THE INDUSTRIES
OF ANIMALS.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

THE NATURALISTS OF YESTERDAY AND THE NATURALISTS
OF TO-DAY — NATURAL HISTORY AND THE NATURAL
SCIENCES — THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION — THE CHIEF
INDUSTRIES OF MAN — THE CHIEF INDUSTRIES OF
ANIMALS — INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT — INSTINCTIVE
ACTIONS ORIGINATE IN REFLECTIVE ACTIONS — THE
PLAN OF STUDY OF THE VARIOUS INDUSTRIES.

The naturalists of yesterday and the naturalists of
to-day. — The study of animals, plants, rocks, and of
natural objects generally, was formerly called “natural
history”; but this term is tending to disappear from
our vocabulary and to give place to the term “natural
sciences.” What is the reason of this change, and to
what does it correspond? for it is rare for a word to
be modified in so short a time if the thing designated
has not itself varied.

Exterior forms have certainly changed, and the
naturalist of yesterday makes upon us the impression
of a legendary being. I refer to the person described
 in George Sand’s romances, marching vigorously over
hills and valleys in search of a rare insect, which he
pricked with delight, or of a plant difficult to reach,
which he triumphantly dried and fixed on a leaf of
paper bearing the date of the discovery and the name
of the locality. A herbarium became a sort of
journal, recalling to its fortunate possessor all the
wanderings of the happy chase, all the delightful
sounds and sights of the country. Every naturalist
concealed within him a lover of idylls or eclogues.
Assuredly all the preliminary studies which resulted
from these excursions were necessary; we owe gratitude
to our predecessors, and we profit from their
labours, sometimes regretting the loss of the picturesque
fashion in which their researches were carried
out.

The naturalist of to-day usually lives more in the
laboratory than in the country. Occasional expeditions
to the coast or dredgings are the only links that
attach him to nature; the scalpel and the microtome
have replaced the collector’s pins, and the magnifying
glass gives place to the microscope. When the
observer begins to pursue his studies in the laboratory
he no longer cares to pass the threshold. He has
still so much to learn concerning the most common
creatures that it seems useless to him to waste his
time in seeking those that are rarer, unless he takes
into account the unquestionable pleasure of rambling
through woods or along coasts; — but such a consideration
does not belong to the scientific domain.

A change of conditions of this nature does not
suffice to create a science. To take away from a
study all that rendered it pleasant and easy, and to
make it the property of a small coterie, when it was
 formerly accessible to all, is not sufficient to render it
scientific. It is a fatality rather than a triumph to
have undergone such a change. The change is an
effect rather than a cause.

When little or nothing was known it was necessary
to begin by examining the phenomena which first
met the eyes of the observer, such as the customs of
animals and the characters which distinguished them
from each other. Their differences and resemblances
were studied; they were formed into groups, classed
and arranged in an order recalling as much as
possible their natural relations. In classifying it is
impossible to consider all the facts or the result
would be chaos; it is necessary to choose the
characters and to give preponderance to certain of
them. This sorting of characters has been executed
with the sagacity of genius by the illustrious naturalists
of the last century and the beginning of the
present. But the frames which they have traced are
fixed and rigid; nature with her infinite plasticity
escapes from them. We render a great homage to
the classifiers when we say that they have confined
the facts as closely as it is possible to do. The
catalogues which they have prepared are of a utility
which is unquestionable, although their rôle is to be
useful only; we cannot pretend to make them the
expression, the symbol, the formula in which all
natural phenomena are to be enclosed. To confound
classification with science is to confound the lever
with the effect which we expect from it.

Curiosity, moreover, always impels towards that
which is least known. External appearances having
been studied, the form and function of internal organs
were investigated. Physiology and comparative
 anatomy were born and developed; researches
abounded and observers abandoned the field for the
laboratory.

The difference in methods of research and the
pushing of precision to its extreme limits — an inevitable
result of the different nature of the observations
to be made — did not however yet render legitimate
the claim for natural studies to be called “science.”

Natural history and the natural sciences. — A
more important event has taken place. The
ancient naturalists, like their contemporaries, had
firm beliefs which they used as unquestionable
principles for the comprehension of all facts. The
explanation of an observation was ready in advance.
The study of facts invariably brought to the pen of
the writer the same enthusiastic admiration of the
marvellous part played by Providence in nature.1
The phenomena in which this action was not
strikingly apparent were merely described without
any attempt to relate them with each other, or with
the other facts. A hypothesis which left a great
number of facts without explanation was necessarily
insufficient. The descriptions, in spite of all their
individual interest, did not constitute a homogeneous
whole, a science. They were merely a collection of
more or less natural histories.

Science only begins on the day when we have
found the simple theory which binds together all the
facts at that time known, without of course prejudicing
the future. As the number of acquired facts
increases, if the theory in question continues to
explain the new as it explained the old, the science
 becomes more firmly established. If we can imagine
a time arriving when all the possible phenomena are
known, and the existing hypothesis still explains
them, nothing henceforth can overturn it, the science
is completed. That is the simple case in which a
theory has been victorious; but if it is contradicted
by a single well-authenticated fact it must fall or
become modified. The more things a theory explains
in the present the more chance it has of success in
the future. It is still only a matter of chances, for
the theory is always at the mercy of unforeseen
observation, which may rudely overthrow it.

There is no theory which must not be modified
constantly, at least in its details. To render it more
and more general by successive improvements is the
aim to be pursued. A collection of studies constitutes
a science when a hypothesis has arisen already
sufficiently strong to oblige us to refer to it all new
acquisitions, and to compel us to see if they fortify or
oppose it.

It would indeed be a narrow conception if we were
to consider as scientific the partisans of the theory
alone; more than anywhere else discussion is fruitful
in the natural sciences; and if it is necessary to be
constantly preoccupied with the general ideas of the
day, it is not at all necessary to adhere to them
servilely. The naturalists of to-day are in possession
of a formula with which we must always preoccupy
ourselves; in other words, there are natural sciences.

The theory of Evolution. — This hypothesis which
comes before all others is the theory of evolution.
This is not the place to expound it, to go over
the proofs which have been amassed to build it
up, nor the criticisms which have been directed
 against it. It has to-day come out of the struggle
victoriously. A prodigious quantity of facts, of comparative
anatomy and of embryology, inexplicable
without it, emerge from the chaos and constitute
a whole, truly and marvellously homogeneous. Issued
from the natural sciences, the doctrine of evolution
now overflows them and tends to embrace everything
that concerns man: history, sociology, political economy,
psychology. The moralists seek, and will surely
find, compromises permitting ethical laws to endure
the rule of this overwhelming hypothesis.

Without going too far back into history, let us
look towards the end of the last century and the
beginning of this. Cuvier, Lamarck,2 and Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire,3 all preoccupied with general ideas,
were each trying to build up a doctrine. The theory
of evolution was born beneath the pen of Lamarck,
but immediately fell under the attacks of Cuvier.4
It is to Darwin that the honour belongs of having
rescued it from oblivion and of having initiated the
movement which to-day rules the natural sciences.
Studies in embryology and anatomy are rising without
number beneath this impulse; and perhaps it
may be said that these new sciences, so fruitful in
results, absorb a little too much attention and leave in
the shade subjects longer known, but which, however,
gain new interest by the way they fit into present
scientific theories.

I wish to speak of the manners of animals; the
 facts regarding them are of sufficient interest if we
consider them one by one, and they become much
more interesting when we attempt to show the close
way in which they are bound together. Volumes
would not suffice to exhaust the subject; but if the
entire task is too considerable, I may at least hope to
accomplish a part of it by treating of those facts
which may be brought together under the common
title of Animal Industries. Taken separately, they
may be reproached with a certain anecdotal character,
but we cannot fail to agree that taken altogether they
constitute an important chapter in the sciences of
life.

The chief industries of Man. — Let us first throw
a rapid glance at the various stages which the
civilisation and industry of Man have gone through
before arriving at their present condition. To make
clear these phases we might either follow the state
of civilisation in any given country by tracing back
the course of centuries, or else at a given epoch
find out in different parts of the earth all the
stages of human evolution. The savage men of to-day
are not further advanced in their evolution than
our own ancestors who have now gone to fossil. However
it may be, Man, at first frugivorous, as his
dentition shows as well as his zoological affinities, in
consequence of a famine of fruit or from whatever
other cause, gradually began to nourish himself with
the flesh of other animals. To search for this fleeing
prey developed in him the art of hunting and fishing.
His intelligence, still feeble, was entirely concentrated
on this one point: to seize on an animal and to feed
on it, although neither his nails nor his teeth nor his
muscles make it natural to him. To hunt, to fish,
 to defend his territory against the wild beasts who
attacked it and himself, to drive back tribes of
his fellows who would diminish his provisions, these
were the first rudiments of the industry of Man.
Having become more skilful, he obtained in an
expedition more game than he could consume at
once; he then kept near him living beasts in
order to sacrifice them when hunger came. His
reserve of animals increased; they became accustomed
to live near him; and he took care of
his larder. A flock was gradually constituted, and
the owner learnt to profit from all the resources
which it offered him, from milk to wool. Henceforth
he became economical with his beasts, and moved
about in order to procure for them abundance of
grass and water. He was still always hunting and
fighting; but there were now accessory industries,
and he was especially occupied in the domestication
of animals. Then it happened that he acquired a
taste for a graminaceous grain — corn. To seek the
blades one by one is not a very fruitful labour, and
decidedly troublesome. Man collected a supply of
them, cultivated them, possessed fields which he
sowed and harvested. He was henceforth obliged
to renounce his herds, which had become immense;
for he could not leave the soil where his corn was
ripening, if he wished to gather it himself, and his
cattle were lacking pasture. The number of beasts
diminished; bread had killed milk. Man only kept
near him a small flock capable of feeding on a
moderate territory. He abandoned his temporary
shelters, tents of skin or of woven wool, and since he
must henceforth live on the same piece of land, he
constructed there a fixed dwelling. Such is, taken
 altogether, the genesis of the industry of the dwelling
connected with the culture of the soil; to earlier
periods corresponded the natural or hollowed cave
and the woven tent.

The chief industries of Animals. — In a more or
less perfect degree we find the same industries
among animals generally. In order to make just
comparisons, we ought especially to consider the
methods of those who are not endowed with
specially appropriated organs, for in this case
their task is rendered too simple. To take an
example. The Lion is certainly an incomparable
hunter; but his whole organisation tends to facilitate
the capture of living prey. His agility and the
strength of his muscles enable him to seize it at
the first leap before it can escape. With his sharp
claws he holds it; his teeth are so keen and his jaw
so strong that he kills it immediately; with such
natural advantages what need has he of ingenuity?
But in the case of the Wolf or the Fox it is quite
another matter; they hunt with a veritable art which
Man himself has not disdained, since he has taken as
his associate their relative, the Dog. It is the same
with the Eagle and the Crow. The latter, in order to
seize the prey which he desires, needs much more
varied resources than the great bird of rapine for
whom nature has done everything.

We find among animals not only hunting and
fishing but the art of storing in barns, of domesticating
various species, of harvesting and reaping — the
rudiments of the chief human industries. Certain
animals in order to shelter themselves take advantage
of natural caverns in the same way as many races of
primitive men. Others, like the Fox and the Rodents,
 dig out dwellings in the earth; even to-day there are
regions where Man does not act otherwise, preparing
himself a lodging by excavations in the chalk or the
tufa. Woven dwellings, constructed with materials
entangled in one another, like the nests of birds,
proceed from the same method of manufacture as the
woollen stuffs of which nomad tribes make their tents.
The Termites who construct vast dwellings of clay,
the Beavers who build huts of wood and of mud, have
in this industry reached the same point as Man.
They do not build so well, no doubt, nor in so
complex a fashion as modern architects and engineers,
but they work in the same way. All these ingenious
artisans operate without organs specially adapted to
accomplish the effect which they reach. It is with
such genuine industries that we have to deal, for the
most part neglecting other productions, more marvellous
in certain ways, which are formed by particular
organs, or are elaborated within the organism, and
are not the result of the intelligent effort of the
individual. To this category belong the threads
which the Spider stretches, and the cocoon with
which the Caterpillar surrounds himself to shelter his
metamorphosis.

