Chapter 1

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CREATURES OF THE NIGHT

_By the same Author._

IANTO THE FISHERMAN

AND OTHER SKETCHES OF COUNTRY LIFE.

_Illustrated with Photogravures. Large Crown 8vo._

_The Times._--"The quality which perhaps most gives its individuality to the book is distinctive of Celtic genius.... The characters ... are touched with a reality that implies genuine literary skill."

_The Standard._--"Mr Rees has taken a place which is all his own in the great succession of writers who have made Nature their theme."

_The Guardian._--"We can remember nothing in recent books on natural history which can compare with the first part of this book ... surprising insight into the life of field, and moor, and river."

_The Outlook._--"This book--we speak in deliberate superlative--is the best essay in what may be called natural history biography that we have ever read."

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

CREATURES OF THE NIGHT

A BOOK OF WILD LIFE IN WESTERN BRITAIN

BY ALFRED W. REES

AUTHOR OF "IANTO THE FISHERMAN"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1905

TO

MYFANWY AND MORGAN

"All life is seed, dropped in Time's yawning furrow, Which, with slow sprout and shoot, In the revolving world's unfathomed morrow, Will blossom and bear fruit."

MATHILDE BLIND.

PREFACE.

The Editors of _The Standard_ have kindly permitted me to republish the contents of this book, and I tender them my thanks.

The original form of these Studies of animal life has been extensively altered, and, in some instances, the titles have been changed.

I am again greatly indebted to my brother, R. Wilkins Rees. His wide and accurate knowledge has been constantly at my disposal, and in the preparation of these Studies he has given me much indispensable advice and assistance.

Similarity in the habits of some of the animals described has made a slight similarity of treatment unavoidable in certain chapters.

I may also remark that, in unfrequented districts where beasts and birds of prey are not destroyed by gamekeepers, the hare is as much a creature of the night as is the badger or the fox.

ALFRED W. REES.

[Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and standardized the hyphenations, otherwise the text has been left as the original]

CONTENTS.

THE OTTER.

I.

THE HOLT AMONG THE ALDERS.

PAGE

Late fishing--A summer night--River voices--A master-fisher-- The old mansion--Lingering beauty--The otters' "oven"--Observant youngsters--Careful motherhood--The meadow playground--Falling leaves--A swollen river--Dabchick's oar-like wings--Mysterious proceedings--Migrating salmon--Hoar-fringed river-banks--An adventure with a sheep-dog--Slip-shod builders--Signs of spring--A change of diet--Fattening trout--The capture of a "kelt"--"The otter's bite"--Lone wanderings. 1-23

II.

THE POOL BENEATH THE FARMSTEAD.

A song of autumn--The salmon pool--Angling difficulties--Bullying a sportive fish--An absent-minded fisherman--At dawn and nightfall--A deserted home--Practical joking--A moorhen's fate--Playfulness of youth--The torrent below the fall--The garden ponds--Feasting on frogs--A watcher of the night--Hounds and hunters--Lutra's discretion--The spell of fear 24-40

III.

THE GORGE OF ALLTYCAFN.

The Hunt again--Fury of despair--A "strong place"--The terrier's discomfiture--Lutra's widowhood--Summer drought--Life at the estuary--Returning to the river--Scarce provender--A rare and unexpected sight--The blacksmith's baited trap--The Rock of Gwion--Peace 41-50

THE WATER-VOLE.

I.

OUR VILLAGE HOUNDS.

Quiet life--Leisure hours--A winter pastime--A miscellaneous pack--The bobtail, and his fight with an otter--The terrier, and his friendship with fishermen--A family party--Expert diving--Hunt membership, and the landlord as huntsman--Fast and furious fun--A rival Hunt--The bobtail's death--The terrier's eccentricities--A pleasant study begins--Brown rats--Yellow ants--Brighteye's peculiarities--Evening sport 51-67

II.

THE BURROW IN THE RIVER BANK.

At dusk--A picturesque home--Main roads and lanes of the riverside people--A heron's alertness--A rabbit's danger signal--The reed-bed--The vole in fear--The wildest of the wild--Tell-tale footprints--The significance of a blood-stain--A weasel's ferocity--Maternal warnings--A rat-hunting spaniel--An invaded sanctuary--The terrier's opportunity--The water-vole chatters and sings--A gladsome life--Dangers sharpen intellect 68-82

III.

