Chapter VII: Part 7

The meat of the walrus is not despised by Europeans, and its heart is reckoned a delicacy. To the Esquimaux there is no greater treat than a kettle well filled with walrus-blubber; and to the natives along Behring's Straits this quadruped is as valuable as is the palm to the sons of the desert. Their canoes are covered with its skin; their weapons and sledge-runners, and many useful articles, are formed from its tusks; their lamps are filled with its oil; and they themselves are fed with its fat and its fibre. So thick is the skin, that a bayonet is almost the only weapon which can pierce it. Cut into shreds, it makes excellent cordage, being especially adapted for wheel-ropes. The tusks bear a high commercial value, and are extensively employed by dentists in the manufacture of artificial teeth. The fat of a good-sized specimen yields thirty gallons of oil.--_A. White, from "Excelsior."_

FOOTNOTES:

[144] "A Tour in Tartan-Land," by Cuthbert Bede.

[145] "Life," vol. iii. p. 188.

[146] Vol. viii. pp. 1-16.

[147] _Trichechus_, from the Greek [Greek: trichas echon], "having hairs:" _walrus_, the German _wallross_, "whale-horse."

[148] See Fleming's "British Animals," p. 19.

[149] Mem. Acad. Imp. Sc. St. Petersb., 1838, p. 232. Professor Owen has communicated to the Zoological Society the anatomy of the young walrus; and much valuable information will be found in Dr Gray's "Catalogue of Mammalia in the British Museum."

KANGAROOS.

What dissertation on the strange outward form, or stranger mode of reproduction to which this famed member of the _Marsupialia_ belongs, could contain as much in little space as Charles Lamb's happy description in his letter to Baron Field, his "distant correspondent" in New South Wales? When that was written, and for long after, it may be necessary to tell some, Australia was chiefly known as the land of the convict.

"Tell me," writes Elia, "what your Sidneyites do? Are they th-v-ng all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such a depredation? The kangaroos--your aborigines--do they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short forepuds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided _a priori_; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest locomotor in the colony."[150]

In one of his letters to another of his favoured correspondents he alludes to his friend Field having gone to a country where there are so many thieves that even the kangaroos have to wear their pockets in front, lest they be picked!

KANGAROO COOKE.

Major-General Henry Frederick Cooke, C.B. and K.C.H., commonly called Kang-Cooke, was a captain in the Coldstream Guards, and aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. He was called the kangaroo by his intimate associates. It is said that this arose from his once having let loose a cageful of these animals at Pidcock's Menagerie, or from his answer to the Duke of York, who, inquiring how he fared in the Peninsula, replied that he "could get nothing to eat but kangaroo."[151] Moore, in his Diary,[152] December 13, 1820, records that he dined with him and others at Lord Granard's. Cooke told of Admiral Cotton once (at Lisbon, I think) saying during dinner, "Make signals for the _Kangaroo_ to get under way;" and Cooke, who had just been expressing his anxiety to leave Lisbon, thought the speech alluded to his nickname, and considered it an extraordinary liberty for one who knew so little of him as Admiral Cotton to take. He found out afterwards, however, that his namesake was a sloop-of-war.

FOOTNOTES:

[150] "Distant Correspondents," in the Essays of Elia, first series ed. 1841, p. 67.

[151] Jesse's "Life of Beau Brummell," vol. i. p. 288.

[152] "Memoirs, Correspondence," &c., edited by Lord John Russell, vol. iii. p. 179.

THE TIGER-WOLF.

(_Thylacinus cynocephalus._)

The great order, or rather division, of mammalia, the _Marsupialia_,[153] is furnished with a pouch, into which the young are received and nourished at a very early period of their existence. The first species of the group, known to voyagers and naturalists, was the celebrated opossum of North America, whose instinctive care to defend itself from danger causes it to feign the appearance of death. As the great continent of Australia became known, it was found that the great mass of its mammalia, from the gigantic kangaroo to the pigmy, mouse-like potoroo, belonged to this singular order. The order contains a most anomalous set of animals, some being exclusively carnivorous, some chiefly subsisting on insects, while others browse on grass; and many live on fruits and leaves, which they climb trees to procure; a smaller portion subsisting on roots, for which they burrow in the ground. The gentle and deer-faced kangaroo belongs to this order; the curious bandicoots, the tree-frequenting phalangers and petauri, the savage "native devil,"[154] and the voracious subject of this notice.

The "tiger-wolf" is a native of Van Diemen's Land, and is strictly confined to that island. It was first described in the ninth volume of the "Linnean Transactions," under the name of _Didelphis cynocephalus_, or "dog-headed opossum," the English name being an exact translation of its Latin one. Its non-prehensile tail, peculiar feet, and different arrangement of teeth, pointed out to naturalists that it entered into a genus distinct from the American opossums; and to this genus the name of _Thylacinus_[155] has been applied; its specific name _cynocephalus_ being still retained in conformity with zoological nomenclature, although M. Temminck, the founder of the genus, honoured the species with the name of its first describer, and called it _Thylacinus Harrisii_.

