget how many enemies bats deliver us from.”
“Now you understand,” Uncle Paul rejoined, “or at least I hope you are beginning to understand, that bats, being so useful to us in destroying a multitude of ravaging insects, and noteworthy for their singular structure, should not inspire us with an unjustifiable repugnance and still less with a stupid rage to exterminate them. Let us leave in peace these [[48]]poor creatures that so valiantly earn their living by protecting our crops. Do not let us harm them under the foolish pretext that they are ugly, for their supposed ugliness is in reality an admirable adaptation of bodily structure to the creature’s mode of life.” [[49]]
CHAPTER VII
THE HEDGEHOG
In his walled garden Uncle Paul allowed a couple of hedgehogs, which he had brought from the neighboring hills, to wander at large. One evening the children noticed them poking about in a lettuce patch.
“Why,” asked Emile, “has Uncle Paul put those animals in the garden and told us to leave them alone if we happened to come across them?”
“No doubt to make war on harmful insects,” answered Louis. “Stop, look there! One of them is turning up the earth with its little black snout. Ssh! Let’s keep still and see what it’s after.”
The children crouched down behind a row of peas so as not to be seen. The hedgehog, now scratching with its paws, now rummaging with the tip of its snout, which resembles that of a pig, finally unearthed a big, fat white larva which had probably been clinging to the root of a lettuce plant. The children ran to look at the captured game. The hedgehog, thus taken by surprise, hastened to roll itself up into a ball bristling with spines. In the disinterred worm Jules easily recognized a June-bug larva, one of that ravenous and destructive race that Uncle Paul had already told them about.[1] [[50]]
In the evening, when they were all gathered together, the hedgehog naturally became the subject of conversation.
“Several years ago,” said Uncle Paul, “as I was returning home one evening at a late hour, I chanced upon two hedgehogs coming out from a pile of stones. I tied them up in my handkerchief so as to bring them home and let them loose in my garden. Ever since then they have never failed to render me certain services that you can appreciate by examining the jaws in this picture.”
“Pointed teeth like those,” Jules remarked, “were never made for browsing grass. The hedgehog must feed on prey. Its teeth are just right for crunching June-bug worms such as I saw dug up in the garden this morning.”
Jaws and Teeth of a Hedgehog
“Notice how sharp the points of the teeth are,” resumed his uncle, “both in the upper and in the lower jaw. Those two rows of teeth fit into each other when the animal bites, and they plunge like so many fine daggers into the captured victim’s flesh. With this complicated dental mechanism evidently the hedgehog cannot triturate tough food; it must have a kind of diet that is soft, juicy, capable of being reduced to marmalade by a brief chewing. The animal is therefore preëminently a flesh-eater. Several other species, particularly the mole and the [[51]]shrew-mouse of these regions, have, like the hedgehog, teeth tapering to conical points and interplaying in the two jaws. Their food, too, is about the same as the hedgehog’s. All three—hedgehog, mole, and shrew-mouse—live on small game—insects, larvæ, slugs, caterpillars, worms. They belong to the group of mammals known to naturalists as the order of insectivorous animals, or, in other words, the order of insect-eaters. On and under the ground they carry on the same kind of hunt that bats do in the air. In their way of living bats, too, are insectivorous; but their peculiar bodily structure causes them to be placed apart in the order of chiropters. Thus the mammals furnish us two orders of helpers: the chiropters, which hunt on the wing, and the insect-eaters—the insectivorous animals properly so called—which hunt on and under the ground. To the latter belong the hedgehog, the mole, and the shrew-mouse.
“The hedgehog, the largest of the three, requires the largest and most plentiful prey. Tiny vermin are disdained, but a June-bug larva or a good fat mole-cricket is an excellent find. When they are not buried too deep he digs with his paws and snout to unearth them. You have to-day seen my hedgehogs at work in the lettuce bed. All night they go prowling about the garden, sniffing and rummaging in every nook and corner, and crunching no small number of my foes without doing me much harm. In them I have two vigilant watchmen who make their [[52]]rounds every night for the greater security of my growing vegetables. However, despite the interest I take in them, I must, to be candid, acknowledge their faults.
