Chapter II: Part 2

The Mermaid has been traced to the Manatee as well as to the Dugong: the former is an aquatic animal, externally resembling a whale, and named from its flipper, resembling the human hand, _manus_. Again, the _mammæ_ (teats) of the Manatees and Dugongs are pectoral; and this conformation, joined to the adroit use of their flippers (whose five fingers can easily be distinguished through the inverting membranes, four of them being terminated by nails) in progression, nursing their young, &c., have caused them, when seen at a distance with the anterior part of their body out of the water, to be taken for some creature approaching to human shape so nearly (especially as their middle is thick set with hair, giving somewhat of the effect of human hair or a beard), that there can be little doubt that not a few of the tales of Mermen and Mermaids have had their origin with these animals as well as with seals and walruses. Thus the Portuguese and Spaniards give the _Manatee_ a denomination which signifies Woman-fish; and the Dutch call the Dugong _Baardanetjee_, or Little-bearded Man. A very little imagination and a memory for only the marvellous portion of the appearance sufficed, doubtless, to complete the metamorphosis of this half woman or man, half fish, into a Siren, a Mermaid, or a Merman; and the wild recital of the voyager was treasured up by writers who, as Cuvier well observes, have displayed more learning than judgment.

The comb and the toilet-glass have already been incidentally mentioned as accessories in these Mermaid stories; and these, with the origin of the creature. Sir George Head thus ingeniously attempts to explain:--"The resemblance of the seal, or sea-calf, to the calf consists only in the voice, and the voice of the calf is certainly not dissimilar to that of a man. But the claws of the seal, as well as the hand, are like a lady's back-hair comb; wherefore, altogether, supposing the resplendence of sea-water streaming down its polished neck, on a sunshiny day, the substitute for a looking-glass, we arrive at once at the fabulous history of the marine maiden or Mermaid, and the appendages of her toilet."

The progress of zoological science has long since destroyed the belief in the existence of the Mermaid. If its upper structure be human, with lungs resembling our own, how could such a creature live and breathe at the bottom of the sea, where it is stated to be? for our most expert divers are unable to stay under water more than half an hour. Suppose it to be of the cetaceous class, it could only remain under the water two or three minutes together without rising to the surface to take breath; and if this were the case with the Mermaid, would it not be oftener seen?

Half a century has scarcely elapsed since a _manufactured_ Mermaid was shown in London with all the confidence of its being a natural creature. In the winter of 1822 there was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, in Piccadilly, this pretended Mermaid, which was visited by from 300 to 400 persons daily! The imposture, however, was too gross to last long; and it was ascertained to be the dried skin of the head and shoulders of a monkey attached very neatly to the dried skin of a fish of the salmon kind with the head cut off; the compound figure being stuffed and highly varnished, the better to deceive the eye. This grotesque object was taken by a Dutch vessel from on board a native Malacca boat; and from the reverence shown to it by the sailors it is supposed to have represented the incarnation of one of the idol gods of the Malacca Islands. A correspondent of the "Magazine of Natural History," 1829, however, avers that the above "Mermaid" was brought from the East Indies; for being at St. Helena in 1813 he saw it on board the ship which was bringing it to England. The impression on his mind was that it was an artificial compound of the upper part of a small ape with the lower half of a fish; and by aid of a powerful glass he ascertained the point of union between the two parts. He was somewhat staggered to find that this was so neatly effected that the precise line of junction was not satisfactorily apparent: the creature was then in its best state of preservation.

In a volume of "Manners and Customs of the Japanese," published in 1841, we, however, find the following version of the history of the above Mermaid:--"A Japanese fisherman seems to have displayed ingenuity for the mere purpose of making money by his countrymen's passion for everything odd and strange. He contrived to unite the upper half of a monkey to the lower half of a fish so neatly as to defy ordinary inspection. He then gave out that he had caught the creature in his net, but that it had died shortly after being taken out of the water; and he derived considerable pecuniary profit from his cunning in more ways than one. The exhibition of the sea monster to Japanese curiosity paid well; yet more productive was the assertion that the half-human fish, having spoken during the five minutes it existed out of its native element, had predicted a certain number of years of wonderful fertility and a fatal epidemic, the only remedy for which would be the possession of the marine prophet's likeness! The sale of these _pictured Mermaids_ was immense. Either the composite animal, or another, the offspring of the success of the first, was sold to the Dutch factory and transmitted to Batavia, where it fell into the hands of a speculating American, who brought it to Europe; and here, in the year 1822-3, exhibited his purchase as a real Mermaid to the admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and the filling of his own purse."