WILD HUNTING.

An otter-hunt--Fading afterglow--Spiritual influence of night--Lutra and Brighteye--Brighteye's song--Chill waters--A beacon in the gloom--A squirrel's derision--A silvery phantom--An old, lean trout--Restless salmon--Change of quarters--Brighteye's encounter with a "red" fish 83-98

IV.

SAVED BY AN ENEMY.

The "redd" in the gravel--In company with a water-shrew--Ravenous trout--The salmon's attack--An otter appears--Brighteye's bewilderment--Increasing vigilance--Playful minnows--A new water-entrance--The winter granary--Careful harvesting--The dipper's winter carol--The robin and the wren at vespers--Unsafe quarters--Rats on the move--A sequestered pool--Icebound haunts 99-115

V.

THE COURAGE OF FEAR.

The dawn--Restlessness of spring--A bold adventurer--A sharp fight--Cleared pathways--Differences of opinion--A tight snuggery--In defence of home--A monster rat--Temporary refuge--The voles and the cannibal trout--Family troubles--A winter evening in the village 116-129

THE FIELD-VOLE.

I.

HIDDEN PATHWAYS IN THE GRASS.

A pleasant wilderness--Pitying Nature--Hedgerow sentinels--The story of the day--Familiar signs--An unknown scent--The agony of fear--A change of mood--The weasel's raid--A place of slaughter--Autumn preparations--A general panic--Hibernation--Winter sunshine--The red bank-voles--Owls and hawks 131-150

II.

THE VALLEY OF OLWEN.

The last of winter's stores--Renewed activity--The field-vole's food--A lively widow vole--An unequal encounter--First fond passion--Ominous sounds--A clumsy rabbit--An unimportant "affair"--An elopement--Nesting time--A fussy parent--A fox pays a visit--Also a carrion crow--Repairing damages 151-166

III.

A BARREN HILLSIDE.

A secluded pasture--Poachers and owls--An astute magpie--The vole a sire of many families--Plague--Nature's caprice--Privation and disease--Unexpected destroyers--A living skeleton--Starvation and death--An owl once more 167-175

THE FOX.

I.

THE LAST HUNT.

A baffled marauder--The flesh of breeding creatures tough and tasteless--An unsavoury rat--The arrival of the Hunt--The fox sees his foes--The view-halloo--No respite, no mercy, no sanctuary--The last hope--A fearless vixen--Defiant to the end 177-193

II.

A NEW HOME.

Life in an artificial "earth"--Longing and despair--Contentment of maternity--Prisoners--A way of escape--Careless infancy--A precocious cub--First lessons--An obedient family--A fox's smile--Inborn passion for flesh--Favourite food of fox-cubs--The huntsman's desire 194-209

III.

THE CUB AND THE POLECAT.

Patience and watchfulness--How to capture field-voles--Winding trails--Ill-luck--A painful surprise--A fresh line of scent--Cost of a struggle--A luckless fortnight--The old hound and the "young entry"--A curiously shaped monster--Pursued by a lurcher-- Desertion--A vagrant bachelor 210-223

IV.

A CRY OF THE NIGHT.

The hunting call--A recollection--A joyous greeting--A woodland bride--The sting of a wasp--Preparation of a "breeding earth"--Meddlesome jays and magpies--A rocky fastness on the wild west coast--Vulp's retreat--The end of a long life--The fox's mask--Memories 224-240

THE BROWN HARE.

I.

THE UPLAND CORNFIELD.

Midsummer--The leveret's birth--First wanderings--Instinct and teaching--The "creeps"--In the stubble--Habits change with seasons--The "sweet joint" of the rye--Lessons from a net and a lurcher--Rough methods--The man-scent--On the hills above the river-mists 241-260

II.

MARCH MADNESS.

March winds--Reckless jack-hares--Courtship and rivalry--Motherhood--A harmless conflict--An intruding fox--The faithless lover--Maternal courage--The falcon's "stoop"--The "slit-eared" hare--Countryside superstitions--On the river island--Patience rewarded--The hare as a swimmer--Bloodless sport--Habits of the hare in wet weather--The "form" in the root-field--Bereavements--Increasing caution-- Productiveness in relation to food--A poacher's ruse 261-277

III.