Hedgehog
“The hedgehog’s natural food consists unquestionably of insects; but when a good opportunity presents itself the greedy creature is easily tempted by larger and more highly flavored prey. In its wild state the hedgehog does not hesitate to suck the blood of young rabbits caught in their hole during the mother’s absence. The eggs of quail and partridge, too, it esteems as a most delicious feast, but its supreme delight is to wring the necks of a brood of little chickens. One night last year I heard a great commotion in the hen-house. The roosters were raising cries of alarm, the hens were cackling in desperate fright. I ran out to see what the trouble was. One of my hedgehogs had crept in under the door, and I found the rogue regaling himself on some little chickens almost under their mother’s wing, she being powerless to help them in the dark. With one kick I sent the assassin rolling outside, and the next day thorough repairs were taken in hand. The holes on a level with the floor were closed up, and since then I have had no further trouble from my insect-hunters. With proper precautions against their [[53]]thirst for blood, I have two larva-devourers of great value for my garden.”
“But won’t they do damage of another kind?” asked Louis. “I have heard that hedgehogs climb trees and shake off the ripe fruit, and then roll on it so as to spit it with their spines, after which they carry it off to their holes and eat it at their ease.”
“Pay no attention to any such stories, my boy. It is utterly impossible for a hedgehog to climb a tree. Clumsy and stubby as it is, with legs so short and claws useless for climbing, how could it manage an athletic feat that calls for agility, hooked claws, and supple limbs? No, my friend, the hedgehog does not climb trees, neither does it carry off fruit transfixed with its spines. The only vestige of truth in that old wives’ tale is that hedgehogs do not live exclusively on prey; if they find fruit that they like on the ground, a very ripe pear or a juicy peach, for example, they munch it with as great contentment as they would a beetle or a June-bug.”
“It is also said,” Louis added, “that if kept in a house the hedgehog will drive away rats.”
“Ah, that I am quite willing to believe. By day the animal crouches in a corner and sleeps, but at night it is on the move, always hunting for slugs, fat beetles, and other insects. Consequently it may well be that its noisy hunt for prey as it goes poking its pointed snout into every hole and cranny frightens the rats and mice and drives them away, especially as the nocturnal prowler exhales a disagreeable odor [[54]]calculated to betray its presence. Having neither the cat’s light paw nor that animal’s great patience in lying in wait for game, the hedgehog does not indulge in hunting rats; but if by good luck one falls into its clutches, it is accepted with delight, for the hedgehog’s great feast is blood, freshly killed flesh. When I wish to give my two hedgehogs a special treat I throw them a bleeding beef liver or a chicken’s entrails. Anything of that sort is eagerly devoured. Tastes so undisguisedly carnivorous tell you what must happen to a mouse caught by one of these animals. I attribute to them the disappearance of some nests of rats that used to trouble me.
“To satisfy its devouring hunger the hedgehog appears to attack all sorts of prey alike, even planting its teeth in a viper without any thought of the reptile’s venom; and in still other respects the animal enjoys a remarkable immunity. You have seen the Spanish fly, that magnificent, strong-smelling insect that lives on ash-trees and is distinguished by sheath wings of a superb golden green.”
“Yes, I remember it,” said Jules. “It is used for raising blisters after being dried and ground to powder.”
“That is correct. If, then, this powder eats into the skin so readily, what effect ought it to have on the delicate lining of the stomach if introduced into that organ? What animal could swallow it without suffering torture and speedy death? Well, by an exception that I cannot undertake to explain the hedgehog can feed on this horrible poison without [[55]]the slightest apparent injury. A celebrated Russian naturalist, Pallas, has seen it make a meal on Spanish flies with no ill results. For a repast of that sort a stomach peculiarly constructed is certainly necessary.
“Once upon a time there was a king, very well known in history, named Mithridates. Being aware that he was surrounded by enemies capable of poisoning him some day, in order to obviate the danger he gradually accustomed himself to the most noxious drugs. By increasing the dose little by little he finally rendered himself immune against poison. The hedgehog is the Mithridates of the animal kingdom; but how far it surpasses the suspicious king! Without practice it dares swallow the poison of the Spanish fly and the viper’s deadly venom.
“I like to believe that the hedgehog has not received these exceptional gifts only to leave them unused. It must delight to frequent the haunts of the viper; in its nocturnal rounds in the underbrush it must occasionally come upon the reptile in its retreat and crush its head with those pointed teeth that are so well adapted to such work. What service may it not render in localities infested with this dangerous breed! And yet man rages at the hedgehog, curses it most heartily, and treats it as an unclean beast of no use but to arouse the fury of dogs, which cannot attack it because of its spines. He subjects it to the torture of an ice-cold bath to make it unroll itself; and if the animal refuses to do so he prods it with a pointed stick, goads it, disembowels it.” [[56]]
“We will never meddle with hedgehogs, Uncle Paul,” Jules assured him. “We are too much afraid of snakes to drive away this valiant defender.”
“What are the hedgehog’s spines?” asked Emile.