The Editor of the "Literary Gazette," Mr. Jerdan, was the first to expose the fabulous creature of the Egyptian Hall. He plainly said:--"Our opinion is fixed that it is a _composition_; a most ingenious one, we grant, but still nothing beyond the admirably put-together members of various animals. The extraordinary skill of the Chinese and Japanese in executing such deceptions is notorious, and we have no doubt that the Mermaid is a manufacture from the Indian Sea, where it has been pretended it was caught. We are not of those who because they happen not to have had direct proof of the existence of any extraordinary natural phenomenon, push scepticism to the extreme and deny its possibility. The depths of the sea, in all probability, from various chemical and philosophical causes, contain animals unknown to its surface-waters, rarely if ever seen by human eye. But when a creature is presented to us having no other organization but that which is suitable to a medium always open to our observation, it in the first instance excites suspicion that only one individual of the species should be discovered and obtained. When knowledge was more limited, the stories of Mermaids seen in distant quarters might be credited by the many, and not entirely disbelieved by the few; but now, when European and especially British commerce fills every corner of the earth with men of observation and science, the unique becomes the incredible, and we receive with far greater doubt the apparition of such anomalies as the present. It is curious that though medical men seem in general to regard the creature as a possible production of nature, no naturalist of any ability credits it after five minutes' observation! This may, perhaps, be accounted for by their acquaintance with the parts of distinct animals, of which it appears the Mermaid is composed. The cheeks of the blue-faced ape, the canine teeth, the _simia_ upper body, and the tail of the fish, are all familiar to them in less complex combinations, and they pronounce at once that the whole is an imposture. And such is our settled conviction." Though naturalists and journalists fully exposed the imposture, this did not affect the exhibition, which for a considerable time continued as crowded as ever; but the notoriety had dwindled down to "a penny show," at Bartholomew Fair, by the year 1825.

After so many exposures of the absurd belief in Mermaids, it could scarcely be expected that any person could be found in Europe weak enough to report the existence of one of these creatures to an eminent scientific Society. Yet, on the 22d of June, 1840, the first Secretary of the Ottoman Embassy at Paris addressed a note to the Academy of Sciences, stating that his father, who was in the Admiralty department at Constantinople, had recently seen a Mermaid while crossing the Bosphorus, which communication was received with much laughter.

We have still another recorded instance--and in Scotland. In the year 1857 two fishermen on the Argyleshire coast declared that when on their way to the fishing-station, Lochindale, in a boat, and when about four miles south-west from the village of Port Charlotte, about six o'clock in a June evening, they distinctly saw, at about six yards distance, an object in the form of a woman, with comely face and fine hair hanging in ringlets over the neck and shoulders. It was above the surface of the water gazing at the fishermen for three or four minutes--and then vanished! Yet this declaration was officially attested!

In 1863 Mermaids were supposed to abound in the ponds and ditches of Suffolk, where careful mothers used them as bugbears to prevent little children from going too near the water. Children described them as "nasty things that crome you (hook you) into the water;" others as "a great big thing like a feesh," probably a pike basking in the shallow water.

Sometimes the Mermaid has assumed a picturesqueness in fairy tale; and her impersonation has been described by Dryden as "a fine woman, with a fish's tail." And, laying aside her scaly train, she has appeared as a lovely woman, with sea-green hair; and Crofton Croker relates, in his "Fairy Legends," a marriage between an Irish fisherman and a "Merrow," as the Mermaid is called in Ireland.

IS THE UNICORN FABULOUS?

To this question we may reply, in the words of a writer of 1633, "Concerning the Unicorn, different opinions prevail among authors: some doubt, others deny, and a third class affirm its existence." The question has lasted two thousand years, and is every now and then kept alive by fresh evidences.

Ctesias, a credulous Greek physician, who appears to have resided at the Court of Persia, in the time of the younger Cyrus, about 400 years before the birth of Christ, describes the wild asses of India as equal to the horse in size, and even larger, with white bodies, red heads, bluish eyes, and a horn on the forehead a cubit in length; the part from the forehead entirely white, the middle black, and the extremity red and pointed. Drinking-vessels were made of it, and those who used them were subject neither to convulsions, epilepsy, nor poison, provided that before taking the poison, or after, they drank from these cups water, wine, or any other liquor. Ctesias describes these animals as very swift and very strong. Naturally they were not ferocious; but when they found themselves and their young surrounded by horsemen, they did not abandon their offspring, but defended themselves by striking with their horns, kicking, and biting, and so slew many men and horses. This animal was also shot with arrows and brought down with darts; for it was impossible to take it alive. Its flesh was too bitter for food, but it was hunted for its horn and astragalus (ankle-bone), which last Ctesias declares he saw. Aristotle describes the Indian ass with a single horn. Herodotus mentions asses having horns; and Strabo refers to Unicorn horses, with the heads of deers. Oppian notices the Aonian bulls with undivided hoofs, and a single median horn between their temples. Pliny notices it as a very ferocious beast, similar in its body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep bellowing voice, and a single black horn standing out in the middle of its forehead. He adds, that it cannot be taken alive; and some such excuse may have been necessary in those days for not producing the living animal upon the arena of the amphitheatre.

Out of this passage most of the modern Unicorns have been described and figured. The body of the horse and the head of the deer appear to be but vague sketches; the feet of the elephant and the tail of the boar point at once to a pachydermatous (thick-skinned) animal; and the single black horn, allowing for a little exaggeration as to its length, well fits the two last-mentioned conditions, and will apply to the Indian rhinoceros, which, says the sound naturalist, Ogilby, "affords a remarkable instance of the obstructions which the progress of knowledge may suffer, and the gross absurdities which not unfrequently result from the wrong application of a name." Mr. Ogilby then refers to the account of Ctesias, which we have just quoted, and adds:--"His account, though mixed up with a great deal of credulous absurdity, contains a very valuable and perfectly recognisable description of the rhinoceros, under the ridiculous name, however, of the _Indian Ass_; and, as he attributed to it a whole hoof like the horse, and a single horn in the forehead, speculation required but one step further to produce the fabulous Unicorn."

