Part 11

The mole,[41] want, mouldwarper or mouldturner (talpa europea), is common with us, as it appears to be in most places; and no creature gives more certain indication of its presence, haunting, from preference, such places as its predecessors have done, though years may have intervened since they were frequented, and rains, and the treading of heavy cattle, have compressed to solid earth the ancient runs; and however assiduously we may destroy them, should they appear again, it will probably be in the same places that have been formerly perforated by others. The earth that these animals eject from their runs, being obtained from very near the surface, and finely pulverized, has tempted me more than once to have it collected for my green-house plants, but not with the success that I had conjectured. Some persons have advocated the cause of moles, as being beneficial to vegetation, by loosening the soil about the roots of plants. Evelyn and others, again, censure them as injurious creatures; and there is a strange narration in Buffon, accusing them of eating all the acorns of a newly-set soil.[42] I am not aware of any benefit occasioned by their presence; their warpings certainly give our pastures in the spring a very unsightly appearance, and in grounds designed to be mowed, occasion much trouble, by obliging us frequently to spread and remove them; and in newly-sown corn-lands, they disturb by their runnings the earth at the roots of the grain. But, perhaps, these trifling complaints, these almost imaginary grievances, are the only evils that can be attributed to them. In those wild creatures that are not immediately applicable to our use or amusement, we are more generally inclined to seek out their bad than their good qualities; and though I cannot produce any instance in which the utility of the mole is manifested, yet it is reasonable to conclude, that they are eminently so, either directly or collaterally, nature having provided in an especial manner for a constant supply,[43] and their increase is prodigious when they are not molested. I have killed for two years in succession, between forty and fifty each season, in a very few acres of ground; and notwithstanding all our stratagems for their destruction, and the ease with which they are entrapped, still plenty always remain to recruit our annual waste of them. These creatures are supposed to have a very imperfect vision, and, like insects, have not any external ear, or manifest organ through which sounds can be received; yet we can in no way for a moment suppose that they have been created with any deficiency of power to accomplish all the objects of their being, but that every possible exigency has been provided for. Perceptions may be conveyed in very many instances by intelligences unknown to us, and unquestionably are so. The defect of one power is frequently supplied by the increased activity of another; and the sense of smelling in the mole must be unusually acute, to enable it to pursue and capture its prey with the facility that it does. Its sole food, we believe, is worms; and these sensitive creatures retire immediately upon the smallest moving of the earth in which they reside. Now, as it follows them through all their meanderings, in which neither eyes nor ears would assist it, a fine sense of smelling seems necessary to enable it to catch them; and that its success is equal to its wants, and that it feeds plentifully, is manifest by the excellent condition in which the mole is at all seasons of the year. It will penetrate banks of earth after worms lodged in their interior, hunt for them in the richest parts of the field, or on the edges of dung-heaps: in all which pursuits some unknown faculties may direct it; but no sense, that we are acquainted with, could promote its objects so effectually as that of smell. My talparius, a very skilful capturer of these animals, is so sensible of the power that moles are gifted with of readily discriminating smells, that his constant practice is, to draw the body of a captured animal through his traps, and the adjoining runs, and passages, to remove all suspicious odors, which might arise from the touch of his fingers. Its feeling, too, must be acute; as, when casting up the earth, it is sensible of the pressure of a very gentle foot; and, unless our approaches are conducted with great caution, it ceases from its operation, and instantly retires. Should I be censured for needless prolixity in detailing these sensations of a common mole, and “telling of the mouldwarp and the ant,” I trust forgiveness may be granted me, as endeavoring to remove all conceptions, should they exist, that any thing, however vile and worthless it may seem to be, could be created with powers or means inadequate to supply its wants. Whoever will examine the structure of the body of a mole will, perhaps, find no creature more admirably adapted for all the purposes of its life. The very fur on the skin of this animal manifests what attention has been bestowed upon the creature, in providing for its necessities and comforts. This is singularly, most impalpably, fine, yielding in every direction, and offering no resistance to the touch. By this construction the mole is in no degree impeded in its retreat from danger while retiring backwards, as it always does upon suspicion of peril, not turning round, which the size of its runs does not permit, its tail foremost, until it arrives at some collateral gallery, when its flight is head foremost, as with other creatures. If this fur had been strong, as in the rat, or mouse, in these retreats for life it would have doubly 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 arched ways; thus impeding at least, if not absolutely preventing, retreat; but the softness of the fur obviates both these fatal effects.