“Hairs, nothing else, but very coarse, and stiff, and pointed like needles. Together with other hairs, fine, soft, and silky, they cover all the upper part of the body. The under part has only a coat of soft hair; otherwise the animal would wound itself in rolling up into a ball. When the hedgehog scents danger—and it is a very wary beast—it ducks its head under its stomach, draws in its paws, and rolls itself into a ball, presenting everywhere an armor of spines to the enemy. The fox has long been famous for its many ruses; the hedgehog has only one, but it is always effective. Who would dare grapple with the creature when it has assumed its attitude of defense? The dog refuses; after a few luckless essays that make its mouth bleed it declines to go further and contents itself with barking. Sheltered under the safe cover of its spines, the hedgehog turns a deaf ear to these futile threats and remains quiet.
“But if the dog, urged on by its master, returns to the charge, the hedgehog has recourse to a last expedient of war which rarely fails of effect: it discharges its strongly offensive urine, which flows from the inside of the ball and wets the outside. Repelled by the unbearable odor of the ill-smelling [[57]]beast and pricked on the nose by its spines, even the most eager dog now abandons the attack. The enemy gone, the hedgehog slowly unrolls itself and trots off to some safe retreat.” [[58]]
[1] See “Field, Forest, and Farm.” [↑]
CHAPTER VIII
HIBERNATION
“Our bats,” continued Uncle Paul, “live exclusively on insects, and these constitute the hedgehog’s chief food, but it also hunts larger game or even eats fruit. In winter there are no longer any plump insects to be had, most of them having died after laying their eggs, and the few surviving ones having taken refuge from the cold in hiding-places where they would be very hard to find. The larvæ, too, the hope of future generations, are lying torpid, far out of sight under the ground, in the trunks of old trees, snugly hidden away. The white worm has bored several feet into the ground to escape the frost, there are no more June-bugs for the long-eared owl, no more night-flying moths, and no more beetles for the hedgehog. What, then, is to become of these insect-eaters?”
“They will die of hunger,” answered Jules.
“They would indeed all die, were it not for the providential arrangement I am now going to try to make you understand.
“You know the proverb, ‘He who sleeps dines,’—a very true proverb in its simple statement of an undeniable fact. Well, the hedgehog, the bat, and other animals put the principle into practice with [[59]]a wisdom quite equal to that of man. Not being able to dine, for want of insects, they go to sleep; and so deep and heavy is their sleep that to designate it we use a special word, lethargy.
“Another proverb says, ‘As you make your bed, so must you lie.’ Our dumb animals, never lacking in wisdom in ordering their own affairs, take good care not to forget this proverb, but to adopt wise precautions before abandoning themselves to their long winter sleep. The hedgehog chooses for itself a secure retreat amid the great roots of some old tree stump. Toward the end of the autumn it carries grass and dry leaves to deposit there, and arranges them in a hollow ball, in the middle of which it rolls itself up and goes to sleep. Bats assemble in great numbers in the warm depths of some cavern where nothing can disturb their slumbers. Heads down and bodies packed close together, they hug the walls, covering them with a sort of velvet tapestry; or, clinging to one another, they hang in bunches from the roof. Now the winter may do its worst and the winds may rage; the hedgehog in its warm blanket of leaves and the bats in their sheltered caves sleep a deep sleep until summer returns and with it insects, food, animation, life.”
“But don’t they eat anything all winter long?” asked Emile, incredulously.
“Nothing whatever,” his uncle assured him.
“Then bats and hedgehogs must have a secret. For my part, I eat more in the winter than at any [[60]]other time, and no amount of sleep would satisfy my hunger.”
“Yes, the bat and the hedgehog have a secret in this matter. I am going to tell you this secret, but it is a little hard to understand, I warn you.
“There is one need before which hunger and thirst are silent, however great they may be; a need that is never satisfied, and is always making itself felt, whether we wake or sleep, by night, by day, every hour, every minute. It is the need of air. Air is so essential to the maintenance of life that it has not been left to us to regulate its use as we do in regard to food and drink; and this is so in order that we may not be exposed to the fatal consequences that would follow the slightest forgetfulness. Therefore it is with little or no consciousness on our part and independently of our will that air gains entrance into our body to do its marvelous work there. On air more than on anything else do we live, our daily bread coming only second in the order of importance. Our need of food is felt at only tolerably long intervals; our need of air is felt unceasingly, always imperious, always inexorable. Let any one try for a moment to prevent its admission into the body by closing the entrance passages, the mouth and the nostrils; almost immediately he is suffocated and feels that he would surely die if this state were prolonged a little. And what is true of man is true of all forms of animal life: air is necessary to them all, from the smallest to the greatest.