Intelligence and instinct. — By attentive observation
it is possible to find in animals all the intermediate
stages between a deliberate reflective action and an
act that has become instinctive and so inveterate to
the species that it has re-acted on its body, and thus
profoundly modified it so as to produce a new organ
in such a way that the phenomena are accomplished
as a simple function of vegetative life, in the same
way as respiration or digestion.

If an individual is led to reproduce often the same
 series of actions it contracts a habit; the repetition
may be so frequent that the animal comes to
accomplish it without knowing it; the brain no
longer intervenes; the spinal cord or the chain of
ganglia alone govern this order of acts, to which has
been given the name of reflex actions. A reflex may
be so powerful as to be transmitted by heredity to
the descendants; it then becomes an instinct.

Thus by its nature instinct does not differ from
intelligence, but is intimately connected with it by a
chain of which all the links may be counted. The most
intelligent of beings, Man, performs actions that are
purely mechanical; many indeed can with justice be
called instinctive; and, on the other hand, an animal
for whom an innate hereditary instinct is sufficient in
ordinary life will give proof of intelligence and reflection
if circumstances in which his instinct is
generally efficacious become modified so that he can
no longer profit by them. Among other ingenious
experiments to show the supposed difference between
instinctive and reflective acts, Fabre brings forward
the following5: — The Chalicodoma, a hymenopterous
relative of the Bees, constructs nests composed of cells
formed of mud agglutinated with saliva. The cell once
constructed, the insect begins to fill it with honey before
laying an egg there. He returns with his booty and
wishes to disburse himself in the nest, finds the cellule
which he has to fill, and proceeds always in the same
order: first, he plunges his head in the cell and disgorges
the honey which fills his crop; secondly, he
emerges from the cell, turns round, and lets fall the
pollen which remains attached to his legs. Suppose
 that an insect has just disgorged his honey, the
observer touches his belly with a straw; the little
animal, disturbed in his operation, returns to it having
only the second act to perform. But he re-commences
the whole of his operations though having nothing
more to disgorge; he again plunges his head into the
cell and goes through a pretence of disgorging, then
turns round and frees himself from the pollen.
Although touched twice, thrice, or more frequently, he
always repeats the first action before executing the
second. It is, says Fabre, almost like the movement
of a machine of which the wheelwork will not act
until one has begun to turn the wheel which directs it.

It is incontestable; but I would add, as this conscientious
observer does not, that that does not prove
that the intelligence of the insect differs essentially
from ours; it is a simple question of degree. Look
at a boy who is going to jump over a ditch: he begins
by spitting into his hands and rubbing them one
against the other before taking his spring. In what
has this served him? It is not more intelligent than
the gesture of the bee who first plunges his head in
the cell before freeing his claws, although the first
gesture is useless.6

And, from another side, if nothing is more instinctive
than the manner in which domestic Bees construct
their cells of wax with geometric regularity,
there are other circumstances in which these same
 insects give proof of remarkable reflection, sagacity,
and intelligence in co-ordinating their actions in the
presence of an event to which they are not accustomed,
and in attaining an end which has presented itself by
accident. Such are, for example, the arrangements
which they make to defend their honey against the
attacks of a great nocturnal Moth, the Death’s Head.
I shall have to revert to these facts.

We must not then regard instinct, as has often been
done, as a rudiment of intelligence, susceptible or not
of development; but much rather as a series of intelligent
acts at first reasoned, then by their frequent
repetition become habitual, reflex, and at last, by
heredity, instinctive.

What the individual loses in individuality and in
personal initiative, heredity restores to him in the
form of instinct which is, as it were, the condensed
and accumulated intelligence of his ancestors. He
himself no longer needs to take thought either to
preserve his life or to assure the perpetuation of his
race. The qualities which he received at birth render
reflection less necessary; thus species endowed with
some powerful instinct seem not to be intelligent
when they live sheltered from unforeseen events.

From one point of view instinct appears to be a
degradation rather than a perfecting of intelligence,
because the acts which proceed from it are neither
so spontaneous nor so personal; but from another
point of view they are much better executed, with less
hesitation, with a slighter expenditure of cerebral
force and a minimum of muscular effort. A habitual
act costs us much less to execute than a deliberate
and reflective act. It is thus that the constructions of
bees are more perfect than those of ants; the former
 act by instinct, the latter reason their acts at each
step.

Instinctive actions originate in reflective actions. — No
doubt it may be said: It is a pure hypothesis thus
to consider instinct as derived from intelligence; why
not admit as well that instinctive acts have been such
from the beginning — in other words, that species have
been created such as we see them to-day? The preceding
explanation, however, has the advantage of
being in harmony with the general theory of evolution,
which, whether true or not, so well explains the most
complicated facts that for the present it must be
accepted. For the rest, if it is not possible to appraise
the psychic faculties possessed by the ancestors of
existing animals we may at least observe certain facts
which put us on the road of explanation.

An interesting member of the Hymenoptera, the
Sphex, assures food for the early days of the life of its
larvæ in a curious way.7 Before laying its eggs it
seizes a cricket, paralyses it with two strokes of its
sting — one at the articulation of the head and the
neck, the other at the articulation of the first ring of
the thorax with the second — each stab traversing and
poisoning a nervous ganglion. The cricket is paralysed
without being killed; its flesh does not putrefy,
and yet it makes no movement. The Sphex places
an egg on this motionless prey, and the larva which
emerges from it devours the cricket. Here assuredly
is a marvellous and certain instinct. One cannot
even object that the strokes of the sting are inevitably
directed to these points because the chitinous
envelope of the victim offers too much resistance in
 other spots for the dart to penetrate, because here is
the Ammophila, a near relative of the Sphex, which
chooses for its prey a caterpillar. It is free to introduce
its sting into any part of the body, and yet
with extreme certainty it strikes the two ganglions
already mentioned.8

We cannot suppose that the insect has anatomical
and physiological knowledge to inform it of what
it is doing. The act is distinctly instinctive, and
seems imprinted by a fatality involving no possible
connection with intelligence. But let us suppose
that the ancestors of these Hymenoptera have
thus attacked crickets and killed (not paralysed)
them with one or more wounds at any point.
By chance some of these insects, either in consequence
of their manner of attacking the prey or
from any other cause, happen to deliver their blows
at the points in question. Their larvæ on this
account are placed in more favourable conditions
than those of their relatives whom chance has less
well served; they will prosper and develop sooner.
They inherit this habit, which gradually becomes
through the ages that which we know. It is possible;
but why, it may be asked, this hypothesis,
apparently gratuitous, of strokes of the sting given
at random? Are there any facts which render this
explanation plausible? Assuredly. Thus the Bembex,
which especially attacks Diptera to make them
the prey of its larvæ, throws itself suddenly on them
and kills them with one blow in any part of the body.
It is unable in this way to amass in advance sufficient
provision for its larvæ; the corpses would putrefy.
 It is obliged to return from time to time bearing
new pasture.9 Again, M. Paul Marchal, taking up
the study of instinct in the Cerceris ornata,10 has
shown that in this species at least of Sphegidæ the
stings have not so considerable an effect. This
insect attacks a wild bee, the Halictus. He strikes
his victim with two or three strokes of the sting
beneath the thorax, but the paralysis is not definite,
perhaps on account of the nature of the venom, which
is not identical in all species. The tortured creature
may regain life at the end of some hours. Thus the
Cerceris is obliged to destroy the upper part of the
neck by repeated malaxation of that part for several
minutes at a time. The effect of this second act, by
injuring the cerebroid ganglia, is to render impossible
the return of action; moreover, it permits the
aggressor to satisfy personal gluttony, and to feed
on the liquids of the organism of the vanquished,
which is easy, because the dorsal blood-vessel passes
at this level. It can thus satisfy a personal need
while thinking of the future of the race.

It has been said in this connection that in such
cases the sure instinct with which these species were
originally endowed has been distorted, but that is to
admit some degree of variation; the hypothesis of
degeneration is as gratuitous as the other, and if we
go so far as to risk a hypothesis, it would be better
to use it to explain facts and not to entangle them.

Plan of study of the various industries. — The
different industries carried on by animals may be
divided into a certain number of groups. In the case
 of each of these categories I propose to arrange the
facts in such a way as to bring forward first those
animals which, having no special organs, are obliged
to exercise the greatest ingenuity, and then to indicate
the facts which show how variations have arisen
which enable other species to accomplish these acts
with marvellous ease.

We will first examine the simplest industries:
hunting and fishing, those industries of which the
object is the immediate search for prey; and to these
may be added those which are related to them as
re-action is to action — that is to say, the industries
of which the effect is to provide for the immediate
safety of the individual.

Then in an exposition parallel to the march of
progress followed by human civilisations, we shall
study among animals the art of collecting provisions,
of domesticating and exploiting flocks, of reducing
their fellows to slavery.

Finally, we shall investigate the series of modifications
which the dwelling undergoes, and we shall
see how certain species, after having constructed
admirably-arranged houses, know how to make them
healthy, and how to defend them against attacks
from without.

CHAPTER II.
HUNTING — FISHING — WARS AND EXPEDITIONS.

THE CARNIVORA MORE SKILFUL HUNTERS THAN THE
HERBIVORA — DIFFERENT METHODS OF HUNTING — HUNTING
IN AMBUSH — THE BAITED AMBUSH — HUNTING
IN THE DWELLING OR IN THE BURROW — COURSING — STRUGGLES
THAT TERMINATE THE HUNT — HUNTING
WITH PROJECTILES — PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES PUT
TO PROFIT — METHODS FOR UTILISING THE CAPTURED
GAME — WAR AND BRIGANDAGE — EXPEDITIONS TO
ACQUIRE SLAVES — WARS OF THE ANTS.

The Carnivora more skilful hunters than the Herbivora. — The
search for food has necessarily been the
cause of the earliest industries among animals. It is
easy to understand that the herbivora need little
ingenuity in seeking nourishment; they are so
superior to their prey that they can obtain it and feed
on it by the sole fact of an organisation adapted to
its assimilation. They are, it is true, at the mercy of
circumstances over which they have no control, and
which lead to famine. The carnivora also may have
to suffer from the absence of prey, but even in the
most favourable seasons, and in the regions where the
animals on which they live abound, it is necessary to
them to develop a special activity to obtain possession
of beings who are suspicious, prompt in flight,
 and as fleet as themselves. Thus it is among these
that we expect to find the art of hunting most
cultivated; especially if we put aside the more
grossly carnivorous of them, whose whole organisation
is adapted for rapid and effective results.

Different methods of hunting. — Like Man, some
animals hunt in ambush or by coursing; others know
how to overturn the desired victim by throwing some
object at it. These profit by all the exterior circumstances
which are capable of frightening the game, of
stunning it, and of rendering capture easy. But it is
by studying each separate feature that we shall best
be able to observe the close way in which these
industries are related to our own. It is impossible to
bring forward all the facts relating to the search for
prey among animals; we can only take a few as signposts
which mark the road.

Hunting in ambush. — The most rudimentary
method of hunting in ambush is simply to take
advantage of some favourable external circumstance
to obtain concealment, and then to await the
approach of the prey. Some animals place themselves
behind a tuft of grass, others thrust themselves
into a thicket, or hang on to the branch of a tree in
order to fall suddenly on the victim who innocently
approaches the perfidious ambush. The Crocodile, as
described by Sir Samuel Baker, conceals himself by
his skill in plunging noiselessly. On the bank a
group of birds have alighted. They search the
mud for insects or worms, or simply to approach the
stream to drink or bathe. In spite of his great size
and robust appetite the Crocodile does not disdain
this slight dish; but the least noise, the least wrinkle
on the surface of the water would cause the future
 repast to vanish. The reptile plunges, the birds
continue without suspicion to come and go. Suddenly
there emerges before them the huge open jaw armed
with formidable teeth. In the moment of stupor and
immobility which this unforeseen apparition produces
a few imprudent birds have disappeared within the
reptile’s mouth, while the others fly away. In the
same sly and brutal manner he snaps up dogs, horses,
oxen, and even men who come to the river to drink.