The ancient writers who have treated of the Unicorn are too numerous for us to specify. Some of the moderns may be referred to. Garcias describes this marvellous creature from one who alleges that he had seen it. The seer affirmed that it was endowed with a wonderful horn, which it would sometimes turn to the left and right, at others raise, and then again depress. Ludovicus Vartomanus writes, that he saw two sent to the Sultan from Ethiopia, and kept in a repository at Mahomet's tomb in Mecca. Cardan describes the Unicorn as a rare animal, the size of a horse, with hair very like that of a weasel, with the head of a deer, on which one horn grows three cubits in length (a story seldom loses anything in its progress) from the forehead, ample at its lowest part, and tapering to a point; with a short neck, a very thin mane, leaning to one side only, and less on the ear, as those of a young roe.

In Jonston's "Historia Naturalis," 1657, we see the smooth-horned solipede, "Wald Esel;" and the digitated and clawed smooth-horned "Meer Wolff," the latter with his single horn erect in the foreground, but with it depressed in the background, where he is represented regaling on serpents. Then there are varieties, with the head, mane, and tail of a horse; another smooth-horned, with a horse's head and mane, a pig's-tail and camel-like feet; the "Meer Stenbock, Capricornus Marinus," with hind webbed feet, and a kind of graduated horn, like an opera-glass pulled out, in the foreground, and charging the fish most valiantly in the water in the distance. Then there is another, with a mule's head and two rhinoceros-like horns, one on his forehead and the other on his nose; and a horse's tail, with a collar round his neck; a neck entirely shaggy--and a twisted horn, a shaggy gorget, and curly tail, are among other peculiarities.

The Unicorn seems to have been a sad trouble to the hunters, who hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some described the horn as moveable at the will of the animal--a kind of small sword, in short, with which no hunter who was not exceedingly cunning in fence could have a chance. Others told the poor foresters that all the strength lay in its horn, and that when pressed by them it would throw itself from the pinnacle of the highest rock, horn foremost, so as to pitch upon it, and then quietly march off not a bit the worse!

Modern zoologists, disgusted as they well may be with fables, such as we have glanced at, disbelieve, generally, the existence of the Unicorn, such, at least, as we have referred to; but there is still an opinion that some land animal bearing a horn on the anterior part of its head, exists besides the rhinoceros. The nearest approach to a horn in the middle of the forehead of any terrestrial mammiferous animal known to us is the bony protuberance on the forehead of the giraffe; and though it would be presumptuous to deny the existence of a one-horned quadruped other than the rhinoceros, it may be safely stated that the insertion of a long and solid horn in the living forehead of a horse-like or deer-like cranium is as near an impossibility as anything can be.

Rupell, after a long sojourn in the north-east of Africa, stated that in Kordofan the Unicorn exists; stated to be the size of a small horse, of the slender make of the gazelle, and furnished with a long straight horn in the male, which was wanting in the female. According to the statements made by various persons, it inhabits the deserts to the south of Koretofan, is uncommonly fleet, and comes only occasionally to the Koldagi Heive mountains on the borders of Kordofan.

Other writers refer the Unicorn to the antelope. The origin of the name of antelope is traced by Cuvier to the Greek _Anthalops_, applied to a fabulous animal living on the banks of the Euphrates, with long jagged horns, with which it sawed down trees of considerable thickness! Others conjecture this animal to have been the _Oryx_, a species of antelope, which is fabulously reported to have had only one horn, and to have been termed _Panthalops_ in the old language of Egypt.

In his "Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe." Cuvier refers the idea of the Unicorn to the coarse figures traced by savages on rocks. Ignorant of perspective, and wishing to present in profile the horned antelope, they could only give it one horn; and thus originated the _Oryx_. The oryx of the Egyptian monuments is, most probably, but the production of a similarly crude style, which the religion of the country imposed on the artist. Many of the profiles of quadrupeds have only one leg before and one behind: why, then, should they show two horns? It is possible that individual animals might be taken in the chase whom accident had despoiled of one horn, as it often happens to chamois and the Scythian antelope; and that would suffice to confirm the error which these pictures originally produced. It is thus, probably, that we find anew the Unicorn in the mountains of Thibet.

The _Chiru Antelope_ is the supposed Unicorn of the Bhotians. In form it approaches the deer; the horns are exceedingly long, are placed very forward in the head, and may be popularly described as erect and straight. It is usually found in herds, and is extremely wild, and unapproachable by man. It is much addicted to salt in summer, when vast herds are often seen at the rock-salt beds which abound in Tibet. They are said to advance under the conduct of a leader, and to post sentinels around the beds before they attempt to feed.