THE CHASE.

The basset-hound--Mirthful and dignified--A method of protecting hares--A suggestion--Formidable foes--"Fouling" the scent--A cry of distress--The home in the snow-drift--The renegade cat--An inoffensive life--A devastating storm 278-291

THE BADGER.

I.

A WOODLAND SOLITUDE.

Haunts of a naturalist--Why certain animals are unmolested--Means of security--Fear of dogs and men--A place of interest--The "nocturnal" instinct--Droll revelry--Serious pastimes--Teaching by reward and punishment--Animals study the disposition of their young--Voices of the wilderness 293-309

II.

HOME DISCIPLINE.

Unwelcome attentions--An old badger's watchfulness--A clever trick--A presumptuous youngster--Instructions in selfishness--Harsh measures--The badger and the stoat--A long ramble 310-324

III.

FEAR OF THE TRAP.

Wisdom in Nature's ways--The laggard of the family--A salutary lesson--Hand-scent and foot-scent--An old Welsh law--The lesson of a "double" scent--The sorrel as medicine--A wild bees' nest--"In grease" 325-339

IV.

THE WINTER "OVEN."

The vixen and the hounds--The wounded rabbit--Old inhabitants of the wood--In touch with enemies--Twilight romps--Brock's quarrel with his sire--A bone of contention--Prompt chastisement--A mournful chorus--Wild fancies of a bachelor--A big battle--The terror of the flock--Unwarranted suspicion--Caught in the act 340-356

V.

HILLSIDE TRAILS.

The backward "drag"--Loyalty tested--A spiteful spouse--Spring cleaning--Carrying litter to the "set"--A numerous family--An eviction--Vulpicide--Important news--Old traditions of sport revived--A long day's toil--The secret history of a "draw"--An old burrow 357-373

THE HEDGEHOG.

I.

A VAGABOND HUNTER.

The nest in the "trash"--Quaint wildlings--Neighbours and enemies--A feast--Spines and talons--The gipsy boy--A vagabond's sport--The nest in the wild bees' ruined home--Insects killed by frost--Winter quarters of the lizard and the snail 377-391

II.

AN EXPERIENCE IN SNAKE-KILLING.

An iron winter--March awakening--A coat of autumn leaves--The Rip Van Winkle of the woods--Sunshine and strength--Faulty eyesight--The hedgehog and the viper--Worsting an enemy--The moorhen's nest--Antics of weasels and snakes--The hedgehog's bleat--Odd and awkward courtship 392-406

NIGHT IN THE WOODS.

I.

HAUNTS OF THE BADGER AND THE FOX.

Wild life at night--Long watching--A "set" with numerous inhabitants--The vixen and her cubs--Tolerant badgers--Vigilance--A moorland episode--"Chalking the mark"--Fox-signs--A habit of voles and rabbits--Patience, in vain--Sulky badgers--The vixen's lair--Foxes at play 407-426

II.

THE CRAG OF VORTIGERN.

Difficulties of night watching--Powers of observation in wild creatures--Night wanderers dislike rain--Eager helpers--A tempting invitation--Cry of young owls--Philip, the silent watcher--The fern-owl's rattle--The leaping places of the hare--Night gossip--The meaning of the white and black markings on a badger's head--The secrets of the cave 427-443

INDEX 445-448

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

From Drawings by

Florence H. Laverock.

"THE BROAD RIVER, IN WHICH SHE HAD SPENT HER EARLY LIFE." See p. 50 _Frontispiece._

"AN OPPORTUNITY CAME, WHICH, HAD SHE BEEN POISED IN THE AIR, COULD SCARCELY HAVE BEEN MISSED." _To face p._ 88

"THE BIG TROUT, IN HIS TORPEDO-LIKE RUSH TO CUT OFF BRIGHTEYE FROM SURE REFUGE." See p. 105 " " 104

"SHE WAS HOLDING ONE OF HER OFFSPRING BY THE NECK, IN PREPARATION FOR FLIGHT." See p. 139 " " 138

"HE RETIRED TO A ROCKY FASTNESS ON THE WILD WEST COAST." " " 238

"WHEN THE EARLY AUTUMN MOON ROSE OVER THE CORN." " " 290

"HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS, WITH UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH OF SCENT." " " 364

"AS HE MEASURED HIS FULL LENGTH AGAINST THE TREE." See p. 419 " " 418

THE OTTER.