One of the most dangerous ambushes which can be
met on the road by animals who resort to a spring is
that prepared by the Python. This gigantic snake
hangs by his tail to the branch of a tree and lets
himself droop down like a long creeper. The victim
who comes within his reach is seized, enrolled,
pounded in the knots which the snake forms around
him. It is not necessary to multiply examples of
this simple and widespread method of hunting.

Not content with utilising the natural arrangements
they meet with, there are animals which construct
genuine ambushes, acting thus like Man, who builds
in the middle or on the edge of ponds, cabins in which
to await wild ducks, or who digs in the path of a lion
a hole covered with trunks of trees, at the bottom of
which he may kill the beast without danger. Certain
insects practise this method of hunting. The Fox, for
instance, so skilful a hunter in many respects, constructs
an ambush when hunting hares.11

The larva of the Tiger Beetle (Cicindela campestris)
constructs a hole about the size of a feather quill,
disposed vertically, and of a depth, enormous for its
size, of forty centimetres. It maintains itself in this
tube by arching its supple body along the walls at a
 height sufficient for the top of its head to be level
with the surface of the soil, and to close the opening
of the hole. (Fig. 1.) A little insect — an ant, a
young beetle, or something similar — passes. As soon
as it begins to walk on the head of the larva, the
latter letting go its hold of the wall allows itself to
fall to the bottom of the trap, dragging its victim with
it. In this narrow prison it is easily able to obtain
the mastery over its prey, and to suck out the liquid
parts.12

Fig. 1.

The Staphilinus Cæsareus acts with still greater
shrewdness; not only is his pit more perfect, but he
takes care to remove all traces of preceding repasts
which might render the place obviously one of
carnage. He chooses a stone, beneath which he
hollows a cylindro-conical hole with extremely
smooth walls. This hole is not to serve as a trap,
 that is to say that the proprietor has no intention of
causing any pedestrian to roll to the bottom. It is
simply a place of concealment in which he awaits
the propitious moment. No creature is more patient
than this insect, and no delay discourages him. As
soon as some small animal approaches his hiding-place
he throws himself on it impetuously, kills
it, and devours it. Near his ditch he has hollowed a
second of a much coarser character, the walls of which
have not been smoothed with the same care. One
here sees elytra and claws piled up; they are the hard
and horny parts which he has not been able to eat.
The heap in this ditch is not then an alimentary store.
It is the oubliette in which the Staphilinus buries the
remains of his victims. If he allowed them to
accumulate around his hole all pedestrians would
come to fear this spot and to avoid it. It would be
like the dwelling of a Polypus, which is marked by
the numerous carapaces of crabs and shells which
strew the neighbourhood.

The ambuscade of the Ant-lion is classic; it does
not differ greatly from the others. He excavates a
conical pitfall, in which he conceals himself, and
seizes the unfortunate ants and other insects whom
ill-chance causes to roll into it.13

The baited ambush. — A variety of ambush which
brings this method of hunting to considerable perfection
lies in inciting the prey to approach the
hiding-place instead of trusting to chance to bring
it there. In such circumstances Man places some
allurement in the neighbourhood — that is to say, one
of the foods preferred by the desired victim, or at
 least some object which recalls the form of that food,
as, for example, an artificial fly to obtain possession
of certain fishes.

It is curious to find that fish themselves utilise this
system; it is the method adopted by the Angler
and the Uranoscopus.14 The Uranoscopus scaber lives
in the Mediterranean. At the end of his lower jaw
there is developed a mobile and supple filament which
he is able to use with the greatest dexterity. Concealed
in the mud, without moving and only allowing
the end of his head to emerge, he agitates and vibrates
his filament. The little fishes who prowl in the
neighbourhood, delighted with the sight of this
apparent worm, regarding it as a destined prey, throw
themselves on to it, but before they are able to bite
and recognise their error they have disappeared in
the mouth of the proprietor of the bait.

The Angler (Lophius piscatorius) has not usurped
his rather paradoxical name. He retires to the midst
of the sea-weed and algæ. On his body and all
round his head he bears fringed appendages which,
by their resemblance to the leaves of marine plants,
aid the animal to conceal himself. The colour of
his body also does not contrast with neighbouring
objects. From his head arise three movable filaments
formed by three spines detached from the upper fin.
He makes use of the anterior one, which is the longest
and most supple. Working in the same way as the
Uranoscopus, the Angler agitates his three filaments,
giving them as much as possible the appearance of
worms, and thus attracting the little fish on which he
feeds.

In these two examples we see a special organ
 utilised for a particular function; it is one of the
intermediate cases, already referred to, between the
true industries involving ingenuity and the simple
phenomena due to adaptations and modifications of
the body.

Hunting in the dwelling or in the burrow. — All
these methods of hunting or of fishing by surprise are
for the most part practised by the less agile species
which cannot obtain their prey by superior fleetness.
Midway between these two methods may be placed
that which consists in surprising game when some
circumstance has rendered it motionless. Sometimes
it is sleep which places it at the mercy of the hunter,
whose art in this case consists in seeking out its
dwelling. Sometimes he profits by the youth of the
victim, like all bird-nesters, whose aim is to eat the
eggs or to devour the young while still incapable of
flying. The animals who eat birds’ eggs are numerous
both among mammals and reptiles, as well as
among birds themselves.

The Alligator of Florida and of Louisiana delights
in this chase. He seeks in particular the Great Boat-Tail
(Quiscalus major) which nests in the reeds at the
edge of marshes and ponds. When the young have
come out and are expecting from their parents the
food which the chances of the hunt may delay, they
do not cease chirping and calling by their cries. But
the parents are not alone in hearing these appeals.
They may also strike the ears of the alligator, who
furtively approaches the imprudent singers. With
a sudden stroke of his tail he strikes the reeds
and throws into the water one or more of the
hungry young ones, who are then at his mercy.
(Audubon.)

 The animals who feed on species living in societies
either seize on their prey when isolated or when all
the members of the colony are united in their city. A
search for the nest is necessary in the case of creatures
who are very small in comparison with the hunter, as
in the case of ants and the Ant-eater. But the ant-eater
possesses a very long and sticky tongue, which
renders the capture of these insects extremely easy;
when he finds a frequented passage it is enough to
stretch out his tongue; all the ants come of their own
accord and place themselves on it, and when it is
sufficiently charged he withdraws it and devours
them. The African Orycteropus (Fig. 2), who is also
a great eater of ants and especially of termites, is
equally aided by a very developed tongue; but he
has less patience than the ant-eater, and he adds to
this resource other proceedings which render the hunt
more fruitful and enable him to obtain a very large
number of insects at one time. Thanks to his keenness
of scent he soon discovers an ant-path bearing
the special and characteristic odour which these
Hymenoptera leave behind them, and he follows the
track which leads to their nest. On arriving there,
without troubling himself about the scattered insects
that prowl in the neighbourhood, he sets himself to
penetrate into the midst of the dwelling, and with his
strong claws hollows out a passage which enables him
to gain access. On the way he pierces walls, breaks
down floors, gathering here and there some fugitives,
and arrives at last at the centre, in which millions of
animals swarm. He then swallows them in large
mouthfuls and retires, leaving behind him a desert
and a ruin in the spot before occupied by a veritable
palace, full of prodigious activity.

Fig. 2.

 The colonies are not only exposed to the devastations
of those who feed on their members; they have
other enemies in the animals who covet their stores
of food. The most inveterate robber of bees is the
nocturnal Death’s Head Moth. When he has succeeded
in penetrating the hive the stings of the
proprietors who throw themselves on him do not
 trouble him, thanks to his thick fleece of long hairs
which the sting cannot penetrate; he makes his way
to the cells, rips them open, gorges himself with
honey, and causes such havoc that in Switzerland, in
certain years when these butterflies were abundant,
numbers of hives have been found absolutely empty.15
Many other marauders and of larger size, such as the
Bear, also spread terror among these laborious insects
and empty their barns. No animal is more crafty
than the Raven, and the fabulist who wished to make
him a dupe was obliged to oppose to him the very
cunning Fox in order to render the tale fairly life-like.
A great number of stories are told concerning the
Raven’s cleverness, and many of them are undoubtedly
true. There is no bolder robber of nests. He
swallows the eggs and eats the little ones of the
species who cannot defend themselves against him;
he even seeks the eggs of Sea-gulls on the coast;
but in this case he must use cunning, for if he is discovered
it means a serious battle. On the coast also
the Raven seeks to obtain possession of the Hermit-crab.
This Crustacean dwells in the empty shells of
Gasteropods. At the least alarm he retires within
this shell and becomes invisible, but the bird advances
with so much precaution that he is often able to seize
the crab before he has time to hide himself. If the
raven fails he turns the shell over and over until the
impatient crustacean allows a claw to emerge; he is
then seized and immediately devoured.

If there is a question of hunting larger game like a
Hare, the Raven prefers to take an ally. They start
him at his burrow and pursue him flying. In spite of
his proverbial rapidity the hare is scarcely able to
 flee more than two hundred yards. He succumbs
beneath vigorous blows on his skull from the beaks of
his assailants. During winter, in the high regions of
the Alps, when the soil is covered with snow, this
chase is particularly fruitful for ravens. The story
is told of that unfortunate hare who had hollowed
out in the snow a burrow with two entrances. Two
of these birds having recognised his presence, one
entered one hole in order to dislodge the hare, the
other awaited him at the other opening to batter his
head with blows from his beak and kill him before he
had time to gain presence of mind.16

Rooks sometimes hunt in burrows by ingeniously-concerted
operations. Mr. Bernard17 has described
the interesting way in which the Rook hunts voles or
field-mice in Thuringia. His curiosity was excited
by the way in which numerous rooks stood about a
field cawing loudly. In a few days this was explained:
the field was covered with rooks; the
original assemblage had been calling together a
mouse-hunt, which could only be successfully carried
out by a large number of birds acting in conjunction.
By diligently probing the ground and blocking up
the network of runs, the voles, one or more at a
time, were gradually driven into a corner. The hunt
was very successful, and no more voles were seen in
that field during the winter.

Coursing. — Other animals are not easily discouraged
by the swiftness of their prey; they count on their
own resistance in order to tire the game; some of
them also manage their pursuit in the most intelligent
way, so as to preserve their own strength while the
 tracked animal’s strength goes on diminishing until
exhaustion and fatigue place him at their mercy.

Mammals especially, such as Dogs, Wolves, and
Foxes, exercise this kind of chase; it is, exactly, the
coursing which Man has merely had to direct for his
own benefit. Wild dogs pursue their prey united in
immense packs. They excite each other by barking
while they frighten the game and half paralyse his
efforts. No animal is agile and strong enough to
be sure of escaping. They surround him and cut off
his retreat in a most skilful manner; Gazelles and
Antelopes, in spite of their extreme nimbleness and
speed, are caught at last; Boars are rapidly driven
into a corner; their vigorous defence may cost the
life of some of the assailants, but they nevertheless
become the prey of the band who rush on to the
quarry. In Asia wild dogs do not fear even to
attack the tiger. Many no doubt are crushed by a
blow of the animal’s paw or strangled in his jaws, but
the death of comrades does not destroy either the
courage or the greediness of the surviving aggressors.
Their number also is such that the great beast,
covered by agile enemies who cling to him and
wound him in every part, must at last succumb.

Wolves hunt also in considerable bands. Their
audacity, especially when pressed by hunger in the
bad season, is well known. In time of war they
follow armies, to attack stragglers and to devour the
dead. In Siberia they pursue sledges on the snow
with terrible perseverance, and the pack is not delayed
by the massacre of those who are shot. A few stop
to devour at once their fallen comrades, while the
others continue the pursuit.