Major Salter is stated to have obtained information of the existence of an animal in Tibet closely resembling the Unicorn of the ancients, which revived the belief of naturalists by adducing testimonies from Oriental writings. Upon this statement, M. Klaproth remarks, that previous to Major Salter's Reports, the Catholic missionaries, who returned to Europe from China by way of Tibet and Nepal, in the seventeenth century, mentioned that the Unicorn was found in that part of the Great Desert which bounds China to the west, where they crossed the great wall; that Captain Turner, when travelling in Tibet, was informed by the Raja of Boutan that he had one of these animals alive; and that Bell, in his "Travels to Peking," describes a Unicorn which was found on the southern front of Siberia. He adds:--"The great 'Tibetan-Mongol Dictionary' mentions the Unicorn; and the 'Geographical Dictionary of Tibet and Central Asia,' printed at Peking, where it describes a district in the province of Kham, in Tibet, named Sera-zeong, explains this name by 'the River of Unicorns,' because," adds the author, "many of these animals are found there."

In the "History of the Mongol-Khans," published and translated at St. Petersburg, we find the following statement:--Genghiz Khan, having subjected all Tibet in 1206, commenced his march for Hindustan. As he ascended Mount Jadanarung, he beheld a beast approaching him of the deer kind, of the species called _Seron_, which have a single horn at the top of the head. It fell on its knees thrice before the monarch, as if to pay respect to him. Every one was astonished at this incident. The monarch exclaimed. "The Empire of Hindustan is, we are assured, the country where are born the majestic Buddhas and Bodhisatwas, as well as the potent Bogdas and princes of antiquity: what can be the meaning, then, of this animal, incapable of speech, saluting me like a man?" Upon this, he returned to his own country. "This story," continues M. Klaproth, "is also related by Mahommedan authors who have written the life of Genghiz. Something of the kind must, therefore, have taken place. Possibly, some of the Mongol conqueror's suite may have taken a Unicorn, which Genghiz thus employed, to gain a pretext for abstaining from an expedition which promised no success."

Upon this statement, it was observed in the "Asiatic Register," 1839, that "when we consider that seventeen years have elapsed since the account of Major Salter was given, and that, notwithstanding our increased opportunities of intercourse with Tibet, no fact has since transpired which supplies a confirmation of that account, except the obtaining of a supposed horn of the supposed Unicorn, we cannot participate in these renewed hopes."

The Rev. John Campbell, in his "Travels in South Africa," describes the head of another animal, which, as far as the horn is concerned, seems to approach nearer than the common rhinoceros to the Unicorn of the ancients. While in the Machow territory, the Hottentots brought to Mr. Campbell a head differing from that of any rhinoceros that had been previously killed. "The common African rhinoceros has a crooked horn, resembling a cock's spur, which rises about nine or ten inches above the nose, and inclines backward; immediately behind which is a straight thick horn. But the head brought by the Hottentots had a straight horn projecting three feet from the forehead, about ten inches above the tip of the nose. The projection of this great horn very much resembles that of the fanciful Unicorn in the British arms. It has a small thick horny substance, eight inches long, immediately behind it, which can hardly be observed on the animal at the distance of a hundred yards; so that this species must look like an Unicorn (in the sense 'one-horned') when running in the field." The author adds:--"This animal is considered by naturalists, since the arrival of the above skull in London, to be the Unicorn of the ancients, and the same that is described in Job xxxix. 9--'Will the Unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? 10. Canst thou bind the Unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? 11. Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?' Again, Deuteronomy xxxiii. 17--'His horns are like the horns of Unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth.'"

A fragment of the skull, with the horn, is deposited in the Museum of the London Missionary Society.

Mr. W. B. Baikie writes to the _Athenæum_ from Bida Núpe, Central Africa, in 1862, the following suggestions:--"When I ascended the Niger, now nearly five years ago, I frequently heard allusions to an animal of this nature, but at that time I set it down as a myth. Since then, however, the amount of testimony I have received, and the universal belief of the natives of all the countries which I have hitherto visited, have partly shaken my scepticism, and at present I simply hold that its non-existence is not proven. A skull of this animal is said to be preserved in a town in the country of Bonú, through which I hope to pass in the course of a few weeks, when I shall make every possible inquiry. Two among my informants have repeatedly declared to me that they have seen the bones of this animal, and each made particular mention of the long, straight, or nearly straight, black horn. In countries to the east, and south-east, as Márgi and Bagirmi, where the one-horned rhinoceros is found, the hunters carefully distinguished between it and the supposed Unicorn, and give them different names. In the vast forests and boundless wastes which occur over Central Africa, especially towards the countries south and east of Lake Tsád, Bórnú, Bagirmi and Adamáwa, are doubtless numerous zoological curiosities as yet unknown to the man of science, and among them possibly may exist this much-talked-of, strange, one-horned animal, even though it may not exactly correspond with our typical English Unicorn."

The factitious horn has been preserved in various Museums. The "Monocero Horn," in Tradescant's collection, was, probably, that which ordinarily has passed for the horn of the Unicorn, namely, the tooth of a narwhal. Old legends assert that the Unicorn, when he goes to drink, first dips his horn in the water to purify it, and that other beasts delay to quench their thirst till the Unicorn has thus sweetened the water. The narwhal's tooth makes a capital twisted Unicorn's horn, as represented in the old figures. That in the Repository of St. Denis, at Paris, was presented by Thevet, and was declared to have been given to him by the King of Monomotapa, who took him out to hunt Unicorns, which are frequent in that country. Some have thought that this horn was a carved elephant's tooth. There is one at Strasburg, some seven or eight feet in length, and there are several in Venice.