“What I am going to tell you now will explain this [[61]]absolute necessity for air for the maintenance of life. Man and also every animal of a superior organization—a classification that includes mammals and birds—have a temperature of their own, a degree of bodily heat peculiar to them, a heat resulting from no external conditions, but from the functions of life alone. Whether under a burning sun or in the freezing cold of winter, whether subjected to the torrid heat of the equator or to the glacial climate of the poles, man’s body has a temperature of thirty-eight degrees, centigrade, and cannot be lowered without danger of death. The natural heat of birds attains forty-two degrees in all seasons and in all climates.
“How is it that this heat is always the same, and whence can it come unless from some sort of combustion? There is, in fact, going on within us a perpetual combustion, respiration furnishing the necessary air, and food supplying the fuel. To live is to consume oneself, in the strictest sense of the word; to breathe is to burn. In a figurative sense man has long used the expression ‘the torch of life’; but this figurative term proves to be the exact utterance of the truth. Air consumes the torch; it consumes the animal no less; it makes the torch give out heat and light, and it produces in the animal heat and motion. Without air the torch goes out; without air the animal dies. From this point of view the animal may be compared to a highly perfected machine put in motion by heat. It feeds and breathes to produce heat and motion; it receives its fuel in [[62]]the form of food and burns it in the inmost recesses of its body with the help of the air introduced by breathing. That explains why the need of food is greater in winter than in summer, the body cooling off more rapidly by contact with the outside cold air, and consequently an increased consumption of fuel being required to maintain the normal temperature. A low temperature creates a desire for food; a high temperature lessens the demand. To the hungry Siberians hearty food is necessary; they ask for bacon and other fats, with brandy to drink. But for the people of Sahara a few dates suffice, with a pinch of flour kneaded in the palm of the hand with a little water. Everything that lessens the loss of heat lessens also the need of food. Sleep, rest, warm clothing, all serve to some extent as substitutes for food. And so there is much truth in the saying that he who sleeps dines.”
“That may be,” Jules assented, “but I don’t see how hedgehogs and bats can do without food for four or five months at a time. No matter how soundly I might sleep, I couldn’t go without eating so long as that.”
“Wait until I finish, and for the present remember this: in every animal life depends on an actual and never-ceasing combustion. Air, as necessary to this combustion as to the burning of wood or coal in our stoves and fireplaces, is taken into the body by breathing. That is what makes breathing so urgent, so incessant. As to the fuel burned, that is furnished by the substance of the animal itself, [[63]]by the blood made from digested food. Not a finger is lifted by us, not a muscle moved, that does not use up just so much of the fuel furnished by the blood, which itself is made by the food we eat. Walking, running, working, excitement, all forms of exercise or emotion—these literally burn up our blood just as a locomotive burns its coal in dragging behind it the immense weight of a train. That is why activity, hard work, increases our need for food, while rest, idleness, lessens it.
“I will now put to you a question. Let us suppose that there are on the hearth some burning brands, but that they are few and small, and you wish to keep the fire as long as possible. Would you let these firebrands burn freely? Would you take the bellows and blow air on them to increase the blaze?”
“No,” replied Jules; “that would be just the way to burn up the brands in no time. They must be covered with ashes. If the air comes to them very slowly and only a little at a time, they will burn gradually and the next morning we shall find the coals still alive.”
“That is well said, my boy. To keep up a fire for a long time with a given amount of fuel, the draft must be reduced, the access of air must be largely cut off, but not intercepted altogether, because then the fire would be completely extinguished. Therefore the live coals are buried under ashes, and if the fire is in a stove the door of the ash-pit is nearly closed. With plenty of air, combustion is active but of short [[64]]duration; with only a little air it is feeble, but lasts a long time.
“As the maintenance of life is the result of a real combustion, any animal obliged to endure a long fast, or in other words to dispense with the regular renewal of the fuel needed in that combustion, must take into its body as little air as possible. It must reduce the draft of its furnace. This draft is respiration, breathing; and so, in order to go without food for months at a time and to make the small amount of fuel held in reserve in the veins last as long as possible, the animal has but one course to follow: it must breathe as little as it can without depriving itself entirely of air, for that would mean the total extinction of the vital spark, just as the complete cutting off of air from a lighted lamp means the speedy extinction of its flame. There you have the hedgehog’s and the bat’s secret for enduring their long fast through the winter season.