The construction of the hair and fur of different creatures is very various and beautiful; and if we believe in the beneficence of the All- wise Creator, we must conclude that such peculiar fabrications were resorted to for the purpose of being immediately useful, or as necessary to the condition of the animal. In a mere sketch like this, it would conduct me infinitely beyond my intentions, to enumerate the many varieties of hair that are rendered manifest by the microscope; but three or four may be mentioned. The fur or clothing of the mole is internally composed of collateral bars. In man the hairs have at times a central tube, for the conveyance of medullary matter, as in bones, or some nutriment analogous to it; but in the mole there appears to be no communication with the body of the animal, unless the perspirable matter is conducted alternately from side to side along the bars. The fur of the bat has knots like the rudiments of branches. The hairs of the hamster mouse have a central perforation, apparently uninterrupted throughout their whole length. Some of the caterpillars (callimorpha caja) have spines proceeding from the hair that invests their bodies.[44] All these, and the other various contrivances so manifest in the coverings of animals, are probably designed to convey off the perspirable fluids conducive to health in an appropriate manner; to discharge the superabundant heat, and keep the body temperate in some cases: in others, again, to retard perspiration, and thus augment the warmth, by every possible gradation, or to increase the sensibility and perceptions of the animal. Many instances of these effects and modifications might be advanced, deserving a more extensive consideration.

The smell of the flesh of the mole is remarkably rank and offensive, as, from the nature of its food, might be expected; and it taints the fingers, which have touched it, with its peculiar odor, so that one washing does not remove it. It is reported of a late very eccentric nobleman, but with what truth I do not know, who essayed himself the flavor of every living thing, even to the eating of the large dew-worm, that the mole alone remained untasted by him, his stomach recoiling with disgust at the nauseous smell of the flesh of this creature. Foxes eat moles, and will at times dig out the traps containing them. The brown owl, too, feeds on them, when it can meet with them outside of their runs hunting after dew-worms; and probably the smaller vermin do the same: but the cat and the dog turn from them with manifest aversion as food; though they will hunt and kill them as objects of the chase.

These animals, we might suppose, while in their subterranean dwellings, would be secure from all injury by such as generally pursue their prey upon the surface of the earth; but I have several times known the weasel caught in the mole-traps, making it manifest, that it hunts after the mole for its food, and in doing so, according to our comprehensions, must encounter infinite danger from suffocation; but it is more probable that so active a creature as the weasel is endowed with powers to accomplish its object with impunity, which we are not acquainted with.

During the course of a life passed much in the country, and perambulating the woods, the hedges, and the fields, I have contracted almost insensibly an acquaintance with the creatures that frequent them. Some have engaged my attention by their actions and manners; others have interested me by their innocency, and the harmlessness of their lives; and, perhaps, there is some little partial bearing toward others from long association, or from unknown, undefined causes. I tolerate, in despite of all their noise, and all their litter, a colony of rooks,[45] which have taken a liking to some tall elms near my dwelling. Not being ancient denizens there, they can claim no hereditary rights; but their contrivances, their regularity, and even their squabbles, are amusing; and, perhaps, there is mingled with this some little compassion for these dark, half-domesticated families of the grove, driven by the ax from an old abode, which may influence my forbearance.

The hedge-sparrow, or shufflewing, (motacilla modularis), is a prime favorite. Not influenced by season or caprice to desert us, it lives in our homesteads and our orchards through all the year, our most domestic bird. In the earliest spring it intimates to us by a low and plaintive chirp, and that peculiar shake of the wing, which at all times marks this bird, but then is particularly observable, the approach of the breeding season; for it appears always to live in pairs, feeding and moving in company with each other. It is nearly the first bird that forms a nest; and this being placed in an almost leafless hedge, with little art displayed in its concealment, generally becomes the booty of every prying boy, and the blue eggs of the hedge-sparrow are always found in such numbers on his string, that it is surprising how any of the race are remaining, especially when we consider the many casualties to which the old birds are obnoxious from their tameness, and the young that are hatched, from their situation. The plumage of this motacilla is remarkably sober and grave, and all its actions are quiet and comformable to its appearance. Its song is short, sweet, and gentle. Sometimes it is prolonged; but generally the bird perches on the summit of some bush, utters its brief modulation, and seeks retirement again. Its chief habitation is some hedge in the rick-yard, some cottage garden, or near society with man. Unobtrusive, it does not enter our dwellings like the redbreast, but picks minute insects from the edges of drains and ditches, or morsels from the door of the poorest dwelling in the village. As an example of a household or domestic bird, none can be found with better pretensions to such a character than the hedge- sparrow.