Great medical virtues were attributed to the so-called horn, and the price it once bore outdoes everything in the _Tulipomania_. A Florentine physician has recorded that a pound of it (sixteen ounces) was sold in the shops for fifteen hundred and thirty-six crowns, when the same weight in gold would only have brought one hundred and forty-eight crowns.

From what source we derive the stories of the animosity between the lion and the Unicorn is not clearly understood, although this is the principal medium through which the fabulous creature has been kept in remembrance by being constantly before us in the Royal Arms, which were settled at the Accession of George I. We owe the introduction of the Unicorn, however, to James I., who, as King of Scotland, bore two Unicorns, and coupled one with the English lion, when the two kingdoms were united.

The position of the lion and Unicorn in the arms of our country seems to have given rise (naturally enough in the mind of one who was ignorant of heraldic decoration) to a nursery rhyme which most of us remember:--

"The Lion and the Unicorn
Were fighting for the crown;
The Lion beat the Unicorn
All round the town," &c.

unless it alludes to a contest for dominion over the brute creation, which the "rebellious Unicorn," as Spenser calls it, seems to have waged with the tawny monarch.

Spenser, in his "Faerie Queen," gives the following curious way of catching the Unicorn:--

"Like as a lyon, whose imperiall powre,
A prowd rebellious Unicorn defyes,
T'avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre
Of his fiers foe, him a tree applyes,
And when him rousing in full course he spyes,

He slips aside; the whiles that furious beast
His precious home, sought of his enemyes,
Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast.
But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."

Shakspeare, also ("Julius Cæsar," Act ii. scene 1), speaks of the supposed mode of entrapping them:--

"For he loves to hear
That Unicorns may be betrayed with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers."

We have no satisfactory reason for believing that man ever coexisted with Mastodons; otherwise Professor Owen's discovery of the retention of a single tusk only by the male gigantic Mastodon, might have afforded another form of Unicorn.

Whatever the zoologists may have done towards extirpating the belief in the existence of the Unicorn, it is ever kept in sight by heraldry, which, with its animal absurdities, has contributed more to the propagation of error respecting the natural world than any other species of misrepresentation.

THE MOLE AT HOME.

The Mole, though generally a despised and persecuted animal, is nevertheless useful to the husbandman in being the natural drainer of his land and destroyer of worms. To other inferior animals he is a sapper and miner, forming for them their safe retreats and well-secured dormitories.

The economy of the Mole has been much controverted among naturalists. It is found throughout the greater part of Europe. We are overrun with it in most parts of England and Wales; but it does not appear to have been found in the northern extremity of Scotland, and there is no record of its having been seen in the Orkney Isles, Zetland, or Ireland. Its most diligent and instructive historian is Henri Le Court, who, flying from the terrors that came in the train of the French Revolution, betook himself to the country, and from being the attendant on a Court, became the biographer of this humble animal. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the celebrated French naturalist, visited Le Court for the purpose of testing his observations, and appears to have been charmed by the facility and ingenuity with which Le Court traced and demonstrated the subterraneous labours of this obscure worker in the dark.

We shall first briefly describe the adaptation of its structure to its habits. The bony framework is set in motion by very powerful muscles, those of the chest and neck being most vigorous. The wide hand, which is the great instrument of action, and performs the offices of a pickaxe and shovel, is sharp-edged on its lower margin, and when clothed with the integuments the fingers are hardly distinguishable. The muzzle of the Mole is evidently a delicate organ of touch, as are also the large and broad hands and feet; and the tail has much sensitiveness to give notice to the animal of the approach of any attack from behind. Its taste and smell, especially the latter, are very sensitive. Its sight is almost rudimentary. The little eye is so hidden in the fur that its very existence was for a long time doubted. It appears to be designed for operating only as a warning to the animal on its emerging into the light; indeed, more acute vision would only have been an encumbrance. If the sight be imperfect, the sense of hearing is very acute, and the tympanum very large, though there is no external ear, perhaps because the earth assists considerably in vibration. The fore-feet are inclined sideways, so as to answer the use of hands, to scoop out the earth to form its habitation or pursue its prey, and to fling all the loose soil behind the animal. The breastbone in shape resembles a ploughshare. The skin is so tough as only to be cut by a very sharp knife. The hair is very short and close-set, and softer than the finest silk; colour black; some spotted and cream-coloured. This hair is yielding; had it been strong, as in the rat or mouse, it would doubly have retarded the progress of the creature; first by its resistance, and then acting as a brush, so as to choke up the galleries, by removing the loose earth from the sides and ceilings of the galleries.

It is supposed that the verdant circles so often seen in grass ground, called by country people _fairy rings_, are owing to the operations of Moles: at certain seasons they perform their burrowings in circles, which, loosening the soil, gives the surface a greater fertility and rankness of grass than the other parts within or without the ring. The larger mole-hills denote the nests or dens of the Mole beneath.