Mr Gould has given a short account of this quadruped in his great work, "The Mammals of Australia," accompanied with two plates, one showing the head of the male, of the natural size, in such a point of view as to exhibit the applicability of one of the names applied to it by the colonists, that of "zebra-wolf." He justly remarks that it must be regarded as by far the most formidable of all the marsupial animals, as it certainly is the most savage indigenous quadruped belonging to the Australian continent. Although it is too feeble to make a successful attack on man, it commits great havoc among the smaller quadrupeds of the country; and to the settler it is a great object of dread, as his poultry and other domestic animals are never safe from its attacks. His sheep are, especially, an object of the colonist's anxious care, as he can house his poultry, and thus secure them from the prowler; but his flocks, wandering about over the country, are liable to be attacked at night by the tiger-wolf, whose habits are strictly nocturnal. Mr Gunn has seen some so large and powerful that a number of dogs would not face one of them. It has become an object with the settler to destroy every specimen he can fall in with, so that it is much rarer than it was at the time Mr Harris, its first describer, wrote its history, at least in the cultivated districts. Much, however, of Van Diemen's Land is still in a state of nature, and as large tracts of forest-land remain yet uncleared, there is abundance of covert for it still in the more remote parts of the colony, and it is even now often seen at Woolnoth and among the Hampshire hills. In such places it feeds on the smaller species of kangaroos and other marsupials,--bandicoots, and kangaroo-rats, while even the prickle-covered echidna--a much more formidable mouthful than any hedgehog--supplies the tiger-wolf with a portion of its sustenance. The specimen described by Mr Harris was caught in a trap baited with the flesh of the kangaroo. When opened, the remains of a half-digested echidna[156] were found in its stomach.

The tiger-wolf has a certain amount of daintiness in its appetite when in a state of nature. From the observations of Mr Gunn it would seem that nothing will induce it to prey on the wombat,[157] a fat, sluggish, marsupial quadruped, abundant in the districts which it frequents, and whose flesh would seem to be very edible, seeing that it lives on fruits and roots. No sooner, however, was the sheep introduced than the tiger-wolf began to attack the flocks, and has ever since shown a most unmistakable appetite for mutton, preferring the flesh of that most useful and easily-mastered quadruped to that of any kangaroo however venison-like, or bandicoot however savoury. The colonists of Van Diemen's land have applied various names to this animal, according as its resemblance to other ferocious quadrupeds of different climates struck their fancy. The names of "tiger," "hyena," and "zebra-wolf," are partly acquired from its ferocity, somewhat corresponding with that of these well-known carnivorous denizens of other lands, and partly from the black bands which commence behind the shoulders, and which extend in length on the haunches, and resemble in some faint measure those on the barred tyrant of the Indian jungles, and the other somewhat similarly ornamented mammalia implied in the names. These bars are well relieved by the general grayish-brown colour of the fur, which is somewhat woolly in its texture, from each of the hairs of which it is composed being waved.

The specimens in the Zoological Gardens are very shy and restless; when alarmed they dash and leap about their dens and utter a short guttural cry somewhat resembling a bark. This shyness is partly to be attributed to their imperfect vision by day, and partly to their resemblance in character to the wolf, whose treachery and suspicious manners in confinement must have struck every one who has gazed on this "gaunt savage" in his den in the Regent's Park. The specimens exhibited are the first living members of the species first brought to Europe. The male was taken in November 1849, and the female at an earlier period in the same year, on the upper part of St Patrick's River, about thirty miles north-east of Launceston. After being gradually accustomed to confinement by Mr Gunn, they were shipped for this country, and reached the Gardens in the spring of 1850. It is very seldom, indeed, that they are caught alive; and when so caught they are generally at once killed, so that it was with some difficulty and by offering a considerable pecuniary inducement to the shepherds, that they were at last secured for the Zoological Society.[158] In their den they show great activity, and can bound upwards nearly to the roof of the place where they are confined.--_A. White, from "Excelsior."_

FOOTNOTES:

[153] So called from the Latin word _marsupium_, a pouch.

[154] _Diabolus ursinus_, the ursine opossum of Van Diemen's Land, a great destroyer of young lambs.

[155] From the Greek words for a pouch and a dog, [Greek: thylakos] and [Greek: kuon]. Dr Gray had previously named it _Peracyon_, from [Greek: pera], a bag, and [Greek: kuon], a dog.

[156] _Echidna aculeata_, or _E. hystrix_, the porcupine ant-eater, a curious edentate, spine-covered quadruped, closely allied to the still stranger _Ornithorhynchus_, the duck-bill.

[157] _Phascolomys Vombatus,_ a curious, broad-backed, and large-headed marsupial, two specimens of which are in the Zoological Gardens. It is a burrower, and in the teeth it resembles the rodent animals; hence its name, from [Greek: phaskolon], a pouch, and [Greek: mus], a mouse.