“First of all, every precaution is taken to avoid all loss, all unnecessary expenditure of heat, and to economize as much as possible the reserves of fuel in their poor little veins. The hedgehog wraps itself up warm in a thick blanket of leaves in the heart of a stone-heap or in some hollow tree trunk, while the bats collect in compact groups in the warm shelter of a deep cave. But that is not enough: they must keep quite still, as every movement uses up a certain amount of heat. This requirement is scrupulously observed: their immobility is such that you would say they were dead. And yet all [[65]]this is still insufficient: respiration must be reduced to a minimum. In fact, their breathing is so weak that the closest scrutiny can hardly detect that they breathe at all. This faint remnant of life is not to be compared, you can well see, to the blazing torch or the brightly burning fire, both of which, enjoying free combustion, send out waves of heat and light. It is rather the feeble glimmer of a night lamp husbanding its last drop of oil; it is the coal that glows faintly under the ashes. So profound is the torpor, so nearly complete the inanition, that were it not followed by an awakening this state would hardly differ in any respect from death.
“The name ‘hibernation’ is given to this temporary suspension of vitality, or rather this slowing up of life, to which certain animals are subject during the winter. In the number of hibernating animals, or animals that indulge in this long winter sleep, are to be included, besides the hedgehog and the bat, the marmot, the dormouse, the lizard, serpents of various kinds, frogs, and other reptiles. Do you need to be told that in order to assume and maintain this torpid condition in which for whole months food is unnecessary, a special organization is required? Not every creature can hold its breath at will and thus escape the necessity of eating. The dog and the cat might sleep ever so deeply, yet as their breathing would go on almost as actively as in their waking hours, hunger would arouse them before long.”
“Just as it would me,” said Emile. [[66]]
“No animals that have an assured supply of food for the winter hibernate, but those that would otherwise perish with hunger in cold weather are saved from destruction by the providential torpor that overtakes them at the approach of the winter season. Their food supply being cut off, they go to sleep. The marmot is wrapped in slumber while the turf on the high mountains is covered with snow; the dormouse when there is no longer any fruit; frogs, toads, snakes, lizards, bats, and hedgehogs, as soon as there cease to be any more insects to feed upon.” [[67]]
CHAPTER IX
THE MOLE
Uncle Paul had just trapped a mole that for some days had been uprooting young vegetables and unearthing newly planted seeds in a corner of the garden. He called the children’s attention to the animal’s black coat, softer than the finest velvet; showed them its snout and made them note its peculiar fitness for digging; pointed to its fore paws, shaped like wide shovels for moving the earth with astonishing rapidity; and remarked on its eyes, so small as to be well-nigh useless, and its jaws armed with savage-looking teeth.
“It is a great pity,” said he, “that we are prejudiced against the mole on account of its habit of mining, for there is not in all the world a more pitiless destroyer of vermin.”
“I had always heard,” Louis remarked, “and had believed until now, that moles lived on a vegetable diet, chiefly of roots, and that they tunneled under the ground to get them.”
“To forewarn you of the errors so widely current on the subject of the diet of certain animals, I described to you in some detail the formation of teeth, which always indicate the kind of food eaten. I showed you that one has only to examine an animal’s [[68]]teeth in order to determine whether it is carnivorous or herbivorous. Remember the adage that summed up our talks on the subject: Show me its teeth and I will tell you what the animal eats.
“The mole is a good illustration: it has forty-four sharply pointed teeth, not including the incisors. Do they look like millstones for the leisurely grinding of grain and roots, or sharp tools for making mincemeat of torn flesh?”
Jaws and Teeth of a Mole
“They are certainly the teeth of an animal that lives on prey,” Louis admitted; “the hedgehog and the bat haven’t sharper ones.”
“To make you sure of this fact,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will tell you about some experiments made on the diet of moles. We owe them to a learned French naturalist, Flourens. If after you are grown up you ever have a chance to read his remarkable works, you will find them very interesting and valuable.
“Flourens put two live moles into a cask and, believing them to be herbivorous, gave them for food a supply of roots, carrots, and turnips. As you see, the illustrious naturalist shared the accepted opinion, the false notion just repeated by Louis. But Flourens was soon undeceived. The next morning the vegetables were found untouched, while one of the moles had been devoured by its companion and [[69]]there was nothing left of it but the skin, turned inside out.”
“One of the moles had eaten the other?” cried Emile. “Oh, what a fierce creature!”
“It had feasted on its own kind, a thing that hardly any other animal does. In devouring its comrade it had in the course of the night eaten its own weight of food; and yet the next morning it seemed restless and very hungry. Flourens threw it a live sparrow whose wings he had just clipped. The mole smelt it, walked around it, received a few hard pecks from its beak, then, pouncing on the bird, tore its stomach open and enlarged the opening with its claws so as to plunge its head into the midst of the entrails. With its pointed snout the horrible creature bored into them with frantic delight. In less than no time it had devoured half the contents of the skin, which with its feathers was left whole. Flourens then lowered into the cask a glass full of water and saw the mole stand up against the glass, cling to the edge with its fore claws, and drink eagerly. When it had had enough, the animal returned to the sparrow, ate a little more of it, and finally, completely full, lay down to sleep in a corner. The glass and the remains of the bird were then taken out of the cask.