Besides these brutal chases wolves seem able to
 exercise a genuine feint. Sometimes it is a couple
who hunt in concert. If they meet a flock, as they
are well aware that the dog will bravely defend the
animals entrusted to him, that he is vigilant, and that
his keen scent will bring him on them much sooner
than the shepherd, it is with him that they first
occupy themselves. The two wolves approach
secretly; then suddenly one of them unmasks and
attracts the attention of the dog, who rushes after
him with such ardour that he fails to perceive that
in the meantime the second thief has seized the
sheep and dragged it into the wood. The dog finally
renounces his pursuit of the fugitive and returns to
his flock. Then the two confederates join each other
and share the prey. In other circumstances it is a
wolf who hunts with his female. When they wish to
obtain possession of a deer, whose robust flight may
last a long time, one of the couple, the male for
example, pursues him and directs his chase in such a
way that the game must pass by a place where the
female wolf is concealed. She then takes up the
chase while the male reposes. It is an organised
system of relays. The strength of the deer becomes
necessarily exhausted; he cannot resist the animation
shown by his active foe, and is seized and killed.
Then the other wolf calmly approaches the place of
the feast to share his part of the booty.

The small but bold Hawk called the Merlin also
courses in relays in exactly the same manner. These
birds pursue a Lark or a Swallow in the most systematic
manner. First one Merlin chases the bird
for a short time, while his companion hovers quietly
at hand; then the latter relieves his fellow-hunter,
who rests in his turn. The victim is soon tired out
 and caught in mid-air by one of the Merlins, who
flies away with him, leaving his companion to hunt
alone, while he feeds the young brood.18

The Fox also successfully uses this method of
coursing with relays. There are indeed few animals
who possess so many tricks of all kinds to gain
possession of their prey. Constantly prowling about
the fields, he neglects no propitious circumstance,
and profits by all the advantages furnished by the
situation of places or the habits of the game he is
seeking. He pursues tired or wounded animals
whom he meets, and easily masters them. If he
finds a burrow, he quickly hollows a hole and brings
to light the young rabbits who thought themselves
in safety in the bowels of the earth; he robs nests
placed in the thickets, and devours the young birds.
Beehives are not protected against his greediness by
the stings of the swarms; he rolls on the earth,
crushes his assailants, and finally triumphs over the
discouraged insects and gorges himself with honey.

 

Fig. 3.

Birds of prey also invent ingenious combinations
to reach a good flier. Most of the great rapacious
birds of rapid flight or with powerful talons are so
well organised for the chase that they have no need
of cunning. To see the prey, to seize it and devour
it, are acts accomplished in a moment by the single
fact of their natural organisation. It is rather among
those who are less well endowed that one finds
real art and frequent ruses. The Goshawk (Astur
palumbarius, Fig. 3) is sufficiently strong and flies
sufficiently well to seize small birds; but in order to
obtain a copious repast at one snatch he prefers to
 attack pigeons. Generally the strength of their wings
promptly places them in safety. He therefore hides
himself in the neighbourhood of the pigeon-house,
ready to fall on those pigeons who pick up food around.
But the pigeons are suspicious, and if they recognise
his presence they remain hidden in their dwellings.
In this case it has sometimes been found that the
Goshawk has quietly flown up to their house and
alighted on its summit; there, by violently beating
his wings, he gives a succession of sudden blows to
the roof. Startled and frightened by this unaccustomed
noise, the inhabitants dart out, and the
bird of prey can then profit by their alarm to seize
one or two.19

The Pseudaetus is also obliged to have recourse to
a subterfuge in order to gain birds that fly well. He
easily destroys fowls, and hunts them so successfully
that in Spain, in certain isolated farms, it has been
necessary to give up rearing fowls in consequence of
these numerous depredations. But to seize pigeons
is not so easy a matter. Generally, according to
Jerdon, two birds unite to attack a band. One of
the aggressors pretends to wish to seize them from
below. This is a very unusual method, for birds of
prey always rise above the game in order to throw
themselves down on it. This puts out the pigeons,
and they fear the manœuvre all the more because
they are unaccustomed to it. During this instant of
confusion the second assailant passes unperceived
above them, plunges into the midst and seizes a
pigeon; there is a new panic, by which the first
aggressor profits in order to rise rapidly in his turn
and seize a second victim.

 Struggles that terminate the hunt. — It is not always
sufficient for the hunter to find game and to reach it.
If the game is of large size it may be able to hold its
own, and the pursuit may end in a violent struggle,
in which both skill and cunning are necessary to
obtain conquest.

The Bald Eagle of North America (Haliäetus leucocephalus)
hides himself on a rock by the edge of a
stream and awaits the passing of a swan. This eagle
is brave and strong, but the palmiped is vigorous, and
though inferior in the air, he has an advantage on
the water, and may escape death by plunging. The
eagle knows this advantage, so he compels the swan
to remain in the air by attacking him from below
and repeatedly striking his belly. Weakened by
the flow of blood, and obliged to fly, not being
able to reach the water without finding the sharp
beak which strikes him, the swan succumbs in this
unequal combat, which has been vividly described
by Audubon.

Fig. 4.

The bird who displays the most remarkable qualities
in this struggle which terminates the chase, exhibiting
indeed a real fencing match, is the Secretary Bird
(Gypogeranus reptilivorus. Fig. 4.) He is the
more interested in striking without being himself
struck since the fangs with which his prey, the
snake, is generally armed might at the first blow give
him a mortal wound. In South Africa he pursues
every snake, even the most venomous. Warned by
instinct of the terrible enemy he has met, the reptile
at first seeks safety in flight; the Secretary follows
him on foot, and the ardour of the chase does not
prevent him from being constantly on guard. This
is because the snake, finding himself nearly overtaken,
 suddenly turns round, ready to use his
defensive weapons. The bird stops, and turns in
one of his wings to protect the lower parts of his
body. A real duel then begins. The snake throws
himself on his enemy, who at each stroke parries
with the end of his wing; the fangs are buried in
the great feathers which terminate it, and there leave
their poison without producing any effect. All this
time with the other wing the Secretary repeatedly
strikes the reptile, who is at last stunned, and rolls
 over on the earth. The conqueror rapidly thrusts
his beak into his skull, throws his victim into the
air, and swallows him.20

Hunting with projectiles. — It has often been repeated
that Man is the only creature sufficiently
intelligent to utilise as weapons exterior objects like
a stone or a stick; in a much greater degree, therefore,
it was said, was he the only creature capable of
striking from afar with a projectile. Nevertheless
creatures so inferior as fish exhibit extreme skill in
the art of reaching their prey at a distance. Several
act in this way. There is first the Toxotes jaculator,
who lives in the rivers of India. His principal food
is formed by the insects who wander over the leaves
of aquatic plants. To wait until they fell into the
water would naturally result in but meagre fare. To
leap at them with one bound is difficult, not to
mention that the noise would cause them to flee.
The Toxotes knows a better trick than that. He
draws in some drops of water, and, contracting his
mouth, projects them with so much force and certainty
that they rarely fail to reach the chosen aim,
and to bring into the water all the insects he desires.21
(Fig. 5.) Other animals also squirt various liquids,
sometimes in attack, but more especially in defence.
The Cephalopods, for example, emit their ink, which
darkens the water and allows them to flee. Certain
insects exude bitter or fœtid liquids; but in all
these cases, and in others that are similar, the
 animal finds in his own organism a secretion which
happens to be more or less useful to his conservation.
The method of the Toxotes is different. It is a
foreign body which he takes up, and it is an intended
victim at which he takes aim and which he strikes;
his movements are admirably co-ordinated to obtain
a precise effect.

 

Fig. 5.

Another fish, the Chelinous of Java, also acts in
this manner. He generally lives in estuaries. It is
therefore a brackish water which he takes up and
projects by closing his gills and contracting his
mouth; he can thus strike a fly at a distance of
several feet. Usually he aims sufficiently well to
strike it at the first blow, but sometimes he fails.
Then he begins again until he has succeeded, which
shows that his movements are not those of a machine.
He knows what he is doing, what effect ought to be
produced, and whether this desired result has happened,
and he perseveres until the insect has fallen.
These facts are unquestioned; the Chinese preserve
these curious fish in jars, and amuse themselves by
making them carry on this little exercise. Many
observers have witnessed and described it.

Particular circumstances put to profit. — In the
various kinds of hunting which we have been passing
in review, it is certain that the animals in question
generally exercise them nearly always in the same
manner. If an animal has carried out a ruse successfully
he does not abandon it, but reproduces it as
often as it is efficacious. When, however, conditions
happen to change, animals are prompt to profit by
them, and one sees how all these acts are derived
from reflection. This is the clearer the more the
favourable circumstance is accidental and unforeseen,
 when it is not possible to consider the animals as
accustomed to profit by it.

In the wild regions of Africa it happens that from
some reason or another, perhaps from the effect of
lightning on immense forests, dense thickets or plains
covered by tall plants become the prey of gigantic
fires which spread as long as they find food on their
road. The heat as of a furnace arises above and
around; an acrid smoke veils everything, and the
frightened animals flee before the scourge. Travellers
who have witnessed these magnificent scenes often
insist on the panics thus produced, and describe the
inoffensive lion fleeing in the midst of a herd of
gazelles. All are seized by the same fear, because all
are exposed to the same danger. But birds, whose
wings can carry them at will afar from the furnace,
preserve greater presence of mind, and profit by the
public calamity and general anxiety to make a
successful hunt and copious feasts. One may see the
birds of prey flying in front of the fire and seizing
easy victims. Certain birds of Africa are the most
furious hunters during a fire. Legions of insects
flee far from the tall dried plants, and clouds of
birds arrive to throw themselves on them. They
pursue them with incredible audacity through the
smoke close to the flames and always retire in time
to avoid singeing. A member of the Crow family
who inhabits India, Anomalocorax splendens, enjoys
a deserved reputation of astuteness and allows no
opportunity to escape without seizing it by the
forelock. In ordinary times his food is composed of
very varied substances — crabs, insects, worms, etc.;
but if he perceives afar an ascending cloud he
immediately abandons his small researches, knowing
 there is something better to be done over there. He
is not selfish, and he calls a few comrades and they all
put themselves into position to await events. They
know very well the relation that exists between this
smoke and the prey they covet. The fire indicated
by the smoke can have no other reason in this hot
country than the cooking of food. A Hindoo family
are in fact installed and preparing their repast. The
birds see all this and observe. The Hindoos are
accustomed to throw outside the remains of their
meals, and the Anomalocorax, who have come together
from afar to await patiently this result, then throw
themselves on the quarry. (Jerdon.)

Tennent narrates a singular trick which was twice,
to his knowledge, played on a dog by two of these
small glossy crows of Ceylon. The dog was gnawing a
bone and would not be disturbed from the pure delight
of sucking the marrow of which he was the legitimate
proprietor. A crow approached the scene of the
feast, and conceived the design of taking possession
of it; he began by hopping around the dog, going
and coming, trying to attract the animal’s attention
and ready to profit by the first distraction. His
gambols remaining without result, he understood that
he would not succeed and he flew away; but it was
only to return accompanied by a friend possessing as
little respect as himself for the property of others.
The associate perched on a branch a few steps away,
while the first crow renewed his attempts by flying
around the bone and the dog; but the latter remained
impassive. Then the second personage, whose part
had hitherto been to remain contemplative, flew off
his branch, threw himself on the dog and gave him a
formidable blow on the spine. Seized with indignation,
 the dog turned round to punish the author of
this unjustifiable aggression; but the bird was already
far away, and in the meanwhile from the other side
the first Anomalocorax seized the long-coveted bone
and also took flight. The feelings of the sheepish
dog who saw both his vengeance and his repast flying
away in the air may be better imagined than
described.22

All the birds, indeed, of this family know how to
reach their ends. I have already spoken of certain
hunts of the Raven; it is even said that in Iceland he
knows when a ewe is going to give birth to young,
and awaits this moment with immense patience. As
soon as the lamb appears the Raven alights on him,
digs out his eyes, and devours them.