SQUIRREL: ARCTIC LEMMING.

The one with its long plume-like tail, organised for a life among trees, the other with its home in the arctic regions, belong to an order not generally distinguished for intelligence, although, the beaver, once reputed a miracle of mind, belongs to it. The glirine or rodent animals are generally of small or moderate size, though some, like the water-loving capybara, are of considerable dimensions.

The squirrel is a fine subject for a painter. There is a picture by Sir Edwin Landseer, of a squirrel and bullfinch. On an engraving of it, published in 1865, is inscribed "a pair of nut-crackers,"--a happy title, and very apposite.

Jekyll saw in Colman's chambers a squirrel in the usual round cage. "Ah! poor devil," said Jekyll, "he's going the _home circuit_."[159]

If you come upon a squirrel on the ground, he is not long in getting to the topmost branch of the highest tree, so perfectly is he adapted for "rising" at a "bar"!

PETS OF SOME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY BUTCHERS. A SQUIRREL.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., in his novel, "Zanoni,"[160] pictures Citizen Couthon fondling a little spaniel "that he invariably carried in his bosom, even to the Convention, as a vent for the exuberant sensibilities which overflowed his affectionate heart."

In a note the novelist remarks--

"This tenderness for some pet animal was by no means peculiar to Couthon; it seems rather a common fashion with the gentle butchers of the Revolution. M. George Duval informs us ('Souvenirs de la Terreur,' iii. p. 183), that Chaumette had an aviary, to which he devoted his harmless leisure; the murderous Fournier carried, on his shoulders, a pretty little squirrel attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the superfluity of his affections upon two gold pheasants; and Marat, who would not abate one of the three hundred thousand heads he demanded, _reared doves_! Apropos of the spaniel of Couthon, Duval gives us a characteristic anecdote of Sergent, not one of the least relentless agents of the massacre of September. A lady came to implore his protection for one of her relations confined in the Abbaye. He scarcely deigned to speak to her. As she retired in despair, she trod by accident on the paw of his favourite spaniel. Sergent, turning round, enraged and furious, exclaimed, '_Madam, have you no humanity?_'"

ARCTIC VOYAGER AND THE LEMMING.

Captain Back, on his arctic land expedition, when returning in September 1835, encountered a severe gale, which forced them to land their boat, and as the water rose they had three times to haul it higher on the bank. He introduces an affecting little incident: "So completely cold and drenched was everything outside, that a poor little lemming, unable to contend with the floods, which had driven it successively from all its retreats, crept silently under the tent, and snuggled away in precarious security within a few paces of a sleeping terrier. Unconscious of its danger, it licked its fur coat, and darted its bright eyes from object to object, as if pleased and surprised with its new quarters; but soon the pricked ears of the awakened dog announced its fate, and in another instant the poor little stranger was quivering in his jaws!"[161]

* * * * *

Mr McDougall?][162] records several amusing anecdotes of the little arctic lemming, named _Arctomys Spermophilus Parryi_, after the great arctic voyager. He says,--"My own experience of those industrious little warriors tended to prove that they possessed a strange combination of sociality and combativeness. Industrious they most certainly are, as is shown by the complicated excavation of their subterranean cities; besides which, every feather and hair of bird and animal found in the vicinity of their dwellings, is made to contribute its iota of warmth and comfort to the interior of their winter quarters.

"I had," continues the master of the _Resolute_, "many opportunities of watching their movements during my detention at Winter Harbour. My tent happened to be pitched immediately over one of their large towns, causing its inhabitants to issue forth from its thousand gates to catch a view of the strangers. Frequently on waking we have found the little animals, rolled up in a ball, snugly ensconced within the folds of our blanket-bags; nor would they be expelled from such a warm and desirable position without showing fight. On several occasions I observed Naps, the dog, fast asleep with one or two lemmings huddled away between its legs, like so many pups."

He says that Lieutenant Mecham noticed an Esquimaux dog, named Buffer, trudging along, nose to the ground, quite unconscious of danger, when a lemming, suddenly starting from its cavern, seized poor Buffer by the nose, inflicting a severe wound. The dog, astounded at such an unsuspected assault, gave a dismal howl, and at length shook the enemy off, after which he became the attacking party, and in less than a minute the presumptuous assailant disappeared between the jaws of the Tartar he had attempted to catch.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] Mitchell's "Popular Guide to the Zoological Gardens," p. 9. (1852.)

[159] Mark Lemon's "Jest Book," p. 180.

[160] Ed. 1845, p. 339.

[161] P. 441. Sir John Richardson told me that the species was _Spermophilus Parryi_.

[162] The Eventful Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ship _Resolute_ to the Arctic Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin, in 1852-3-4, pp. 314, 315.

RATS AND MICE.

Why should we not, like Grainger, begin this section as the writer of "The Sugar-Cane" does one of his paragraphs--

"Come muse! let's sing of rats."