“Hardly six hours later the mole, hungry again, began to smell around the bottom of the cask in search of something to eat. A second sparrow was thrown to it. The mole immediately tore open the [[70]]stomach to get at its entrails. When it had eaten most of the bird and taken another big drink of water, it appeared satisfied and remained quiet. This was its last meal for the day. Just think, boys, what a quantity of reeking flesh it took to satisfy one mole’s hunger! In the night its companion in captivity, and the next day two sparrows! The weight of the food eaten in twenty-four hours was nearly twice that of the eater.
Mole
“Was the animal satisfied for long? By no means. The next morning the mole was wandering restlessly about in the bottom of its cask, apparently wild with hunger. Food, quick, quick! or it will die of starvation. The remains of the sparrow left over from the evening before, with a frog which it promptly disemboweled, quieted it for a while. Finally, a toad was thrown to it. As soon as the mole approached to rip it up the toad inflated its body, hoping perhaps to frighten the enemy with its repulsive appearance. At any rate, it succeeded. After sniffing at it, the mole turned away in disgust. Ah! you don’t want the toad, you greedy creature; then you shall have turnips, cabbages, and carrots. Plenty of these were given it. But fie on roots! Rather perish than eat turnips! The next morning the mole was found to have starved to death amid [[71]]the vegetables. It had scorned to touch them with so much as a tooth.
“Had this animal an exceptional appetite, a taste for unusual things, that it should have preferred to die of hunger rather than touch vegetable food? Not at all; it merely followed the preferences of all its kind. Many other experiments have been performed both by Flourens and by other observers. All the moles they have tried to feed with vegetable substances—with bread, lettuce, cabbages, roots, herbage of any description—have starved to death without touching their provisions. On the other hand, those that were fed with raw flesh, worms, larvæ, and insects of various kinds, remained alive.
“Another very simple way to determine positively the kind of food eaten by this animal is to examine the contents of its stomach as it lives in the freedom of its customary haunts. Everything eaten by it must find its way to the stomach. Let us catch a mole, cut it open, and investigate. The stomach is found to contain, sometimes, red pieces of common earthworms, or it may be a pap of beetles, recognizable from the scaly remains that have not been digested; or still again, and rather oftener, we find a marmalade of larvæ, especially the larvæ of June-bugs—undigested bits of mandibles and the hard shell of the skull. In short, one is likely to come upon a mixed hash of all the small creatures inhabiting the soil, such as wood-lice, millipeds, cutworms, moths in the chrysalis state, caterpillars, and subterranean [[72]]nymphs; but no matter how carefully we search we cannot find a bit of vegetable matter.
“All possible observation points to the same conclusion: despite what is believed by so many it is certain that the mole’s diet is confined to animal substances. And could it, I ask you, be otherwise? Would the stomach’s contents belie the savage set of teeth you have just seen in the picture? Do not its teeth show that it is a flesh-eater?
“Yes, the mole eats flesh and nothing else; everything proves this. Besides, remember its big appetite, if one may call appetite the raging demands of a stomach that in twelve hours requires a quantity of food equal to the weight of the animal. The mole’s existence is a gluttonous frenzy. This frenzy seizes the creature three or four times a day, and it dies of starvation if it has to go without food for more than a few hours. To satisfy its appetite, when its food melts away and disappears almost as soon as swallowed, what can the mole count on? Live sparrows, which it devoured with such zest in the experiments of Flourens, are evidently not for a hunter that burrows underground; at most, some stray frog, found in the field, may fall into its clutches. What, then, is left for it to count on? The larvæ buried underground, and especially those of the June-bug, tender and fat as bacon. That is very little, I admit, for such hunger; but the number to be had will make up for the smallness of the prey. What a slaughter of white worms must take place when the soil abounds in this small game! Scarcely [[73]]is one meal finished when another begins, and each time, no doubt, other small insects are eaten by the dozen. To free a field of these destroyers of our crops there is no helper equal to the mole.