The Quelelis or Guadaloupe Caracara (Polyborus
lutosus), a Californian bird of prey, is a cruel enemy
to animals like the goat when they are about to bring
forth their young. No sooner is one kid born, and
while the mother is yet in labour with the second,
than the birds pounce upon it, and should the mother
be able to interfere, she is assaulted also. If there are
a number of young kids together, the birds unite their
forces and with great noise and flapping of wings
succeed in separating the weakest and killing it.23

Dr. J. Lowe has recently called attention to a very
curious method of attracting prey adopted by the
Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) at Orotava, Teneriffe.24
This bird has discovered that the juice exuded by
certain flowers (Hibiscus Rosa sinensis and Abutilon
frondosum) is attractive to the insects upon which
 he preys; he therefore punctures the petals of these
flowers in order to promote the exudation of this
viscid secretion.

Many of us in our schooldays have admired the
intelligence of Jackdaws having their nests in some
old tower or belfry. They are able to distinguish
according to the hour the significance of the various
school bells. Most of these clangs do not move them,
and they continue to attend to their affairs without
paying attention. Their attention is only attracted
by the ringing which marks the beginning and the end
of recreation time. At the sound of the first they all
flee and abandon the courts before even a single pupil
has yet appeared. The bell, on the contrary, which
marks the end of recreation time invites them to
descend in a band to collect the crumbs of lunch.
They arrive in a hurry, so as to be the first to profit
by the repast, not waiting even until the place is
abandoned; they know very well that the young
people still there are not to be feared, having no time
now to be occupied with them.

In this class of facts, there are a certain number
which may be considered as more marked by custom
and perhaps less marked by spontaneous reflection.
Such, for example, is the custom of Sharks and Seagulls
to follow ships.

In the seas where Dog-fish are abundant, one or
more of them become attached to a ship, and quit it
neither night nor day. One may believe sometimes
that they are not there; but if any object is thrown
into the sea, the fin of one of these monsters appears
at the surface; everything which is thrown overboard
disappears in their large jaws — kitchen refuse, bottles,
etc. When a dead body is thrown into the sea it
 is soon seized by the shark, while living men who
fall into the water have great difficulty in escaping,
and are often drawn up horribly mutilated and half
dead.

Sea-gulls also follow vessels when they approach
the coast. It is a pleasant sight to see the noisy band
animating the monotonous splendour of the ocean;
they arrive as soon as a vessel is one or two days’
journey from land. Henceforth they do not leave
her, flying behind and plunging in her wake; they
profit by the disturbance produced by the gigantic
machine to capture the stunned fishes.

On land exactly the same kind of chase is carried
on by Rooks, Crows, and Magpies, who follow the
plough to seize the worms which the ploughshare
turns up in the open earth. In autumn they cover
the fields, animated and active, pilfering as the furrow
is hollowed out.

Certain rapacious birds who are awkward in
hunting, especially Kites, make up for their lack of
skill by audacious impudence. Constantly on the
watch for better hunters like the Falcon, they throw
themselves on him as soon as he has seized his prey.
The proud bird, though much more courageous,
stronger, and more skilful than these thieves, usually
abandons the prey either because the burden embarrasses
him in the struggle, or else because he knows
that he can easily find another. These highway robbers
of the air often unite to gain possession of a prey
already taken and killed, and ready to be eaten. A
handsome Falcon of the Southern States of North
America, the Caracara Eagle (Polyborus cheriway),
frequently steals fish from the Brown Pelicans on the
coast of Texas. When the Pelicans are returning
 from their expeditions with pouches filled with fish,
the Caracaras attack them until they disgorge, and
then alight to devour the stolen prey. They do not
attack the outgoing birds, but only the incoming
ones, and they wait until they reach the land (so that
the contents of the pouches may not fall into the
water) before pouncing on them.25

Among other animals a habit has been formed from
some special circumstance. As an extreme case in
this group we meet with parasites of whom some
cannot live outside a particular nest, and are even
absolutely transformed by this kind of life. But
between these and independent hunters there are
an extreme number of intermediate stages, of which
it is sufficient to mention a few.26

The Fierasfer, a little fish of the Mediterranean,
installs himself in the respiratory cavity of a Holothurian;
he does not live at the expense of his host’s
flesh, but contents himself with levying a tax on the
foods which enter the cavity. It is a case of commensalism
of which there are very numerous examples.
Other cases may be mentioned which are
still further removed from parasitism. Among these
may be mentioned the birds who relieve large
mammals of their vermin.

One of them, the Red-beaked Buffalo bird (Buphaga
erythrorhyncha), lives in Abyssinia. This bird is insectivorous.
He has remarked that the ruminants
constitute baits for flies; therefore he never leaves
these animals, hops about on their backs and delivers
them from annoying parasites; the buffaloes, who
 recognise this service, allow the bird to wander
quietly over their hide. The Buphaga, who gives himself
up entirely to this kind of chase, is often called the
Beef-eater. He is only found in the society of flocks,
of camels, buffaloes, or oxen. He settles on the back,
legs, and snouts of these living baits. They remain
passive even when he opens the skin in order to draw
out the flies’ larva; they know the benefit of this little
operation. The patience of the oxen is certainly due
to custom, for it is observed that herds which are not
used to this bird manifest great terror when he
prepares to alight on them, so that they even take
flight from this small aggressor.

Sometimes it is not easy to understand the advantages
derived by the animal from the conditions in
which he is usually found. Thus, for example, there
is a fish, the Polyprion cernium, which accompanies
driftwood on which Barnacles have fixed themselves.
Yet the remains of these Crustaceans are never found
in his stomach, and it is known on the contrary that
he lives exclusively on other small fish. It is possible
that these find their food in fragments of wood at the
expense of the barnacles, and that therefore the Polyprion
which hunts them is always near driftwood thus
garnished.

Methods of utilising the captured game. — Frequently
it is not enough for the animal to obtain possession
of his prey. Before making his meal it is still
necessary to find a method of making use of it, either
because the eatable parts are buried in a thick shell
which he is unable to break, or because he has captured
a creature which rolls itself into a ball and bristles its
plumes. Here are some of the more curious practices
followed in such cases.

 Sometimes it is a question of carrying off a round
fruit which offers no prominence to take hold of. The
Red-headed Melanerpes (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)
of North America is very greedy with regard to apples,
and feeds on them as well as on cherries. It takes
him a considerable time to consume an apple, and as
he is well aware of the danger he runs by prolonging
his stay in an orchard, he wishes to carry away his
booty to a safe and sheltered spot. He vigorously
plunges his open beak into the apple; the two mandibles
enter separately, and the fruit is well fixed; he
detaches it and flies away to the chosen retreat. Apes
are very skilful in utilising their booty. Cocoa-nuts
are rather hard to open, but Apes do not lose any part
of them; they first tear off the fibrous envelope with
their teeth, then they enlarge the natural holes with
their fingers, and drink the milk. Finally, in order to
reach the kernel they strike the nut on some hard
object exactly as Man would do. The Baboons (Cynocephali),
whose courage is prodigious, since they will
fight in a band against a pack of dogs or even against
a leopard, are also very prudent and very skilful.
They know that courage is no use against the sting
of a venomous snake, and that the best thing is to
avoid being bitten. The scorpion, whose dart is perfidious,
also inspires their distrust, but as they like
eating him they endeavour to catch him. This is not
indeed very difficult if one carefully observes his
movements, and it is possible to seize him suddenly
by the tail, as I have often done, without being stung.
Apes employ this method, pull out his sting, and
crunch the now inoffensive Arachnid. They also like
ants, but fear being bitten by them; when they wish
to enjoy them, they place an open hand on an ant-hill
 and remain motionless until it is covered by insects.
They can then absorb them at one stroke without
fear.

One would not think that an animal so well defended
as the Hedgehog need fear becoming the prey
of the Fox. Rolled in a ball, bristling with hard
prickles which cruelly wound an assailant’s mouth,
nothing will induce him to unroll so long as he
supposes the enemy still in the neighbourhood. It is
vain to strike him or to rub him on the earth; he
remains on the armed defensive. Only one circumstance
disturbs him to the point of making him quit
his prudent posture; it is to feel himself in the water,
or even simply to be moist. The fox is acquainted
with this weakness, therefore as soon as he has
captured a hedgehog he rolls him in the nearest
marsh to strangle him as soon as his head appears.
It may happen that there is no puddle in the neighbourhood
suitable for this bath; it is said that in this
case the fox is not embarrassed for so small a matter,
and provides from his own body the wherewithal to
moisten the hedgehog.

The combination is complicated, and approaches
more nearly the methods employed by Man when the
animal makes use of a foreign body, as a tool or as
a fulcrum, to achieve his objects. A snake is very
embarrassed when he has swallowed an entire egg
with the shell; he cannot digest it in that condition,
and the muscles of his stomach are not strong enough
to break it. The snake often finds himself in this condition,
and is then accustomed either to strike his body
against hard objects or to coil himself around them
until he has broken the envelope of the eggs he
contains.

 The Snake himself is treated in this way in South
America. The Sulphur Tyrant-bird picks up a young
snake by the tail, and, flying to a branch or stone,
uses it like a flail until its life is battered out.27

It would be a paradox to attribute great intelligence
to Batrachians; yet certain facts are recorded which
show them to be capable of reflection. Among others
the case is quoted of a green frog who obtained possession
of a small red frog, and who proposed to
swallow him. The other was naturally opposed to
the realisation of this scheme and struggled with
energy. Seeing that he would not succeed, the green
frog went towards the trunk of a tree and, still
holding his victim, struck him many times vigorously
against it. At last the red frog was stunned, and
could then be swallowed at leisure.

Gasteropods are not always protected by their calcareous
shells any more than tortoises are by their
carapaces; for certain birds know very well how
to break them. Ravens drop snails from a height,
and thus get possession of the contents of the
shell.

The most celebrated breaker of shells is the
Bearded Vulture or Lammergeyer (Gypäetos barbatus).
This rapacious bird is very common in Greece, where
he does not usually live on large prey. If he sometimes
carries away a fowl, it is exceptional; he prefers
to live on carrion or bones, the remains of the feasts
of man or of the true vulture. He rises very high
carrying these bones in his talons and allows them to
fall on a stone, swallowing the fragments after having
sucked out the marrow. He is also greedy of tortoises,
and uses the same method to break their
 carapaces, eating the soft parts. These facts have
been many times observed by Brehm and other trustworthy
naturalists. It is even said that in Greece
every Lammergeyer chooses a rock on which he
always comes to execute the tortoises he has captured.
It was no doubt beneath one of these birds so occupied
that, according to the story, mischance conducted
Æschylus.

Neither the beak nor the claws of the Shrike or
Butcher-bird (Lanius excubitor) are strong enough to
enable him to tear his prey easily. When he is not
too driven by hunger he installs himself in a comfortable
fashion for this carving process, places on a
thorn or on a pointed branch the victim he has made,
and when it is thus fixed easily devours it in threads.

The Lanius collurio, an allied bird, uses this method
still more frequently. He even prepares a small
larder before feasting. One may thus see on a thorny
branch spitted side by side Coleoptera, crickets, grasshoppers,
frogs, and even young birds, which he has
seized when they were in flight.28 (Fig. 6.)

Fig. 6.

Of all these well-attested facts that which perhaps
best shows how animals in certain circumstances may
take advantage of a foreign body to utilise the product
of the chase, is the following, the observation of
which is due to Parseval-Deschênes.29 He followed
during several hours an ant bearing a heavy burden.
On arriving at the foot of a little hillock the animal
was unable to mount with his load, and abandoned
it — a very extraordinary fact for one who knows the
 inconceivable tenacity of insects. The abandonment
therefore left hope of return. The ant at last met
one of his companions, who was also carrying a
burden. They stopped, took counsel for an instant,
bringing their antennæ together, and started for the
hillock. The second ant then left his burden, and
both together then seized a twig and introduced its
end beneath the first load which had been abandoned
because of its weight. By acting on the free extremity
of the twig they were able to use it exactly
as a lever, and succeeded almost without trouble in
passing their booty on to the other side of the little
hillock. It seems to me that these ants who invented
the lever are worthy of admiration, and that their
ingenuity does not yield to our own.