The "restless rottens" and mice need little introduction. They are a most fertile race, and some species of them seem only to be in human habitations. They are terrible nuisances, and yet rat-skins are said to be manufactured in Paris into gloves.

Sydney Smith's comparison of some one dying like a poisoned rat in a ditch is a powerful one. The same writer, in hunting down an unworthy man, with his cutting criticism, says, that he did it not on account of his power, but to put down what might prove noisome if not settled, much as a Dutch burgomaster might hunt a rat, not for its value, but because by its boring it might cause the water to break through his dikes, and thus flood his native land.

Robert Browning, in one of his poems, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," has powerfully described an incursion of rats. A few lines may be quoted:--

"Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.
"Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in their cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

* * * * *

"And ere three shrill notes the pipes had uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling--
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats;
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails, and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives--
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped, advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser
Wherein all plunged and perished,
Save one."

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE MUSK-RAT.

Mr Taylor, in his notes to the artist Haydon's Autobiography, tells us that a favourite expression of the Duke of Wellington, when people tried to coax him to do what he had resolved not to do, was, "The rat has got into the bottle." This not very intelligible expression may refer to an anecdote I have heard of the Duke's once telling, in his later days, how the musk-rats in India got into bottles, which ever after retained the odour of musk. "Either the rats must be very small," said a lady who heard him, "or the bottles very large." "On the contrary, madam," was the Duke's reply, "very small bottles and very large rats." "That is the style of logic we have to deal with at the Horse Guards," whispered Lord ----.

LADY EGLINTOUN AND THE RATS.

Mr Robert Chambers, in his "Traditions of Edinburgh" (p. 191), gives an interesting account of the elegant Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun, who was in her eighty-fifth year when Johnson and Boswell visited her. She died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one, having preserved to the last her stately mien and fine complexion. She is said to have washed her face periodically with sow's milk.

"This venerable woman amused herself latterly in taming and patronising rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans, and they succeeded in her affections the poets and artists she had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table. At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again to their native obscurity--a trait of good sense in the character and habits of the animals which, it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons do not always find in two-legged _proteges_."

GENERAL DOUGLAS AND THE RATS.

The biographer of this highly-distinguished military engineer-officer relates an anecdote of him when a lieutenant at Tynemouth. The future author of well-known works on Gunnery and Military Bridges, early began to show ability in mechanics. "Lieutenant Douglas occupied a room barely habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by the time he had kindled the tinder. Their flight suggested to him another device. He looked out all the holes, and covered them with slides, connected with each other by wires, and these he fastened to a string, which enabled him to draw them all with one pull, and thus close the outlets. The contrivance claims to be mentioned as his first success in mechanics, foreshadowing his future expertness. It came into use the same night: he pulled the string without rising from bed, then struck a light, while the rats flew off to the holes to find them blocked, and he shot them at leisure. Two or three such massacres cleared off the intruders, and left him undisturbed in his quarters."[163]

HANOVER RATS.

How amusingly does Mr Waterton show his attachment to the extinct Stuarts in his essays. Go where he may, "a Hanover rat" pops up before him. In his charming autobiography appended to the three series of his graphic essays, whether he be in Rome or Cologne, in York or London, at a farm-house, or on board a steamer on the Rhine, "a Hanover rat" is sure to be encountered. We could cite many amusing illustrations.

Earl Stanhope[164] speaks of the Jacobites after the death of Anne reviling all adherents of the court as "a parcel of Roundheads and Hanover rats." This is the phrase used by Squire Western in Fielding's novel of "Tom Jones." He tells us that the former of these titles was the by-word first applied to the Calvinistic preachers in the civil wars, from the close cropped hair which they affected as distinguished from the flowing curls of the cavaliers. The second phrase was of far more recent origin. It so chanced that not long after the accession of the House of Hanover, some of the brown, that is, the German or Norway rats, were first brought over to this country in some timber, as is said; and being much stronger than the black, or till then, the common rats, they in many places quite extirpated the latter. The word, both the noun and the verb "to rat," was first levelled at the converts to the government of George the First, but has by degrees obtained a wider meaning, and come to be applied to any sudden and mercenary change in politics. The ravages of rats might form the subject of a curious volume. They are not at all literary in their tastes, though they are known to eat through bales of books, should they be placed in the way of their runs. The booksellers in the Row always leave room between the wall and the books in their cellars, to allow room for this predacious vermin.

Mr Cole, when examined before the Committee of the House on the condition of the depositories of the Records some time ago, stated that "six or seven perfect skeletons of rats were found imbedded (in the Rolls); bones of these vermin were generally distributed throughout the mass, and a dog was employed in hunting the live ones."

IRISHMAN EMPLOYED SHOOTING RATS.