“A valued destroyer of vermin—that is what we defend when we take the mole’s part and give to it, even if somewhat reluctantly, the honorable title of helper. That title, in truth, it only partly deserves. To catch the crickets, the larvæ, the white worms, and the insects of all kinds that it feeds on, the mole is obliged to disturb the roots amid which its prey is to be found. Many that interfere with it in its work are cut; plants have their roots laid bare and are even uprooted altogether; and, finally, the earth dug up by this untiring miner is piled on the surface in little mounds or mole-hills. With such upturning of the soil a field of vegetables may be speedily ruined and a crop of grain badly damaged. One night is enough for a mole to undermine a large tract; for the famished creature is singularly quick in boring the soil where it hopes to find something to eat.
“It is well equipped for making its underground galleries, which often are hundreds of meters long. The body is stubby and almost cylindrical from one end to the other, so as to slip with the least resistance through the narrow passages bored by the animal. The fur is short, thick, and carefully curried so that it shall not catch the dust and may be kept perfectly clean even in the most dusty soil. The tail is very short and the external ears are wanting, [[74]]although the hearing is remarkably acute. Ears like those of animals that live in the open, would be in the way underground; in the mole they are made very tiny, for the animal’s greater convenience. No luxurious outfit does it ask for, but only what is strictly necessary for its work of mining. Eyes wide open so that the dirt could get into them would be a perpetual torment to the creature; and, besides, what use could it make of them in the total darkness of its abode? The mole is not exactly blind, as is generally believed; it has two eyes, but these are very small and set so deep in the surrounding fur that they can be of little use. It is guided by the sense of smell, in which it rivals the pig; and like the pig it has a snout of the right shape for digging up a toothsome morsel. With its snout the pig finds and roots out the savory titbit buried in the ground; the mole in like manner discovers and digs up the plump white worm. To reach it amid a network of roots and under a considerable thickness of soil, the animal has its fore paws, which spread out like large strong hands with exceptionally tough nails. These hands—stout shovels which, if need be, can open a passage through tufa, a soft sort of rock—are the mole’s principal tools. As the animal advances, digging with its snout and clearing away with its hands, the earth is thrown to the rear by its hind feet, which are much weaker than the hands but strong enough for the far lighter task. If the mole proposes to return by the same road, the track must be kept clear; [[75]]accordingly, the earth dug up is thrown outside to form mole-hills at intervals.
“For the present these details will suffice. Now let us take up the much-discussed question of the mole’s usefulness. Should we, considering the undoubted services it renders us, let it live in our fields, or ought we rather, on account of its destructive digging, to look upon it as an enemy and wage war on it? Most people seem to feel we should make war on it—war to the death. Some persons make it a practice to destroy every mole they find and there is small pity bestowed upon the little creature unearthed by the spade. But I should like to remind the mole’s pitiless enemies that insects do far worse damage, and that for ridding a field of insects nothing is equal to this bloodthirsty hunter. Notwithstanding all opinion to the contrary, I believe that moles in moderate numbers are needed in a field, that it is unwise to destroy them all. Indeed, experience has proved this. I know of regions where the moles have been hunted down and destroyed until not one was left. Now, do you know what was the result? The white worms multiplied so that they ate up everything in the fields. To get rid of the worms it was necessary to let the moles come back and to let them stay so long as they did not become too numerous.
“And there is something else to be said for the mole. Mole-hills are formed of well-worked earth which, when spread about with the rake, is very good for young grass. Further, the creature’s subterranean [[76]]galleries serve as drains for keeping the soil in a sanitary condition, letting off the extra water just as regular drains would do. On the whole, then, after weighing the arguments on both sides, I am of the opinion that the mole ought not to be banished from our fields unless it multiplies to excess.”
“And how about gardens?” queried Louis.
“That is another question. In a few hours a mole can almost ruin a garden. Who would want such a digger among his growing vegetables? You carefully sow your seeds, set out your young plants, even off the ground, and make water-channels; the very next morning—plague take the creature! it has turned everything topsy-turvy. Quick, a spade, a trap, and let us get rid of the pest as soon as possible! Suppose, however, that cutworms and other destructive vermin abound; shall we gain anything by killing the mole? Certainly not. The insects will speedily do more harm than the mole has just wrought; greater mischief is in store, and that is all there is about it. If I had a garden infested with destructive insects, here is what I should do. In the spring I should let loose in my garden half a dozen moles taken alive in the field, and I should then leave them to pursue their hunting in peace. Their work done, the ground cleaned, I should take the moles away.”
“You can catch them whenever you want to?” asked Louis.