I will, finally, give an example of the methods of
surmounting a difficulty of another order in utilising
captured prey. It is not enough to capture prey, or
even to possess the means of utilising the prey when
captured. It is sometimes also necessary to prevent
the booty being taken possession of by some other
member of the same species as the hunter. Spiders
are specially liable to this danger, because their victims
are noisy when caught. Hudson has described an
ingenious device made use of by a species of Pholcus — a
quiet inoffensive Spider found in Buenos Ayres — to
escape this risk. This spider, though large, is a
weak creature, and possesses little venom to despatch
a fly quickly. The task of killing it is therefore long
and laborious, and the loud outcries of the victim
may be heard for a long time, sometimes for ten or
twelve minutes. The other spiders in the vicinity are
naturally excited by this noise, and hurry out from
their webs to the scene of conflict, and the strongest
 or most daring sometimes succeeds in carrying away
the fly from its rightful captor. Where, however, a
large colony have been long in undisturbed possession
of a ceiling, when one has caught a fly he rapidly
throws a covering of web over it, cuts it away, and
drops it down to hang suspended by a line at a
distance of two or three feet from the ceiling. The
other spiders arrive on the scene, but not finding the
cause of the disturbance retire to their own webs
again. When the coast is thus clear, our spider
proceeds to draw up the captive fly, now exhausted
by its struggles.30

War and brigandage. — When Man attacks animals
of another species, either to kill them and feed on their
flesh, or to steal the provisions which they have
amassed for themselves or their young, this is called
“hunting,” and is considered as perfectly legitimate.
When men turn to beings of their own species either
to kill them or to rob them, several different cases are
distinguished. If the assailants are few in number, it
is called “brigandage,” and is altogether reprehensible;
but if both assailant and assailed are considerable in
number, the action is called “war,” and receives no
reprobation.

There are hunters among animals as well as among
ourselves, and we have seen their various methods of
procedure; but there are also brigands and warriors,
and our superiority even in this department is not so
absolute as might be imagined.

Independently of ordinary brigandage, which is a
brutal and simple form of the struggle for life, manifested
every time the animals find themselves before
a single repast, there are interesting facts to be noted
 concerning robbers who act in a manner that Man
himself would not disavow. It is worthy of remark
that it is the most sociable animals who furnish us
with the most characteristic examples.

Bees have a just renown as honest and laborious
insects; there are, however, some who depart from
the right road, and they do not do it by halves.31
Among Hymenoptera the lazy profess the theory
that pollen belongs to all bees, and that stored-up
honey does not constitute private property. Therefore,
to protest against work and economy, sly
methods are employed by a few to utilise as their own
private property the resources which Nature has made
for all; they adopt the plan of plundering the working
insects, and carrying away for themselves the pollen
which the others had had the audacity to seek among
the flowers.

To arrive at these ends these clever Hymenoptera
employ cunning, and endeavour to pose as workers.
They place themselves at the approaches to a hive,
and when a worker arrives laden with its burden they
advance towards it, caress it with their antennæ, take
possession of its pollen as if to relieve it of a burden,
and then fly away to their own hive.

Others adopt less diplomatic proceedings. Some
unite to intrude in a badly-guarded hive, and gorge
themselves with the honey to which they have no
right. Following up this success, they bring accomplices;
a veritable band of brigands is organised, who
have no other industry than to seize honey already
manufactured in order to fill their own cells. Their
audacious enterprises are not always crowned with
success; they are repulsed in populous and well-organised
 hives, but they are successful in the weaker
ones. Sometimes they act with violence, and to
reduce a swarm they first fall on the queen and kill
her with their stings. Disconcerted by her death,
the bees allow the pillage of their dwelling, and the
cells are robbed from top to bottom. In some cases
the deprived proprietors, in their turn carried away
by this insanity of rapine, even go over themselves to
the assailing party, and carry their own honey to the
house of the bandits. Henceforth they unite their
fortune to that of the others, and share in their easy
and adventurous life.32

Bates has given a vivid description of the armies
of the South American Foraging Ants (Eciton).
They are carnivorous hunters who march in large
armies, and are found on the banks of the Amazon,
especially in the open campos of Santarem. The
Eciton legionis chiefly carry off the mangled larvæ
and pupæ of other ants. They will attack the nests
of a bulky species of the genus Formica; they lift out
the bodies of these ants and tear them in pieces, as
they are too large for a single Eciton to carry off,
a number of carriers seizing each fragment. They
seem to divide into parties, one party excavating
and the other carrying away the grains of earth to
a distance from the hole just sufficient to prevent
them rolling back into it. There is, however, no
rigid distribution of labour, the miners sometimes
becoming carriers, and then again assuming the
office of carrying off the prey. In marching off
they form a broad and compact column, sixty or
seventy yards in length, those who may be empty-handed
 assisting heavily-laden comrades. The Eciton
drepanophora attacks and carries off all kinds of
insects, especially wingless species, such as maggots,
caterpillars, larvæ of cockroaches, etc. An eyeless
species,33 the Eciton erratica, rapidly forms covered
passages under which to advance, and shows great
skill in fitting the keystone to these convex arcades.34

Belt has also made some extremely interesting
observations on the Ecitons, whom for intelligence he
places first among the ants of Central America, and
as such at the head of the Articulata.35

Expeditions to acquire slaves. — In order to reduce
one’s own species to slavery, it seems at first that an
intelligence is required as developed as that of Man.
It is necessary in fact to attack beings nearly equally
well endowed from an intellectual and physical
point of view. The enterprise evidently presents
every possible difficulty; but in case of success,
the result more than compensates for the effort. The
master in future need not trouble to work, for he
possesses a tool capable of doing everything as well as
himself, since by means of language he can easily
impress his will on the acts of the other; a domestic
animal is only an auxiliary, the slave entirely replaces
his owner in every labour.

Several species of ants thus obtain slaves. The
best known of these is the Polyergus rufescens. We
shall see in another chapter in what way they take
advantage of slaves, and what relations they have with
 them. At present it is only necessary to say how
the slaves are obtained. The expeditions organised
for this purpose are simply a perfected chase, both
by the way in which they are conducted, and by
the result to which they are to lead. It is not a
question of brutally seizing a prey to be devoured
immediately. The captured animal must be carefully
managed, carried away alive and in such a condition
that it has not yet known a free life, and can accustom
itself to new conditions. When the Polyergus or
Amazon ants desire to increase their band of slaves,
one first remarks extreme excitement in the neighbourhood
of the nest. They all come out helter-skelter,
but this disorder lasts only for a short time;
they soon form in line, and a regular serried column
is formed, longer or shorter according to the swarm;
it has been found to measure more than five metres
long by fifteen centimetres broad. The Amazons
advance, often changing their direction like a dog who
is seeking a scent: this is exactly what they are
doing, they smell the ground with their antennæ in
order to recognise traces of the Formica fusca. In
this march the eminently republican instinct of the
ants comes out. The band has no chief; those who
are at the head go forward smelling the ground; this
slackens their pace, so that they are passed by those
in the ranks behind. Little by little they fall into
single file, and this continuing during the whole course
of the march, a particular ant may sometimes be at
the head of the column, sometimes in the middle,
sometimes in the rear. At the end of a longer or
shorter period the expedition discovers a scent, which
it follows up to the nest of the Formica fusca. The
alarm is immediately given in the threatened ant-hill;
 the approach is announced of a band of slavers, and
they all rush out, some to face their terrible adversaries
while the others take up the nymphs and eggs in their
mandibles and flee in all directions to save as many as
possible of their offspring. The small ants endeavour
with their burdens to climb to the summits of blades
of grass; those who succeed are in safety with the
eggs that they carry, for the Amazons do not climb.
In the meanwhile a fierce battle is going on in the
neighbourhood of the nest between the Formica fusca,
who have made a sortie, and the slavers. It is an
unequal struggle, because the latter are armed with
formidable jaws, strong and sharp, borne by a large
head with powerful muscles. The defenders of the
nest are seized and placed hors de combat. They flee
discouraged, and the assailants force the entry of the
dwelling. They then take possession of the larvæ
and nymphs and come out again holding them in
their mandibles. The Polyergus thus laden flee as
fast as possible, escaping as well as they can from the
bereaved parents, who endeavour to save their offspring.
The band returns to the nest by the same
road that it came, although not the shortest, for these
insects seem to lack the sense of direction and are
guided by smell, so that they have to retrace all the
windings of the road. The march is slackened by the
weight of the booty (Fig. 7), and each travels according
to his fancy, without following the regular order
of the departure. At last the ants regain their
household. The slaves, warned of the return of the
victorious army, rush out to meet it and relieve the
arrivals of their burdens, some in their zeal even
carrying at the same time both the master and his
burden. The nymphs transported into the ant-hill
 are henceforth cared for by their fellow-slaves; the
Polyergus do not trouble themselves further.

Fig. 7.

Wars of the ants. — As sociable as man, the manners
of ants present more than one resemblance to his.
Slave-hunting expeditions are among these; the wars
that these insects undertake also resemble human
wars. The causes of the quarrel are of various
nature, most often they result from the close proximity
of two ant swarms. The rival colonies are
always meeting in the same regions and seeking the
same material; their mutual rivalry strains their
relations. A moment comes when one of them is
decidedly in the way of the other. At such a period,
which is almost a diplomatic crisis, great excitement
 is observed in the two camps; there is a continual
coming and going. One fine day, as the result of
some unknown act, — some mysterious casus belli or
declaration of war, — two armies place themselves on
the march against each other. They advance in
serried ranks. All ants do not follow the same
tactics; some throw themselves out in a thicker line,
while others form in squares. But as soon as action
commences the individual regains his rights. It is a
series of duels, of fierce hand-to-hand struggles.
Legs are torn away, heads are cut off by strokes of
the jaws, abdomens are disembowelled; a terrible
fury animates the combatants, and nothing will
disturb them from the battle. (Fig. 8.) By-and-by
 victory remains with the fiercest or the
strongest; the vanquished draw in, carrying away
as far as possible their wounded and their dead.
Nothing more is seen on the field of carnage but
separated limbs or heads which strew the ground like
a multitude of small black points. Often the enmity
is not extinguished after a battle, and several defeats
are necessary before the weaker swarm is destroyed
or forced to emigrate.36

Fig. 8.

CHAPTER III.
METHODS OF DEFENCE.

FLIGHT — FEINT — RESISTANCE IN COMMON BY SOCIAL
ANIMALS — SENTINELS.

Studying the animal kingdom in the manner here
adopted, that is to say by passing in review the
various manifestations of zoological life, we are
necessarily led to find certain industries which are
opposed to others. We have seen the various
methods of hunting; but attack calls forth defence.
In the struggle for life we find the action of beings
on other beings, and the re-action of these latter;
the final result is the expression of the difference
between the two according as one or the other is
stronger.

Flight. — Just as the most rudimentary method of
attack is simple pursuit, so the most simple and
natural method of defence is flight; but if very fleet
animals like hares, gazelles, and deer can escape by
simply exerting their maximum rapidity, it is not
always thus, and certain species exercise in flight
perfected methods appropriate to circumstances, and
so raise this method of defence to an art.

Of all animals the Ape most skilfully directs his
flight. There is no question that in his intelligence
we may find every rudiment of our own; but of all
 his qualities none more nearly approximates him to
us than his courage. There are no animals, not even
the great beasts of prey, who are so brave as Man and
the Ape, and who are capable of so much presence of
mind. It is perhaps this bravery which, joined to his
sociability, has most contributed to assure the supremacy
of the one. As to the other, the road has been
barred to him by his better-endowed cousin; he is
disappearing before Man, and not before nature or
other animals. In thinly-inhabited regions he is still
the king. It is generally considered that the Lion is
the incarnation of courage, but he is the strongest and
the best armed; there is none before whom he need
tremble. In captivity he allows himself to be struck
by the tamer, which the most miserable ape would
never suffer. The Lion will struggle with extreme
energy without calculating the difference of strength
between his opponent and himself, and will resist as
long as he is able to move. The Ape directs all his
courage and presence of mind to order his flight
when he has recognised a danger that is insurmountable.
He does not act like those infatuated beasts
who lose their head and rush away trembling, in
their precipitation paralysing a great part of their
resources. A band of apes in flight utilises all
obstacles that can be interposed between themselves
and the pursuer; they retire without excessive haste
and take advantage of the first shelter met with; a
female never abandons her young, and if a young one
remains behind, and is in danger of being taken, the
old males of the troop go back boldly to save it at
the peril of their lives. In this connection many
heroic facts have been narrated. This animal has too
frequently been judged by comparison with ourselves;
 he has been regarded as a human caricature and
covered with ridicule. We obtain a very much
higher idea of him if we compare him with other
animals. Always and everywhere there has been
a prejudiced insistence on his defects; we perceive
them so easily because they are an exaggeration
of our own; but he also possesses qualities of the
first order.