Luttrell visited Sydney Smith at his parsonage in Somersetshire. The London wit told some amusing Irish stories, and his manner of telling them was so good. "One: 'Is your master at home, Paddy?' '_No_, your honour.' 'Why, I saw him go in five minutes ago.' 'Faith, your honour, he's not exactly at home; he's only there in the back yard a-shooting rats with cannon, your honour, for his _devarsion_.'"[165]

JAMES WATT AND THE RAT'S WHISKERS.

Mrs Schimmelpenninck in her youth lived at Birmingham, where she often met James Watt. In her autobiography (p. 34), she says, "Everybody practically knew the infinite variety of his talents and stores of knowledge. When Mr Watt entered a room, men of letters, men of science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children thronged round him. I remember a celebrated Swedish artist having been instructed by him that rats' whiskers made the most pliant and elastic painting-brush; ladies would appeal to him on the best means of devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and obtaining fast colours. I can speak from experience of his teaching me how to make a dulcimer, and improve a Jew's harp."

THE POET GRAY COMPARES THE POET-LAUREATE TO A RAT-CATCHER.

The poet Gray very much despised such offices as that of the poet-laureate, or that held by Elkanah Settle, the last of the city poets whose name is held up to ridicule by Pope in the "Dunciad." In a letter to the Rev. Wm. Mason,[166] he puts this very strikingly:--

"Though I very well know the bland emolient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet if any great man would say to me, 'I make you rat-catcher to his Majesty, with a salary of L300 a year, and two butts of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand upon these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should still feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me: but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations. For my part, I would rather be serjeant-trumpeter or pinmaker to the palace."

JEREMY BENTHAM AND THE MICE.

The biographer of Jeremy Bentham[167] tells us that among the animals he was fond of were mice. They were encouraged "to play" about in his workshop. I remember, when one got among his papers, that he exclaimed, "Ho! ho! here's a mouse at work; why won't he come into my lap?--but then I ought to be writing legislation, and that would not do."

One day, while we were at dinner, mice had got, as they frequently did, into the drawers of the dinner-table, and were making no small noise. "O you rascals," exclaimed Bentham, "there's an uproar among you. I'll tell puss of you;" and then added, "I became once very intimate with a colony of mice. They used to run up my legs, and eat crumbs from my lap. I love everything that has four legs; so did George Wilson. We were fond of mice, and fond of cats; but it was difficult to reconcile the two affections."

Jeremy Bentham records: "George Wilson had a disorder which kept him two months to his couch. The _mouses_ used to run up his back and eat the powder and pomatum from his hair. They used also to run up my knees when I went to see him. I remember they did so to Lord Glenbervie, who thought it odd."[168]

BURNS AND THE FIELD MOUSE.

The history of the origin of this well-known piece of the Scottish poet is thus given by Mr Chambers in that edition of the Life and Works of Robert Burns,[169] which will ever be regarded, by Scotchmen at least, as the most complete and carefully-edited of the numerous editions of that most popular poet.

"We have the testimony of Gilbert Burns that this beautiful poem was composed while the author was following the plough. Burns ploughed with four horses, being twice the amount of power now required on most of the soils of Scotland. He required an assistant, called a _gaudsman_, to drive the horses, his own duty being to hold and guide the plough. John Blane, who had acted as gaudsman to Burns, and who lived sixty years afterwards, had a distinct recollection of the turning-up of the mouse. Like a thoughtless youth as he was, he ran after the creature to kill it, but was checked and recalled by his master, who, he observed, became thereafter thoughtful and abstracted. Burns, who treated his servants with the familiarity of fellow-labourers, soon after read the poem to Blane.

TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785.

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou needna start awa sae hasty
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin and chase thee
Wi' murd'ring pattle.[170]

"I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
And justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
And fellow-mortal!

"I doubt na whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave[171]
'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive,
And never miss't.

"Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin"!
And naething now to big a new ane
O, foggage green,
And bleak December's winds ensuin'
Baith snell and keen!

"Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste,
And weary winter coming fast,
And cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter passed
Out through thy cell.

"That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
And cranreuch cauld!

"But, mousie, thou art no thy lane;
Improving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley,
And lea'e us nought but grief and pain
For promised joy.

"Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee;
But, och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
And forward, though I canna see,
I guess and fear."

It was on the farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, where he resided nearly nine years, that the occurrence took place so pathetically recorded and gloriously commented on in this piece.

DESTRUCTIVE FIELD MICE.

Thomas Fuller, in "The Farewell" to his description of the "Worthies of Essex," says, "I wish the sad casualties may never return which lately have happened in this county; the one, 1581, in the Hundred of Dengy, the other, 1648, in the Hundred of Rochford and Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible parishioners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth thereof); when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies in burrows, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, which, withering to dung, was infectious to cattle. The March following, numberless flocks of owls from all parts flew thither, and destroyed them, which otherwise had ruined the country, if continuing another year. Thus, though great the distance betwixt a man and a mouse, the meanest may become formidable to the mightiest creature by their multitudes; and this may render the punishment of the Philistines more clearly to our apprehensions, at the same time pestered with mice in their barns and pained with emerods in their bodies."[172]

THE BARON VON TRENCK AND THE TAME MOUSE IN PRISON.