The feeling of the Mole is so acute that when casting up the earth, it is sensible of very gentle pressure; hence mole-catchers tread lightly when in quest of Moles; and unless this caution is used the Mole ceases its operation, and instantly retires. Again, so acute is the smell, that mole-catchers draw the body of a captured Mole through their traps and the adjoining runs and passages to remove all suspicious odours which might arise from the touch of their fingers.

During summer the Mole runs in search of snails and worms in the night-time among the grass, which pursuit makes it the prey of owls. The Mole shows great art in skinning a worm, which it always does before it eats it, by stripping the skin from end to end, and squeezing out the contents of the body. It is doubtful whether any other animal exists which is obliged to eat at such short intervals as the Mole, ten or twelve hours appearing to be the maximum of its fasting; at the end of that time it dies. Cuvier tells us that if two Moles are shut up together without food, there will shortly be nothing left of the weakest but its skin, slit along the belly! Buffon accuses Moles of eating all the acorns of a newly-set soil. Its voracity makes the Mole a great drinker: a run is always formed to a pond or ditch as a reservoir; when it is too distant, the animal sinks little wells, which have sometimes been seen brimfull.

We now return to Le Court's experiments with Moles, which are very interesting. To afford proof of the rapidity with which the Mole will travel along its passages, Le Court watched his opportunity, and when the animal was on its feed at one of the most distant points from its sanctuary or fortress, to which point the Mole's high road leads. Le Court placed along the course of that road, between the animal and the fortress, several little camp colours, so to speak, the staff of each being a straw, and the flag a bit of paper, at certain distances, the straws penetrating down into the passage. Near the end of this subterraneous road he inserted a horn, the mouthpiece of which stood out of the ground. When all was ready, Le Court blew a blast loud enough to frighten all the Moles within hearing. Down went the little flags in succession with astonishing velocity, as the terrified Mole, rushing along towards his sanctuary, came in contact with the flag-straws; and the spectators affirmed that the Mole's swiftness was equal to the speed of a horse at a good round trot.

To test its amount of vision, Le Court took a spare water-pipe, or gutter, open at both ends. Into this pipe he introduced several Moles successively. Geoffroy St. Hilaire stood by to watch the result at the further end of the tube. As long as the spectators stood motionless the introduced Mole made the best of his way through the pipe and escaped; but if they moved, or even raised a finger, the Mole stopped, and then retreated. Several repetitions of this experiment produced the same results.

In the domain of the Mole, the principal point is the habitation, or fortress, constructed under a considerable hillock raised in some secure place, often at the root of a tree, or under a bank. The dome of the fortress is of earth, beaten by the Mole-architect into a compact and solid state. Inside is formed a circular gallery at the base, which communicates with a smaller upper gallery by means of five passages. Within the lower gallery is the chamber or dormitory, which has access to the upper gallery by three passages. From this habitation extends the high road by which the proprietor reaches the opposite end of the encampment; the galleries open into this road, which the Mole is continually carrying out and extending in his search for food; this has been termed the _hunting-ground_. Another road extends, first downwards, and then up into the open road of the territory. Some eight or nine other passages open out from the external circular gallery. From the habitation a road is carried out, nearly straight, and connected with the encampment and the alleys leading to the hunting-ground which open into it on each side. In diameter the road exceeds the body of a Mole, but its size will not admit of two Moles passing each other. The walls, from the repeated pressure of the animal's sides, become smooth and compact. Sometimes a Mole will lay out a second or even a third road; or several individuals use one road in common, though they never trespass on each other's hunting-grounds.

If two Moles should happen to meet in the same road, one must retreat into the nearest alley, unless they fight, when the weakest is often slain. In forming this tunnel the Mole's instinct drives it at a greater or less depth, according to the quality of the soil, or other circumstances. When it is carried under a road or stream, a foot and a-half of earth, or sometimes more, is left above it. Then does the little engineering Mole carry on the subterraneous works necessary for his support, travelling, and comfort; and his tunnels never fall in. The quality or humidity of the soils which regulates the abundance of earth-worms, determines the greater or less depth of the alleys; and when these are filled with stores of food the Mole works out branch alleys.

The main road communicating with the hunting-grounds is of necessity passed through in the course of the day; and here the mole-catcher sets his traps to intercept the Mole between his habitation and the alley where he is carrying on his labours. Some mole-catchers will tell you the hours when the Moles move are nine and four; others that near the coast their movements are influenced by the tides. Besides the various traps which are set for Moles, they are sometimes taken by a man and a dog; when the latter indicates the presence of a Mole, the man spears the animal out as it moves in its run. Pointers will stop as steadily as at game, at the Moles, when they are straying on the surface.

The Mole is a most voracious animal. Earthworms and the larvæ of insects are its favourite food; and it will eat mice, lizards, frogs, and even birds; but it rejects toads, even when pressed by hunger, deterred, probably, by the acrid secretions of their skin. Moles are essentially carnivorous; and when fed abundantly on vegetable substances they have died of hunger.