I.

THE HOLT AMONG THE ALDERS.

I first saw Lutra, the otter-cub, while I was fishing late one summer night. Slow-moving clouds, breaking into fantastic shapes and spreading out great, threatening arms into the dark, ascended from the horizon and sailed northward under the moon and stars. Ever and anon, low down in the sky, Venus, like a clear-cut diamond suspended from one of its many twinkling points, glittered between the fringes of the clouds, or the white moon diffused soft light among the wreathing vapours that twisted and rolled athwart the heavens. In the shelter of the pines on the margin of the river, a ringdove, awakened by a bickering mate, fluttered from bough to bough; and his angry, muffled coo of defiance marred the stillness of the night. The gurgling call of a moorhen, mingling with the ripple of the stream over the ford, came from the reeds at a distant bend of the river. Nearer, the river, with varying cadence, rose and fell in uneven current over a rocky shelf, and then came on to murmur around me while I waded towards the edge of a deep, forbidding pool. In the smooth back-wash beyond the black cup of the pool a mass of gathered foam gleamed weirdly in the dark; and, further away, broad tangles of river-weed, dotted with the pale petals of countless flowers, floated on the shallow trout-reach extending from the village gardens to the cornfields below the old, grey church.

In one of the terraced gardens behind me a cottager was burning garden refuse; tongues of flame leaped up amid billows of smoke, and from the crackling heap a myriad sparks shot out on every side. While the cottager moved about by the fire, his shadow lengthened across the river, which, reflecting the lurid glare, became strangely suggestive of unfathomable depths. The moorhen called again from the reeds near the ford, then flew away over the fire-flushed river and disappeared into the gloom; and a water-vole dropped with a gentle plash into the pool.

Casting a white moth quietly over the stream, I noticed beyond the shadows a round mass rising from the centre of the current, moving against the flood, and sinking noiselessly out of sight. There could be no doubt that the shape and motion were those of an otter. To continue my sport would have been in vain with such a master-fisher in the pool, so I reeled in my line, and stood still among the ripples as they circled, muttering, around my knees. Presently the dim form of the otter reappeared a little further up-stream, and I caught sight of a glistening trout in the creature's mouth.

The otter swam, with head just above water, towards the alders skirting the opposite bank, and then, turning sharply, was lost to sight near the overhanging roots of a sycamore. Immediately afterwards, a strange, flute-like whistle--as if some animal, having ascended from the depths of the river, had blown water through its nostrils in a violent effort to breathe--came from the whirlpool in the dense shadows of the pines: the otter's mate was hunting in the quiet water beyond the shelf of rock. Then a slight, rattling sound on the pebbly beach of a little bay near the sycamore indicated that the animal had landed and was probably devouring the captured fish. The leaping flames of the cottager's fire had been succeeded by a fitful glow, but the moon glided from behind the clouds and revealed a distinct picture of the parent otter standing on the shingle, in company with Lutra, her little cub.

* * * * *

A deserted mansion--to whose history, like the aged ivy to its crumbling walls, clung many a fateful legend--nestled under the precipitous woods in the valley. Time, taking advantage of neglect, had made a wilderness of the gardens, the lawns, and the orchards, which, less than a century ago, surrounded with quiet beauty this home of a typical old country squire. A few garden flowers still lingered near the porch; but the once well tended borders were overgrown with grass, or occupied with wild blossoms brought from the fields by the hundred agents employed by Nature to scatter seed. Owls inhabited the outhouses, and bats the chinks beneath the eaves. A fox had his "earth" in the shrubbery beyond the moss-grown pathway leading from the door to the gate at the end of the drive. A timid wood-pigeon often flew across from the pines and walked about the steps before the long-closed door. Near the warped window of the dismantled gun-room the end of a large water-pipe formed a convenient burrow for some of the rabbits that played at dusk near the margin of the shrubbery. This water-pipe led to the river's brink; and there, having been broken by landslips resulting from the ingress of the stream during flood, one of the severed parts of the tube formed, beneath the surface of the water, an outlet to a natural chamber high and dry in the bank. The upper portion of the pipe was choked with earth and leaves washed down from the fields by the winter rains.