The unfortunate Baron Von Trenck was a Prussian officer, whose adventures, imprisonments, and escape form the subject of memoirs which he wrote in Hungary. He at last settled in France, and there, in 1794, perished by the guillotine.

Before he obtained his liberty, he lost a companion which had for two years helped to beguile the solitude of his captivity. This was a mouse, which he had tamed so perfectly, that the little creature was continually playing with him, and would eat out of his mouth. "One night it skipped about so much that the sentinels heard a noise and reported it to the officer of the guard. As the garrison had been changed at the peace (between Austria and Prussia), and as Trenck had not been able to form at once so close a connexion with the officers of the regular troops as he had done with those of the militia, one of the former, after ascertaining the truth of the report with his own ears, sent to inform the commandant that something extraordinary was going on in the prison. The town-major arrived in consequence early in the morning, accompanied by locksmiths and masons. The floor, the walls, the baron's chains, his body, everything in short, were strictly examined. Finding all in order, they asked the cause of the last evening's bustle. Trenck had heard the mouse, and told them frankly by what it had been occasioned. They desired him to call his little favourite; he whistled, and the mouse immediately leaped upon his shoulder. He solicited that its life might be spared; but the officer of the guard took it into his possession, promising, however, on his word of honour, to give it to a lady who would take great care of it. Turning it afterwards loose in his chamber, the mouse, who knew nobody but Trenck, soon disappeared, and hid himself in a hole. At the usual hour of visiting his prison, when the officers were just going away, the poor little animal darted in, climbed up his legs, seated itself on his shoulder, and played a thousand tricks to express the joy it felt on seeing him again. Every one was astonished, and wished to have it. The major, to terminate the dispute, carried it away, gave it to his wife, who had a light cage made for it; but the mouse refused to eat, and a few days after was found dead."[173]

ALEXANDER WILSON AND THE MOUSE.

About the time when Alexander Wilson formed the design of drawing the American birds, and writing those descriptions which, when published, gave him that name which has clung to him, "_the American Ornithologist_" he had a school within a few miles of Philadelphia. He was then a keen student of the animal life around him. In 1802 he wrote to his friend Bertram, and tells him of his having had "live crows, hawks, and owls; opossums, squirrels, snakes, lizards," &c. He tells him that his room sometimes reminded him of Noah's ark, and comically adds, "but Noah had a wife in one corner of it, and in this particular our parallel does not altogether tally. I receive every subject of natural history that is brought to me; and, though they do not march into my ark from all quarters, as they did into that of our great ancestor, yet I find means, by the distribution of a few fivepenny _bits_, to make them find the way fast enough. A boy, not long ago, brought me a large basketful of crows. I expect his next load will be bull-frogs, if I don't soon issue orders to the contrary. One of my boys caught a mouse in school a few days ago, and directly marched up to me with his prisoner. I set about drawing it the same evening, and all the while the pantings of its little heart showed it to be in the most extreme agonies of fear. I had intended to kill it, in order to fix it in the claws of a stuffed owl; but, happening to spill a few drops of water near where it was tied, it lapped it up with such eagerness, and looked in my face with such an eye of supplicating terror, as perfectly overcame me. I immediately restored it to life and liberty. The agonies of a prisoner at the stake, while the fire and instruments of torture are preparing, could not be more severe than the sufferings of that poor mouse; and, insignificant as the object was, I felt at that moment the sweet sensation that mercy leaves in the mind when she triumphs over cruelty."[174]

FOOTNOTES:

[163] "The Life of General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart., G.C.B., F.R.S., D.C.L., from his Notes, Conversations, and Correspondence," by S. W. Fullom. 1863. P. 28.

[164] "History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht," by Lord Mahon, vol. vii. p. 465.

[165] Life of Sydney Smith, by his daughter, Lady Holland, vol. i. 374.

[166] "Correspondence of Thomas Gray and Mason, edited from the originals," by the Rev. John Mitford, p. 112.

[167] Dr Bowring's "Life of Jeremy Bentham," Works, vol. xi. p. 80, 81.

[168] "Bowring's Life," vol. x., Works, p. 186.

[169] By Robert Chambers, Edinburgh, 1851, 4 vols., vol. i., p. 146.

[170] The stick used for clearing away the clods from the plough.

[171] An occasional ear of corn in a thrave,--that is, twenty-four sheaves.

[172] "Worthies of England," vol. i. p. 545.

[173] "Wilson's Life," p. 28.

HARES, RABBITS, GUINEA-PIG.