During the season of love, at which time fierce battles are fought between the males, the male pursues the female with ardour through numerous runs wrought out with great rapidity. The attachment appears to be very strong in the Moles. Le Court often found a female taken in his trap and a male lying dead close to her. From four to five is the general number of young. The nest is distinct, usually distant from the habitation. It is constructed by enlarging and excavating the point where three or four passages intersect each other; and the bed of the nest is formed of a mass of young grass, root fibres, and herbage. In one nest Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Le Court counted two hundred and four young wheat-blades.

M. St. Hilaire describes the pairings, or as he calls it, "the loves of the Moles." As soon as the Mole has finished the galleries he brings his mate along with him, and shuts her up in the bridal gallery, taking care to prevent the entrance of his rivals: in case of a fight they enlarge the part of the gallery where they are met; and the victory is decided in favour of him who first wounds his adversary before the ear. The female, during the fight, is shut up in the bridal gallery, so as to be unable to escape; for which purpose, however, she uses all her resources in digging, and attempts to get away by the side passages. Should she succeed the conqueror hastens to rejoin his faithless mate, and to bring her back into his galleries. This manoeuvre is repeated as often as other males enter the lists. At length the conqueror is recognised, and his mate becomes more docile. The pair work together and finish the galleries; after which the female digs alone for food. As soon as the galleries are formed, the male conducts his mate to a certain point, and from this time the female no longer digs in the solid earth, but towards the surface, advancing by merely separating the roots of the grass.

The Mole is a great friend to the farmer; but there are places in which he is a public enemy. He is not a vegetable feeder, and he never roots up the growing corn in spring-time, except when he is after grubs, snails, and wire-worms. It has been calculated that two Moles destroy 20,000 white worms in a year. He is very destructive to under drains; and where the land is low we are in danger of a deluge from his piercing holes in the drain-banks. Thus it would be madness not to extirpate Moles in those places where the waters, in drains or rivers, are above the level of the lands around, especially when the banks are made of sand or earth of loose texture.

The persecution of Moles in cultivated countries amounts almost to a war of extermination. The numbers annually slaughtered are enormous. A mole-catcher, who had followed the craft for thirty-five years, destroyed from forty to fifty thousand Moles. But all Mole exterminators must yield to Le Court, who, in no large district, took, in five months, six thousand of them. Moles are good swimmers, and their bite is very sharp; their attacks are ferocious, and they keep their hold like a bull-dog.

The Shrew Mole of North America resembles the European Mole in its habits. Dr. Goodman describes it as most active early in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening; and they are well known in the country to have the custom of coming daily to the surface _exactly at noon_. We read of a captive Shrew Mole which ate meat, cooked or raw, drank freely, and was lively and playful, following the hand of his feeder by the scent, burrowing for a short distance in the loose earth, and after making a small circle, returning for more food. In eating he employed his flexible snout to thrust the food into his mouth, doubling it so as to force it directly backwards, as described in Dr. Richardson's "North American Zoology."

James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, remarks, in his usual impressive manner:--"The most unnatural persecution that ever was raised in a country is that against the Mole--that innocent and blessed little pioneer, who enriches our pastures annually with the first top-dressing, dug with great pains and labour from the fattest of the soil beneath. The advantages of this top-dressing are so apparent that it is really amazing how our countrymen should have persisted, for nearly half a century, in the most manly and valiant endeavours to exterminate the Moles! If a hundred men and horses were employed on a pasture farm of from fifteen hundred to two thousand acres, in raising and driving manure for a top-dressing of that farm, they would not do it so effectually, so neatly, or so equally as the natural number of Moles. In June, July, and August, the Mole-hills are all spread by the crows and lambs--the former for food, and the latter in the evenings of warm days after a drought has set in. The late Duke of Buccleuch was the first who introduced Mole-catching into Scotland."

THE GREAT ANT-BEAR.

A fine living specimen of this comparatively rare animal was first exhibited in the Zoological Society's gardens, in the Regent's-park, 1853. It is stated to be the first specimen brought alive to England, and accordingly excited considerable attention. It was one of a pair, captured near the Rio Negro, in the southern province of Brazil, and shipped for England by some German travellers. The male died on the voyage; the female arrived in London in 1853, and was exhibited in Broad-street, St. Giles's, until purchased by the Zoological Society for the sum of 200_l._ The advantage of this live specimen to naturalists has been very great. Hitherto the examples engraved by Buffon and Shaw were both derived from stuffed specimens, and had the inevitable defects and shortcomings of such. Sir John Talbot Dillon, in his "Travels through Spain," published in 1780, states that a specimen of the Ant-Bear, from Buenos Ayres, was alive at Madrid in 1776: it is now stuffed and preserved in the Royal Cabinet of Natural History at Madrid. The persons who brought it from Buenos Ayres say it differs from the Ant-eater, which only feeds on emmets and other insects, whereas this would eat flesh, when cut in small pieces, to the amount of four or five pounds. From the snout to the extremity of the tail this animal is two yards in length, and his height is about two feet; the head very narrow, the nose long and slender. The tongue is so singular that it looks like a worm, and extends above sixteen inches. The body is covered with long hair of a dark brown, with white stripes on the shoulders; and when he sleeps, he covers his body with his tail. This account, it will be seen hereafter, corresponds very accurately with that of the animal purchased by the Zoological Society.