I always hear with delight the earliest chirpings of that pretty harbinger of spring, the willow wren (motacilla trochillus), trilling its wild and gleeful “chiffchaffs,” as it chases the insects round the branches of the old oak in the copse, or on the yellow catkins of the sallow, itself almost like a colored catkin too. But this elegant little bird is noticed only by the lovers and frequenters of the country; it animates the woods by its constant activity; the frequent repetition of its most cheerful modulation contributes essentially to the pleasing harmony of the grove; and its voice is most sprightly and frequent, when the morning is illumined with one of those mild, walk-enticing gleams, that render this short season the most delightful of our year. It builds its nest, and rears its young with us; visits our gardens, but is no plunderer there, living almost entirely upon insect food; and its whole life is passed in harmlessness and innocence. As it is the earliest that arrives, so it is the last, I believe, of our feathered choir that leaves us, except a few lingering, irresolute swallows; and we hear it piping its final autumnal farewell even in October at times, and sporting with hilarity and joy, when all its congeners are departed.

It is a difficult matter satisfactorily to comprehend the object of this bird in quitting another region, and passing into our island. The chief motives for migration seem to be food, a milder climate, and quiet during the period of incubation and rearing their young: but the willow wren, and some others of our insectivorous birds, appear to have other purposes to accomplish by their annual migrations. These little creatures, the food of which is solely insects, could assuredly find a sufficient supply of such diet during the summer months, in the woods and thickets of those mild regions, where they passed the season of winter, and every bank and unfrequented wild would furnish a secure asylum for them and their offspring during the period of incubation. The passage to our shores is a long and dangerous one, and some imperative motive for it must exist; and, until facts manifest the reason, we may perhaps, without injury to the cause of research, conjecture for what object these perilous transits are made. We know that all young creatures require particularly compounded nutriment during their infant state; and nature, as far as we are acquainted with it, has made in every instance provision for a supply of fitting aliment. In many instances, where the removal of station could not be conveniently accomplished, instinct has been given the parent to provide the fitting aliment for its new-born young. Thus insects, in some cases, store their cells with food ready for the animation of their progeny; in others, place their eggs in such situations, as will afford it when they are hatched. The mammalia, at least the quadrupeds belonging to this class, which could least conveniently move their station, have supplies given them of a milky secretion for this purpose. Birds have nothing of this nature, and make no provision for their young; but they of all creatures, except fishes, can seek what may be required in distant stations with most facility. A sufficiency of food for the adult parent may be found in every climate, yet the aliment necessary for its offspring may not. Countries and even counties produce insects that differ, if not in species, at least in numbers; and many young birds we cannot succeed in rearing, or do it very partially, by reason of our ignorance of the requisite food. Every one, who has made the attempt, well knows the various expedients he has resorted to, of boiled meats, bruised seeds, hard eggs, boiled rice, and twenty other substances, that nature never presents, in order to find a diet that will nourish them; but Mr. Montague’s failure in being able to raise the young of the cirl bunting,[46] until he discovered that they required grasshoppers, is a sufficient instance of the manifest necessity there is for a peculiar food in one period of the life of birds; and renders it probable that, to obtain a certain aliment, this willow wren, and others of the insect and fruit-feeding birds, direct their flight to distant regions, and is the principal cause of their migrations.

It is some stimulus like this, which urges that little creature, the golden-crested wren (motacilla regulus), that usually only flits from tree to tree, and never attempts upon common occasions a longer flight, to traverse the vast distance from the Orkneys to the Shetland Isles over stormy seas that admit no possible rest during its long passage of above fifty miles! There it breeds its young; but this one object accomplished, it leaves those isles, dares again this tedious flight, and seeks a milder clime. With us it never migrates, lives much in our fir groves during the winter, and breeds in our shrubberies in summer. Peculiar necessities, such as these, may incite the migration of many birds; but that certain species, which lead solitary lives, or associate only in very small parties, should at stated periods congregate from all parts to one spot, and there hold council on a removal, in which the very sexes occasionally separate, is one of the most extraordinary procedures that we meet with among animals.