All gnawing creatures, belonging to the Glirine or Rodentia order. Charles Lamb has written on the hare, in one view of that finely-flavoured beast, as only Elia could write. But the poet Cowper has made the hare's history peculiarly pleasing and familiar. How often in his letters he alludes to his hares! Mrs E. B. Browning, in her exquisitely delicate and pathetic poem, "Cowper's Grave," thus alludes to Cowper's pets--

"Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home caresses,
Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses;
The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing,
Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving."

Not many years ago the compiler saw traces of the holes the poet had cut in the skirting-boards of the room for their ingress and egress, that they might have ampler room for wandering. His epitaphs on two of them are often quoted. Rabbits are peculiarly the pets of boys, and though, when wild, often great vermin, from their destructive habits and their mining operations, are yet said to contribute much to the revenue of one European monarch.

How Mr Malthus ought to have hated guinea-pigs, those fertile little lumps of blotched fur! Few creatures can be more productive.

WILLIAM COWPER ON HIS HARES.

What a model description of the habits of an animal we have in the gentle Cowper's account of his hares! Would that he had made pets of other animals, and written descriptions of them, like that which follows, and which is here copied from the original place to which he contributed it.[175]

"_May_ 28.

"MR URBAN,--Convinced that you despise no communications that may gratify curiosity, amuse rationally, or add, though but a little, to the stock of public knowledge, I send you a circumstantial account of an animal, which, though its general properties are pretty well known, is for the most part such a stranger to man, that we are but little aware of its peculiarities. We know indeed that the hare is good to hunt and good to eat; but in all other respects poor Puss is a neglected subject. In the year 1774, being much indisposed, both in mind and body, incapable of diverting myself either with company or books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion necessary, I was glad of anything that would engage my attention without fatiguing it. The children of a neighbour of mine had a leveret given them for a plaything; it was at that time about three months old. Understanding better how to tease the poor creature than to feed it, and soon becoming weary of their charge, they readily consented that their father, who saw it pining and growing leaner every day, should offer it to my acceptance. I was willing enough to take the prisoner under my protection, perceiving that in the management of such an animal, and in the attempt to tame it, I should find just that sort of employment which my case required. It was soon known among the neighbours that I was pleased with the present; and the consequence was, that in a short time, I had as many leverets offered to me as would have stocked a paddock. I undertook the care of three, which it is necessary that I should here distinguish by the names I gave them--Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Notwithstanding the two feminine appellatives, I must inform you that they were all males. Immediately commencing carpenter, I built them houses to sleep in. Each had a separate apartment, so contrived that their ordure would pass through the bottom of it; an earthen pan placed under each received whatsoever fell, which being duly emptied and washed, they were thus kept perfectly sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range of a hall, and at night retired each to his own bed, never intruding into that of another.

"Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my lap, raise himself upon his hinder feet, and bite the hair from my temples. He would suffer me to take him up, and to carry him about in my arms, and has more than once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept him apart from his fellows that they might not molest him (for, like many other wild animals, they persecute one of their own species that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him with a variety of herbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery,--a sentiment which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately; then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it unsaluted,--a ceremony which he never performed but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the garden, where he hid himself generally under the leaves of a cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud till evening; in the leaves also of that vine he found a favourite repast. I had not long habituated him to this taste of liberty, before he began to be impatient for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of such expression as it was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between his teeth, and pull at it with all his force. Thus Puss might be said to be perfectly tamed; the shyness of his nature was done away, and on the whole it was visible, by many symptoms which I have not room to enumerate, that he was happier in human society than when shut up with his natural companions.

"Not so Tiney. Upon him the kindest treatment had not the least effect. He, too, was sick, and in his sickness, had an equal share of my attention; but if, after his recovery, I took the liberty to stroke him, he would grunt, strike with his fore-feet, spring forward, and bite. He was, however, very entertaining in his way, even his surliness was matter of mirth, and in his play he preserved such an air of gravity, and performed his feats with such a solemnity of manner, that in him, too, I had an agreeable companion.

"Bess, who died soon after he was full grown, and whose death was occasioned by his being turned into his box, which had been washed, while it was yet damp, was a hare of great humour and drollery. Puss was tamed by gentle usage; Tiney was not to be tamed at all; and Bess had a courage and confidence that made him tame from the beginning. I always admitted them into the parlour after supper, where the carpet affording their feet a firm hold, they would frisk, and bound, and play a thousand gambols, in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fearless, was always superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris of the party. One evening, the cat, being in the room, had the hardiness to pat Bess upon the cheek, an indignity which he resented by drumming upon her back with such violence, that the cat was happy to escape from under his paws and hide herself.