As an example of flight arranged with intelligence,
we have already seen how the Formica fusca profits
by the difficulty experienced by the Polyergus in
climbing. It hastily gains the summit of a blade of
grass, to place there in safety the larvæ which the
others wish to carry away. The ruses adopted in
flight are as varied as those of attack. Every animal
tries to profit as much as possible by all his resources.

Larks, a feeble race of birds, rise higher in the air
than any rapacious bird, and this is often a cause of
safety. Their greatest enemy is the Hobby (Hypotriorchis
sublutes). They fear him greatly, so that as
soon as one appears singing ceases, and each suddenly
closes his wings, falls to the earth and hides against
the soil. But some have mounted so high to pour
out their clear song that they cannot hope to reach
the earth before being seized. Then, knowing that
the bird of prey is to be feared when he occupies a
more elevated position from which he can throw himself
on them, they endeavour to remain always
above him. They mount higher and higher. The
enemy seeks to pass them, but they mount still,
until at last the Hobby, heavier, and little accustomed
to this rarefied air, grows tired and gives up the
pursuit.37

 The Gold-winged Woodpecker of the United States
(Colaptes auratus) often escapes Falcons either by
throwing himself into the first hole that he finds, or if
he cannot find one, through seizing the trunk of a tree
with his claws. As he is a very good climber, he
describes rapid spirals around it, and the falcon
cannot in flying trace such small circles. By this
method the Colaptes usually escapes.38

The Fox, who is so ingenious in hunting, is not
less so when his own safety is concerned. He knows
when it is best to flee or to remain; he is suspicious in
a surprising degree, not only of man but also of the
engines which man prepares against him. He recognises
them or smells them. Certain facts almost lead
us to suspect that he understands their mechanism.
When one of them has been surprised in his hole,
and the trap has been placed before every opening,
he will not emerge from the burrow. If hunger
becomes too imperious, he recognises that patience
will only change the manner of his death, and then
he decides to dare fate; but previously he had done
everything to flee without passing over the snare.
As long as he had claws and strength he hollowed out
the earth to form a new issue, but hunger rapidly
exhausted his vigour and he was not able to complete
the work. Foxes thus trapped have recognised immediately
when one of these engines went off, either
owing to another animal being caught or from some
other reason. In this case the captive understands
very well that the mechanism has produced its
effect, that it is no longer to be dreaded, and he
boldly emerges.

 It has happened that foxes have been caught in a
trap by a paw or else by the tail, when delicately
endeavouring to extract the bait. Recognising the
manner in which they are retained prisoners, certain
of them have had the intelligence and the courage to
cut off with their teeth the part engaged in the trap,
and to escape thus mutilated. St. John knew a fox
who thus escaped by amputating a paw, and who was
able to earn his living for three or four years subsequently,
when he was finally caught.

In Australia great kangaroo hunts are organised.
Generally the capture is sufficiently easy, and the
dogs are able to seize the kangaroo, but sometimes
he makes a long and rather original defence. If
possible, he directs his flight towards a river. If he
reaches it he enters, and, thanks to his great height,
he is able to go on foot to a depth where the dogs
are obliged to swim. Arrived there, he plants himself
on his two posterior legs and his tail, and, up to his
shoulders in the water, awaits the arrival of the pack.
With his anterior paws he seizes by the head the first
dog who approaches him, and, as he is more solidly
balanced than his assailant, he holds the dog’s nose
beneath the water as long as he can. Unless a second
dog speedily comes to the rescue the first is inevitably
drowned. If a companion arrives to free him, he is so
disturbed by this unexpected bath that he regains the
bank as quickly as possible, and has no further desire to
attack this suffocating prey. A strong and courageous
old male can thus hold his own against twenty or
thirty dogs, drowning some and frightening others,
and the hunter is obliged to intervene and put an end
to this energetic defence by a bullet.39

 Feint. — Many animals, when they cannot escape
danger by flight, seek safety by various feints. The
device of feigning death is especially widespread.

Many coleopterous insects and Spiders simulate
death to perfection, although it has been ascertained
that they do not always adopt the attitude which
members of their species fall into when really dead.
But they remain perfectly motionless; neither leg
nor antenna stirs. McCook, who has devoted such
loving study to Spiders, remarks in his magnificent
work, that the Orbweavers, especially, possess this
habit. “One who touches an Orbweaver when hanging
upon its web will often be surprised to see it
suddenly cast itself from the snare, or appear to drop
from it, as though shot off by some unseen force.
Unless he understands the nature of the creature he
will be utterly at a loss to know what has become of
it. In truth it has simply dropped upon the ground
by a long thread which had been instantaneously
emitted, and had maintained the Aranead in its remarkable
exit, so that its fall was not only harmless,
but its return to the web assured. The legs are
drawn up around the body, and to the inexperienced
eye it has the external semblance of death. In this
condition it may be handled, it may be turned over,
it may be picked up, and, for a little while at least,
will retain its death-like appearance.” Preyer, who
has studied this phenomenon in various animals,
comes to the conclusion that it is usually due to
unconsciousness as the result of fright.40 McCook is
unable to accept this theory of kataplexy, so far as
Spiders are concerned. “I have frequently watched
 Spiders in this condition,” he observes, “to determine
the point in question, and their behaviour always
impressed me as being a genuine feigning of death,
and therefore entirely within their volition. The
evidence is of such indefinite nature that one can
hardly venture to give it visible expression, but my
conviction is none the less decided. I may say,
however, that my observations indicate that the
Spiders remained in this condition as long as there
seemed to be any threatened danger; now and again
the legs would be relaxed slightly, as though the
creature were about getting ready to resume its
normal condition, but at the slightest alarm withheld
its purpose and relapsed into rigidity. The slight
unclasping of the legs, the faint quivering indications
of a purpose to come to life, and then the instant
suppression of the purpose, were so many evidences
that the power of volition was retained, and that the
Aranead might have at once recovered if it had been
disposed to do so. Again, I think that I have never
noticed anything like that gradual emergence from
the kataplectic condition which one would naturally
expect if the act were not a voluntary one. On
the contrary, the spider invariably recovered, immediately
sprang upon its legs, and hoisted itself
to its snare, or ran vigorously away among the
grasses.”41

Among fish, the Perch and the Sturgeon feign
 death; according to Couch,42 the Landrail, the Skylark,
the Corncrake adopt the same device. Among
mammals, the best-known example is probably the
Opossum.

An Opossum (Didelphys azaræ) of South America
enters farms to devastate the poultry yards. When
he is discovered he runs away, but is soon caught,
and blows from sticks rain upon him. Seeing that he
cannot escape correction he seeks at least to save his
life. Letting his head fall and straightening his inert
legs he receives the blows without flinching. Often
he is considered dead, and abandoned. The cunning
little beast, who desires nothing better, arises, shakes
himself, and rather bruised, but at all events alive,
takes his way back to the wood.

The Argentine Fox (Canis azaræ), when caught in
a trap or run down by dogs, though it fights savagely
at first, after a time drops down and apparently dies.
“When in this condition of feigning death,” Mr.
W. H. Hudson remarks, “I am quite sure that the
animal does not altogether lose consciousness. It is
exceedingly difficult to discover any evidence of life
in the opossum, but when one withdraws a little way
from the feigning fox, and watches him very attentively,
a slight opening of the eye may be detected;
and, finally, when left to himself, he does not recover
and start up like an animal that has been stunned,
but slowly and cautiously raises his head first, and
only gets up when his foes are at a safe distance.
Yet I have seen guachos, who are very cruel to
animals, practise the most barbarous experiments on
a captive fox without being able to rouse it into
exhibiting any sign of life. This has greatly puzzled
 me, since, if death-feigning is simply a cunning habit,
the animal could not suffer itself to be mutilated without
wincing. I can only believe that the fox, though
not insensible, as its behaviour on being left to itself
appears to prove, yet has its body thrown by extreme
terror into that benumbed condition which simulates
death, and during which it is unable to feel the
tortures practised on it. The swoon sometimes
actually takes place before the animal has been
touched, and even when the exciting cause is at a
considerable distance.”43

It is probably a measure of prudence which impels
certain birds to imitate successively the cries of neighbouring
animals, in order to persuade their enemies
that all the beasts in creation are brought together in
this spot except themselves. It is perhaps going a
little too far to suppose so reflective and diplomatic
a motive, but it is not doubtful that in certain cases
this custom can be very useful to them by putting
their enemies on the wrong scent. In North America
nearly all the species of the Cassique family have this
custom. If they wish to deceive the ears of the great
Falcons who watch them — or is it simple amusement? — they
interrupt their own song to introduce the most
varied melodies. If a sheep bleats, the bird immediately
replies to the bleating; the clucking of a turkey,
the cackling of a goose, the cry of the toucan are
noted and faithfully reproduced. Then the Cassique
returns to his own special refrain, to abandon it anew
on the first opportunity.44

Not only do animals thus feign death in order to
secure their own safety, but the female sometimes
 endeavours to attract an enemy’s attention and feigns
to be wounded in order to decoy him away from her
young. This trick is adopted especially by birds. In
illustration of this it will be sufficient to quote from
Bendire’s Life Histories of North American Birds
some observations by Mr. Ernest Thompson of
Toronto, regarding the Canadian Ruffled Grouse
(Bonasa umbellus togata), commonly called the Partridge
by Canadians: — “Every field man must be
acquainted with the simulation of lameness, by which
many birds decoy or try to decoy intruders from their
nests. This is an invariable device of the Partridge,
and I have no doubt that it is quite successful with
the natural foes of the bird; indeed it is often so with
Man. A dog, as I have often seen, is certain to be
misled and duped, and there is little doubt that a
mink, skunk, racoon, fox, coyote, or wolf would fare
no better. Imagine the effects of the bird’s tactics
on a prowling fox: he has scented her as she sits; he
is almost upon her, but she has been watching him,
and suddenly, with a loud ‘whirr,’ she springs up and
tumbles a few yards before him. The suddenness
and noise with which the bird appears cause the fox
to be totally carried away; he forgets all his former
experience, he never thinks of the eggs, his mind is
filled with the thought of the wounded bird almost
within his reach; a few more bounds and his
meal will be secured. So he springs and springs,
and very nearly catches her, and in his excitement
he is led on, and away, till finally the bird flies
off, leaving him a quarter of a mile or more from
the nest.

“If instead of eggs the Partridge has chicks, she
does not await the coming of the enemy, but runs to
 meet and mislead him ere yet he is in the neighbourhood
of the brood; she then leads him far away, and
returning by a circuitous route, gathers her young
together again by her clucking. When surprised she
utters a well-known danger-signal, a peculiar whine,
whereupon the young ones hide under logs and
among grass. Many persons say they will each
seize a leaf in their beaks and then turn over on
their backs. I have never found any support for
this idea, although I have often seen one of the little
creatures crawl under a dead leaf.”45

Resistance in common by social animals. — If neither
flight nor feint has saved an animal from the hunter,
he naturally fights as long as he can, but this struggle
in extremis is rarely crowned with success. Certain
species, especially those which live in society, are
able nevertheless, by uniting their efforts, to resist
enemies who would easily triumph over them if they
were isolated.

Among tribes of Apes mutual assistance, as described
by Brehm, is common. When by chance a
bird of prey, such as an eagle, has thrown himself on
a young ape who is amusing himself far from the
maternal eye, the little one does not let himself be
taken without resistance; he clings to the branches
and utters shrill and despairing cries. His appeals
are heard, and in an instant a dozen agile males
arrive to save him; they throw themselves on the
imprudent ravisher and seize him, one by the claw,
another by the neck, another by a wing, pulling him
about and harassing him. The bird struggles as well
as he can, distributing around him blows from talons
 and beak. But he is often strangled, and when his
temerity does not receive this extreme punishment,
the feathers which fall from him when he flies away
bear witness that he has not emerged unscathed from
the scuffle.