“Nothing easier. You shall see for yourself.” [[77]]
CHAPTER X
THE MOLE’S NEST—THE SHREW-MOUSE
“All that you know of the mole’s labors is confined to the little mounds of earth, the mole-hills, that it throws up, and the tunnels, of greater or less extent, that it bores just beneath the surface of the soil. These tunnels are hunting-trails, made by the animal in order to search amid the roots for the larvæ it lives on. If the ground is full of game, the mole halts there, probing to right and left, wherever it smells a grub. If the spot is a poor one it prolongs the tunnel or bores fresh ones hither and thither, in every direction, until it finds a place to suit it. But, however abundant the larvæ may be, one vein is soon exhausted, whereupon the old diggings are abandoned and fresh ones undertaken from day to day.
“Near its hunting-ground, thus honeycombed with a succession of tunnels as called for, the mole has a burrow, a fixed abode, to which it retires to rest, sleep, and rear its young. This burrow is a work of art, a strong castle, in the making of which the cautious animal uses great skill, with a view to the utmost possible security. You must not think I am talking about the mole-hills, which are merely the [[78]]dirt thrown out in the digging. The mole is never to be found lurking beneath these crumbling hillocks.
Mole’s Burrow
“Its dwelling is something quite different. It is underground at a depth of nearly a meter, usually beneath a hedge, or at the foot of a wall, or amid the big roots of some great tree. This natural shelter makes it strong so that it will not cave in. Its main part is a chamber (c) shaped somewhat like an inverted bottle, carefully rough-coated with loam and made smooth on the inside. It is furnished with a warm bed of moss and dry grass. That is the mole’s resting-place, its bedroom, the family nest. Two circular tunnels run around it at a distance: the lower one (a) larger, the upper one (b) [[79]]of lesser diameter. They serve as sentry-posts for the safeguarding of the main chamber. Stationed in the upper tunnel, which is reached by three passages leading from the large chamber, the mole listens to what is going on outside. If some danger threatens, half a dozen exits are provided for speedy descent to the lower tunnel, whence there are numerous outlets for instant flight. These lead in all directions, but soon bend back and into the main passage (p). If danger overtakes the mole in its inmost retreat (c), it escapes by the tunnel (h) which leads out from below, winds around, and rejoins the main passage (p).”
“I get lost in all those tunnels and passages,” said Emile. “The mole’s house is very complicated.”
“For us, perhaps, but not for the mole. It knows every twist and turn of these winding tunnels, and can get away at very short notice. You think you can catch it in its home, but in a twinkling it is gone and you don’t know in what direction.
“The passages for flight, both those that go in all directions from the lower circular tunnel and those that run straight from the chamber, all lead finally into the passage marked p, the entrance-way to the mole’s abode; and this passage is the main one between the large chamber and the hunting-ground, the permanent highway over which the mole passes to and fro three or four times a day—in fact every time it goes on an expedition or returns home. This passage, meant to last as long as the dwelling remains in use, is much more carefully made than [[80]]the simple burrows bored from day to day as the mole seeks its food: it is deeper down, wider, smooth and well beaten; no mole-hill is over it; its covering of earth is solid. Yet something betrays it to the searcher’s eye. On account of the mole’s incessant comings and goings the roots of any plants growing there are more injured than are those over the ordinary tunnels made by the animal; consequently, the grass has an unhealthy, yellowish look. Once this passage is known—and the strip of yellow grass points it out—the mole can be caught at any time. A trap is set inside the tunnel. Obliged to pass through either to get out or to come in, the mole cannot fail to be taken sooner or later.”
Jaws and Teeth of a Shrew-mouse
“That is plain enough,” said Louis. “I see now how easy it would be to catch moles again whenever you want to after they have been let loose in a garden to rid it of insects.”
“To conclude my account of insectivorous animals,” Uncle Paul went on, “I will now tell you about the very smallest of mammals, a tiny creature not more than two inches long. This cunning little animal looks somewhat like a mouse, but is much smaller. The tail is shorter, the head more tapering, and the nose ends in a sharper point. The ears are [[81]]short and rounded. But the coat is almost the same as that of the mouse.
“The shrew-mouse has the same tastes as the mole: it is an ardent hunter of small game, a devourer of larvæ and insects, as you can see by its finely serrate teeth. Its slender body, made for squeezing into the smallest hole, and its long snout, shaped for prying into the narrowest crannies and crevices, enable it to go wherever vermin may be lurking. Woe to the wood-louse rolled up like a tiny pellet in some crack in the wall, and to the slug hiding under a stone! The shrew-mouse will have no difficulty in catching them, being so small that it could make its home in a nutshell. It will not help them to hide, for the shrew-mouse does not need to see them in order to find them. It detects them by its subtle sense of smell, and hears them if they make the slightest movement. The burrows of the beetles, the warrens of the larvæ, the lurking-places of the tiniest worms hold no secrets from the shrew-mouse. It might be appropriately called the insects’ ferret.