"You observe, sir, that I describe these animals as having each a character of his own. Such they were in fact, and their countenances were so expressive of that character, that, when I looked only on the face of either, I immediately knew which it was. It is said that a shepherd, however numerous his flock, soon becomes so familiar with their features, that he can by that indication only distinguish each from all the rest, and yet to a common observer the difference is hardly perceptible. I doubt not that the same discrimination in the cast of countenances would be discoverable in hares, and am persuaded that among a thousand of them no two could be found exactly similar; a circumstance little suspected by those who have not had opportunity to observe it. These creatures have a singular sagacity in discovering the minutest alteration that is made in the place to which they are accustomed, and instantly apply their nose to the examination of a new object. A small hole being burnt in the carpet, it was mended with a patch, and that patch in a moment underwent the strictest scrutiny. They seem, too, to be very much directed by the smell in the choice of their favourites; to some persons, though they saw them daily, they could never be reconciled, and would even scream when they attempted to touch them; but a miller coming in, engaged their affections at once--his powdered coat had charms that were irresistible. You will not wonder, sir, that my intimate acquaintance with these specimens of the kind has taught me to hold the sportsman's amusement in abhorrence. He little knows what amiable creatures he persecutes, of what gratitude they are capable, how cheerful they are in their spirits, what enjoyment they have of life, and that, impressed as they seem with a peculiar dread of man, it is only because man gives them peculiar cause for it.

"That I may not be tedious, I will just give you a short summary of those articles of diet that suit them best, and then retire to make room for some more important correspondent.

"I take it to be a general opinion that they graze, but it is an erroneous one, at least grass is not their staple; they seem rather to use it medicinally, soon quitting it for leaves of almost any kind. Sowthistle, dent-de-lion, and lettuce are their favourite vegetables, especially the last. I discovered, by accident, that fine white sand is in great estimation with them, I suppose as a digestive. It happened that I was cleaning a bird cage while the hares were with me; I placed a pot filled with such sand upon the floor, to which being at once directed by a strong instinct, they devoured it voraciously; since that time I have generally taken care to see them well supplied with it. They account green corn a delicacy, both blade and stalk, but the ear they seldom eat; straw of any kind, especially wheat-straw, is another of their dainties; they will feed greedily upon oats, but if furnished with clean straw, never want them; it serves them also for a bed, and, if shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry for a considerable time. They do not indeed require aromatic herbs, but will eat a small quantity of them with great relish, and are particularly fond of the plant called musk; they seem to resemble sheep in this, that if their pastures be too succulent, they are very subject to the rot; to prevent which, I always made bread their principal nourishment; and, filling a pan with it cut into small squares, placed it every evening in their chambers, for they feed only at evening and in the night; during the winter, when vegetables are not to be got, I mingled this mess of bread with shreds of carrot, adding to it the rind of apples cut extremely thin; for, though they are fond of the paring, the apple itself disgusts them. These, however, not being a sufficient substitute for the juice of summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied with water; but so placed that they cannot overset it into their beds. I must not omit, that occasionally they are much pleased with twigs of hawthorn and of the common briar, eating even the very wood when it is of considerable thickness.

"Bess, I have said, died young; Tiney lived to be nine years old, and died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a fall. Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year, discovering no signs of decay nor even of age, except that he is grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude, sir, without informing you that I have lately introduced a dog to his acquaintance, a spaniel that had never seen a hare, to a hare that had never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, but there was no real need of it. Puss discovered no token of fear, nor Marquis the least symptom of hostility. There is, therefore, it should seem, no natural antipathy between dog and hare, but the pursuit of the one occasions the flight of the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it; they eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all respects sociable and friendly.--Yours &c.,

W. C.

"_P.S._--I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add, that they have no ill scent belonging to them, that they are indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which purpose nature has furnished them with a brush under each foot; and that they are never infested by any vermin."

Our readers know his fine verses or epitaphs on his hares. We may quote from the biographer to whom Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington left all their papers and memoirs, a sentence or two on Cowper's hares, and on the other pets of that lovable man. Earl Stanhope[176] says of this poet and "best letter-writer in the English language--"Such, indeed, were his powers of description and felicity of language, that even the most trivial objects drew life and colour from his touch. In his pages, the training of three tame hares, or the building of a frame for cucumbers, excite a warmer interest than many accounts compiled by other writers, of great battles deciding the fate of empires. In his pages, the sluggish waters of the Ouse,--the floating lilies which he stooped to gather from them,--the poplars, in whose shade he sat, and over whose fall he mourned, rise before us as though we had known and loved them too. As Cowper himself declares, 'My descriptions are all from nature, not one of them second-handed; my delineations of the heart are from my own experience, not one of them borrowed from books.'"

HAIRS OR HARES!

A gentleman on circuit, narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before breakfast. "Thirty-three _hairs_!" exclaimed Lord Norbury; "zounds, sir! then you must have been firing at a _wig_."[177]

Sportsmen are very apt to exaggerate. They did so at least in Horace's days. We have heard of a man of rank, who actually made a gamekeeper, who was a first-rate marksman, fire whenever he discharged his piece. The story goes, that _that_ man was regarded as having shot everything that fell.

The Duke of L.'s reply, when it was observed to him that the gentlemen bordering on his estates were continually hunting upon them, and that he ought not to suffer it, is worthy of imitation. "I had much rather," said he, "have _friends_ than hares."[178]