Mr. Wallace, who travelled on the Amazon and Rio Negro, about the year 1853, relates:--"The living specimen of this singular animal is a great rarity, even in its native country. In fact, there is not a city in Brazil where it would not be considered almost as much a curiosity as it is here. In the extensive forests of the Amazon the great Ant-eater is, perhaps, as abundant as in any part of South America; yet, during a residence there of more than four years, I never had an opportunity of seeing one. Once only I was nearly in at the death, finding a bunch of hairs from the tail of a specimen which had been killed (and eaten) a month previous to my arrival, at a village near the Capiquiare. In its native forests the creature feeds almost entirely on white ants, tearing open their nests with its powerful claws, and thrusting in its long and slender tongue, which, being probably mistaken for a worm, is immediately seized by scores of the inhabitants, who thus become an easy prey. The Indians, who also eat white ants, catch them in a somewhat similar manner, by pushing into the nest a grass-stalk, which the insects seize and hold on to most tenaciously. It may easily be conceived that such an animal must range over a considerable extent of country to obtain a plentiful supply of such food, which circumstance, as well as its extreme shyness and timidity, causes it to be but rarely met with, and still more rarely obtained alive."

We have seen that the Ant-Bear lives exclusively upon ants, to procure which he tears open the hills, and when the ants flock out to defend their dwellings, draws over them his long, flexible tongue, covered with glutinous saliva, to which the ants consequently adhere; and he is said to repeat this operation twice in a second. "It seems almost incredible," says Azara, "that so robust and powerful an animal can procure sufficient sustenance from ants alone; but this circumstance has nothing strange in it, for those who are acquainted with the tropical parts of America, and have seen the enormous multitude of these insects, which swarm in all parts of the country to that degree that their hills often almost touch one another for miles together." The same author informs us that domestic Ant-Bears were occasionally kept by different persons in Paraguay, and that they had even been sent alive to Spain, being fed upon bread-and-milk mixed with morsels of flesh minced very small. Like all animals which live upon insects, the Ant-eaters are capable of sustaining a total deprivation of nourishment for an almost incredible time.

The Great Ant-Bear's favourite resorts are low, swampy savannahs, along the banks of rivers and stagnant ponds; also frequenting humid forests, but never climbing trees, as falsely reported by Buffon. His pace is slow and heavy, though, when hard pressed, he increases his rate, yet his greatest velocity never half equals the ordinary running of a man. When pressed too hard, or urged to extremity, he turns obstinate, sits upon his hind-quarters like a bear, and defends himself with his powerful claws. Like that animal, his usual and only mode of assault is by seizing his adversary with his fore-paws, wrapping his arms round him, and endeavouring, by this means, to squeeze him to death. His great strength and powerful muscles would easily enable him to accomplish his purpose in this respect, even against the largest animals of his native forests, were it but guided by ordinary intelligence, or accompanied with a common degree of activity; but in these qualities there are few animals indeed who do not greatly surpass the Ant-Bear; so that the different stories handed down by writers on natural history from one to another, and copied, without question, into the histories and descriptions of this animal, may be regarded as pure fictions. "It is supposed," says Don Felix d'Azara, "that the jaguar himself dares not attack the Ant-Bear, and that, if pressed by hunger, or under some other strong excitement, he does so, the Ant-Bear embraces and hugs him so tightly as very soon to deprive him of life, not even relaxing his hold for hours after life has been extinguished in his assailant. Such is the manner in which the Ant-eater defends himself; but it is not to be believed that his utmost efforts could prevail against the jaguar, who, by a single bite, or blow of his paw, could kill the Ant-eater before he was prepared for resistance, so slow are his motions, even in an extreme case; and, being unable to leap or turn with ordinary rapidity, he is forced to act solely upon the defensive. The flesh of the Ant-eater is esteemed a delicacy by the Indians; and, though black, and of a strong musky flavour, is sometimes even met with at the tables of Europeans."

The habits of the Great Ant-Bear in captivity have been described scientifically yet popularly, from the Zoological Society's specimen, by Professor Owen, who writes:--"When we were introduced to this, the latest novelty at the noble vivarium in the Regent's-park, we found the animal busy sucking and licking up--for his feeding is a combination of the two actions--the contents of a basin of squashed eggs. The singularly long and slender head, which looks more like a slightly bent proboscis, or some such appendage to a head, was buried in the basin, and the end of the lithe or flexible tongue, like a rat's tail, or a writhing black worm, was ever and anon seen coiling up the sides of the basin, as it was rapidly protruded and withdrawn. The yellow yolk was dripping with the abundant ropy saliva secreted during the feeding process from the exceedingly small terminal mouth; for the jaws are not slit open, as in the ordinary construction of the mouths of quadrupeds, and the head, viewed sideways, seems devoid of mouth; but this important aperture--by some deemed the essential character of an animal--is a small orifice or slit at the end of the tubular muzzle, just being enough, apparently, to let the vermiform tongue slip easily in and out. The tongue, the keeper told us, was sometimes protruded as far as fourteen inches from the mouth."