If the sober, domestic attachments of the hedge-sparrow please us, we are not less charmed with the innocent, blithesome gaiety of the linnet (fringilla linota). But this songster is no solitary visiter of our dwellings: it delights and lives in society, frequenting open commons and gorsy fields, where several pairs, without the least rivalry or contention, will build their nests and rear their offspring in the same neighborhood, twittering and warbling all the day long. This duty over, the families unite, and form large associations, feeding and moving in company as one united household; and, resorting to the head of some sunny tree, they will pass hours in the enjoyment of the warmth, chattering with each other in a low and gentle note, and they will thus regularly assemble during any occasional bright gleam throughout all the winter season,—

“and still their voice is song,”

which, heard at some little distance, forms a very pleasing concert, innocent and joyous. The linnet is the cleanliest of birds, delighting to dabble in the water and dress its plumage in every little rill that runs by. The extent of voice in a single bird is not remarkable, being more pleasing than powerful; yet a large field of furze, in a mild sunny April morning, animated with the actions and cheering music of these harmless little creatures, united with the bright glow and odor of this early blossom, is not visited without gratification and pleasure.

The bull-finch (loxia pyrrhula) has no claims to our regard. It is gifted with no voice to charm us; it communicates no harmony to the grove: all we hear from it is a low and plaintive call to its fellows in the hedge. It has no familiarity or association with us, but lives in retirement in some lonely thicket ten months in the year. At length, as spring approaches, it will visit our gardens, an insidious plunderer. Its delight is in the embryo blossoms wrapped up at this season in the bud of a tree; and it is very dainty and curious in its choice of this food, seldom feeding upon two kinds at the same time. It generally commences with the germs of our larger and most early gooseberry; and the bright red breasts of four or five cock-birds, quietly feeding on the leafless bush, are a very pretty sight, but the consequences are ruinous to the crop. When the cherry buds begin to come forward, they quit the gooseberry, and make tremendous havoc with these. I have an early wall cherry, a mayduke by reputation, that has for years been a great favorite with the bull-finch family, and its celebrity seems to be communicated to each successive generation. It buds profusely, but is annually so stripped of its promise by these feathered rogues, that its kind might almost be doubted. The orleans and green-gage plums next form a treat, and draw their attention from what remains of the cherry. Having banqueted here awhile, they leave our gardens entirely, resorting to the fields and hedges, where the sloe bush in April furnishes them with food. May brings other dainties, and the labors and business of incubation withdraw them from our observation.

The idea that has been occasionally entertained, that this bird selects only such buds as contain the embryo of an insect, to feed on it, and thus free us of a latent colony of caterpillars, is certainly not correct. It may confer this benefit accidentally, but not with intention. The mischief effected by bull-finches is greater than commonly imagined, and the ground beneath the bush or tree, on which they have been feeding, is commonly strewed with the shattered buds, the rejectments of their banquet; and we are thus deprived of a large portion of our best fruits by this assiduous pillager, this “pick-a- bud,” as the gardeners call it, without any redeeming virtues to compensate our loss. A snowy, severe winter makes great havoc with this bird. It feeds much in this season upon the fruit of the dog-rose, “hips,” as we call them. When they are gone, it seems to pine for food, and is starved, or perhaps frozen on its roost, as few are observed to survive a long inclement winter. But it is not the buds of our fruit- bearing trees only that these destructive birds seek out; yet in all instances I think it will be observed that such buds as produce leaves only are rejected, and those which contain the embryo of the future blossom selected: by this procedure, though the tree is prevented from producing fruit, yet the foliage is expanded as usual; but had the leaves, the lungs of the plant, been indiscriminately consumed, the tree would probably have died, or its summer growth been materially injured: we may thus lose our fruit this year, yet the tree survives, and hope lives, too, that we may be more fortunate the next. The Tartarian honeysuckle (lonicera Tart.) and corchorus Japonicus, when growing in the shrubbery, are very commonly stripped of their bloom by bull- finches: the first incloses many separated blossoms in its calyx before expansion, and in that particular is analogous to the buds of icosandrious trees in the garden; and the full-petalled swelling bloom of the latter affords a fine treat for their feasts; but we may permit these pretty birds to banquet here, though, if we expect a supply of summer fruit, we must unsparingly drive them away from the branches of our frugiferous trees. The blossoms of the peach, nectarine, and almond, I have never observed to be injured by these birds: the sparrow will pick away the buds of trees against walls when they frequent such places, but, with this exception, I know none but the bull-finch which resort to that food as a regular supply.