In this hollow "oven," on a heap of hay, moss, and leaves, brought hither by the parent otters through an opening they had tunnelled into the meadow, Lutra was born. Her nursery was shared by two other cubs. Blind, helpless, murmuring little balls of fur, they were tended lovingly by the dam.

Soon the thin membrane between their eyelids dried and parted, and they awoke to a keen interest in their surroundings. Their chamber was dimly lit by the hole above; and the cubs, directly they were able to crawl, feebly climbed to a recess behind the shaft, where they blinked at the clouds that sailed beneath the dome of June, and at the stars that peeped out when night drew on, or watched the limpid water as, flowing past the end of the pipe below, it bore along a twirling leaf or rolled a pebble down the river-bed. Occasionally a salmon-pink wandered across from the shallows; for a moment or two the play of its tiny fins was seen at the edge of the pipe; and the cubs, excited by a sight of their future prey, stretched their necks and knowingly held their heads askew, so that no movement of the fish might escape their observation.

Among flesh-eating mammals of many kinds, the females display signs of intelligence earlier than the males. Lutra being the only female among the cubs, she naturally grew to be the most keenly observant, and often identified the finny visitor before her brothers ventured to decide that it was not a moving twig.

The dam spent most of the day asleep in the "holt," and most of the night fishing in the pools. Inheriting the disposition of their kind, the cubs also were more particularly lively by night than by day. Directly the cold dew-mist wreathed the grass at the entrance of the burrow, they commenced to sport and play, tumbling over each other, grunting and fighting in mimic anger, or pretending to startle their mother directly she entered the pipe on returning at intervals from fishing.

One night, while the cubs were rougher than ever in their fun, Lutra slipped off the platform and fell headlong down the pipe into the stream. But almost before she had time to be frightened she discovered that to swim was as easy as to play; and she rose to the surface with a faint, flute-like call. She splashed somewhat wildly, for her stroke was not yet perfected by practice. Hearing the commotion and instantly recognising its meaning, the dam dived quietly and swiftly right beneath the cub, and bore her gently back to the platform, where the rest of the family, having missed their companion, had for the moment ceased to romp and fight.

A few nights after this incident, the mother commenced in earnest to educate her young. Tenderly taking each in turn, she carried the nurslings into the water, and taught them, by a method and in language known only to themselves, how to dive and swim with the least possible exertion and disturbance.

Henceforward, throughout the summer, and till the foliage on the trees near the pool, chilled by the rapid fall of the temperature every evening, became thinner in the breath of the early autumn wind, the otter-cubs fished, and frolicked, and slept, or were suckled by their dam. Sometimes the whole family, together with the old dog-otter, adjourned to the middle of the meadow, and in the tall, dew-drenched grass skipped like kittens, though with comical clumsiness rather than with the agility they displayed in the water. Like kittens, too, the cubs played with their mother, in spite of wholesome chastisement when they nipped her muzzle rather more severely than even long-suffering patience could allow. The dam was at all times loath to correct her offspring, but the sire rarely endured the familiarity of the cubs for long. Directly they became unduly presumptuous he lumbered off to the river, as if he considered it much more becoming to fish than to join in the sport of his progeny. Perhaps, indeed, he deemed a change of surroundings essential that he might forget the liberties taken with him by his disrespectful youngsters.

When about three months old, Lutra began to show promise of that grace of form and motion which in later life was to be one of her chief distinctions. Her body, tail, and head gradually lengthened; and, as her movements in the water became more sinuous and easy, she tired less rapidly when fishing.

Autumn passed on towards winter, the nights were long, the great harvest of the leaves fell thickly on the meadow and the stream, the mountain springs were loosed in muddy torrents, and the river roared, swollen and turbid, past the "holt" under the trailing alder-twigs. The moorhens came back from the ponds where they had nested in April and May; the wild duck and the teal flew south from oversea, and in the night descended circling to the pool; a dabchick from the wild gorge down-river took up his abode in the sedges.