Animals like Buffaloes resist by a common defence
the most terrible Carnivora. Even the Tiger is their
victim, although if one of them met that wild beast
alone he would surely become its prey. Being very
agile, the tiger can reach by one leap the back of the
ruminant, whose brutal and massive force cannot thus
be exercised; but the feline who falls into the midst
of a troop fares very badly. One buffalo falls on him
with lowered horns, and with a robust blow of the
head throws him into the air. The tiger cannot
regain his senses, for as soon as he reaches the
ground, and often even before, he is again seized
and thrown towards other horns. Thus thrown from
one to another like a ball, he is promptly put to
death.

The less terrible Carnivora give Buffaloes no
trouble. Wolves do not dare to attack them when
they are united; they await in ambush the passage
of some strayed calf, and rapidly gain possession of
it before the rest of the flock are aware, or they would
dearly pay for their attack.

The Bisons of North America, near relatives of the
Buffaloes, also repulse Wolves in common; and if
Man succeeds better against them it is owing to
the skill which he shows in hiding himself and not
attracting their attention. Every one knows how
Indians hunt the Bison with arrows, and his pursuit
is very risky to the hunter, for he must not be discovered
by the game, as he would then be trodden
 underfoot or disembowelled. In the immense prairies
where these ruminants feed, a few Indians covered by
bisons’ skins advance on all fours, so that nothing
betrays their presence. The victims fall one by one
beneath silent blows, and their companions, who can
see nothing suspicious in the neighbourhood, are not
disturbed, supposing them, no doubt, to be peacefully
resting.

It is not only against other animals that these great
mammals have to defend themselves; they are much
afraid of heat, and they are accustomed, especially in
the south of Persia, to ruminate while lying in the
water during the hot hours of the day. They only
allow the end of the snout, or at most the head, to
appear. It is a curious spectacle when fording a
river to see emerge from the reeds the great heads
and calm eyes of the Buffaloes, who follow with
astonishment all the movements of the horsemen,
although nothing will disturb their sweet and fresh
siesta.

But let us return to defences arranged in common.
Horses are extremely sociable, and in the immense
pampas of South America those who become wild
again live in large troops. In difficult circumstances
they help one another. If a great danger threatens
them all the colts and mares assemble together, and
the stallions form a circle round the group, ready to
drive back the assailant. But they do not accomplish
this manœuvre in the presence of an enemy of small
importance. When a wolf appears on the plain all
the males run after him, seeking to strike him with
their feet and kill him, unless prompt flight delivers
him from their blows.

The sociable humour of these horses makes them
 compassionate towards their fellows who are enslaved
by man, and if a harnessed cart meets on its road a
free band, it is a serious matter to the owner. They
run up and surround the enslaved horse, saluting
him with their cries and gambols, having the air of
inviting him to throw his harness to the winds and
follow them on the plain, where grass grows for all
without work. Naturally the driver endeavours to
preserve his noble conquest, and distributes blows
with the whip to those who wish to debauch it. Then
the wild horses become furious, and throw themselves
on the vehicle; they break it with their feet and cut
their comrade’s traces with their teeth to enable
him to share their own free life. The enterprise
satisfactorily concluded, they gallop away neighing
in triumph.

It is owing to their union in large bands that Crows
have so little to fear from diurnal birds of prey; if
one approaches, they do not hesitate to throw themselves
on him altogether. The Great Horn Owl,
however, causes many ravages among them; for
when asleep at night the Crow is without defence
against the ravisher, for whom, on the contrary,
obscurity is propitious. Thus they recognise him
as a hereditary enemy, and never allow an opportunity
of revenge to pass without profiting by it.
If by chance an owl appears by day and one of
them perceives him, immediately a clamour arises — a
veritable cry of war; all those who are in the
neighbourhood fly to the spot, and business ceases;
the nocturnal bird of prey is assaulted, riddled with
blows from beaks, stunned, his feathers torn out,
and, notwithstanding his defence, he succumbs to
numbers.

 In all the preceding examples the social species
unite for the common security the forces and effects
which they can derive from their own organs.

I have spoken of the Apes and described how they
defend themselves with their hands and teeth; but in
certain cases they use weapons, employing foreign
objects like a club or like projectiles.

Acts of this nature are considered to indicate a
high degree of development, and it has often been
repeated that they are the appanage of man alone;
we have, however, seen the Toxotes, who, like all
fishes, is not particularly intelligent, squirt water on
to his victims. It is not easy to understand how a
greater intellectual effort is required to throw a stone
with the hand than to project water with the mouth.
This is what the apes do, throwing on their assailants
from the heights of trees everything which comes
to hand: cocoa-nuts, hard fruits, fragments of
wood, etc.

Baboons (Cynocephali) who usually live in the
midst of rocks protect their retreat by rolling very
heavy blocks on to their aggressors, or by forcibly
throwing stones about the size of the fist. As these
bands may contain from a hundred to one hundred
and fifty individuals, it is a veritable hail of stones of
all sizes which they roll down from the heights of the
mountains where they find shelter.

Sentinels. — Not only do Apes know how to face
danger or to avoid it by a prudent flight, but they
also seek to foresee it, and to avoid exposing themselves
to it. A troop of Apes, according to Brehm,
generally places the leadership in the hands of a
robust and experienced male. This primitive royalty
is founded partly on the confidence inspired by an
 old chief, and partly by the fear inspired by his
muscular arms and ferocious canine teeth. (Fig. 9.)
He gives himself a great deal of trouble for the
security of his subjects, and does not abuse the
authority which he possesses. Always at the head,
he leaps from branch to branch, and the band follows
him. From time to time he scales a tall tree, and
from its heights scrutinises the neighbourhood. If
he discovers nothing suspicious a particular guttural
grunt gives information to his companions. If, on
the contrary, he perceives some danger he warns
them by another cry, and all draw in ready to follow
him in his retreat, which he directs in the same way
as he guided the forward march.

Apes are not alone in relying on the experience of
one of their members. Many other animals act in
the same way: antelopes, gazelles, elephants, who
advance in troops always conducted by an old male
or female who knows all the forest paths, all the
places favourable to pasture, and all the regions
which must be avoided.

 

Fig. 9.

Others, more democratic, instead of giving up the
care of their safety to one individual, which cannot be
done without abdicating some degree of individual
independence, dispose around the place which they
occupy a certain number of sentinels charged to
watch over the common safety. This custom exists
among prairie dogs, moufflons, crows, paroquets,
and a great many other animals. The sentinels of
the crows are not only always on the watch, but they
are extremely discriminating; they do not give a
warning at the wrong time. It is certain that these
birds can distinguish a man armed with a gun from
another who merely carries a stick, and they allow the
 second to approach much nearer than the first before
giving the alarm.

Paroquets of all species live in joyous and noisy
bands. After having passed the night on the same
tree they disperse in the neighbourhood, not without
having first posted watchers here and there, and they
are very attentive to their cries and indications.

The great Aras or Macaws, the large and handsome
parrots of the Andes, act with much prudence when
circumstances make it advisable, and they know when
they ought to be on their guard. When they are in
the depths of the forest, their own domain, they
gather fruits in the midst of a deafening noise; each
one squalls and cries according to his own humour.
But if they have resolved to pillage a field of maize,
as experience has taught them that these joyous
manifestations would then be unseasonable and would
not fail to attract the furious proprietor, they consummate
the robbery in perfect silence. Sentinels are
placed on the neighbouring trees. To the first warning
a low cry responds; on the second, announcing a
nearer danger, all the band fly away with vociferations
which need no longer be restrained. The common
Crane (Grus cinerea), still more far-seeing to avoid a
possible future danger, despatches scouts who are thus
distinct from sentinels who inform their fellows of
present danger.46

When these birds have been disturbed in any spot,
they never return without great precautions. Before
arriving, they stop; a few only go circumspectly
forward, examining everything, and coming back to
make their report. If this is not satisfactory the
troop remains suspicious, sending new messengers.
 When they are at last assured that there is really
nothing to fear, the rest follow.

Thus by the most varied methods animals endeavour
to save their threatened lives, and succeed to
some extent in attaining safety. Destruction and the
chase on one side, conservation and flight on the
other: these are the two chief acts which occupy
living beings. Many, however, less threatened, succeed
in perfecting their manner of life, and employ their
industry in less pressing occupations than eating
others or preventing others from eating them.

CHAPTER IV.
PROVISIONS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

PROVISIONS LAID UP FOR A SHORT PERIOD — PROVISIONS
LAID UP FOR A LONG PERIOD — ANIMALS WHO CONSTRUCT
BARNS — PHYSIOLOGICAL RESERVES — STAGES
BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGICAL RESERVES AND PROVISIONS — ANIMALS
WHO SUBMIT FOOD TO SPECIAL TREATMENT
IN ORDER TO FACILITATE TRANSPORT — CARE BESTOWED
ON HARVESTED PROVISIONS — AGRICULTURAL ANTS — GARDENING
ANTS — DOMESTIC ANIMALS OF ANTS — DEGREES
OF CIVILISATION IN THE SAME SPECIES OF
ANTS — APHIS-PENS AND PADDOCKS — SLAVERY AMONG
ANTS.

The industries of the chase which are derived immediately
from the most imperious of needs — that of
assuring the existence of the individual — never arrive
at a very extraordinary degree of perfection; or at
all events, as they are indispensable to existence, we
are not surprised at their development. It is unquestionable
that an industry marks a higher degree
of civilisation not only by its development, but still
more by its reference to the less necessary things of
life; in every species the importance of the place
given to the superfluous is a mark of superiority.
The animals who, foreseeing a hard season, or fearing
 the days when hunting will not be productive, lay up
provisions to utilise in such times of famine, rise a
degree higher than even the most skilful hunters.
Not all amass with the same sagacity, and we shall
find different examples of foresight, from the most
rudimentary to the highest, very near what we may
observe in Man.

The provisions harvested by animals have more
than one destination: some are for the individual
himself who has gathered them; others, on the contrary,
are to serve as the food for his young at the
age when they are not yet capable of seeking their own
food. I will deal with these latter in another chapter,
and propose at present only to speak of those animals
who provision barns with the intention of themselves
profiting by them.

The foresight of the animal is so much the greater
the more remote the future for which he prepares.
The Carnivora live from day to day and lay up no
stores; it is the Rodents, certain frugivorous birds,
and insects who exhibit the most complicated acts of
economy.

Provisions laid up for a short period. — As a rudimentary
example of the art of preserving food in
view of possible famine, I may mention the case of
the Lanius collurio. I have already spoken of this
bird and of his custom in days of abundance of
spitting on thorns all the captures he has made. One
may see side by side Coleoptera, crickets, grasshoppers,
frogs, and small birds. It is evident that
these reserves cannot be preserved for more than a
day, or at most two days. The bird amasses just
enough to show us his apprehensions of the possible
future lack of success in hunting, and his thought of
 preserving the surplus of the present in view of
privations to come.47

The Fox, a very skilful hunter, has no trouble in
finding game; of all the Carnivora he is, however, the
only one who is truly foreseeing. The others in
presence of abundant food gorge themselves, and
abandon the rest at the risk of suffering to-morrow.
The fox is not so careless. If he has had the good
fortune to discover a poultry yard, well supplied but
ill watched, he carries away as many fowls as he can
before dawn and hides them in the neighbourhood of
his burrow. He places each by itself, one at the foot
of a hedge, another beneath a bush, a third in a hole
rapidly hollowed out and closed up again. It is said
that he thus scatters his treasures to avoid the risk of
losing all at one stroke, although this prudence complicates
his task when he needs to utilise his provisions.
The fox, however, loses nothing, and knows
very well where to find his stores. The very nature
of the game prevents him from keeping it more than
a few days.

Provisions laid up for a long period. — The Rodents,
who live on dry fruits or grains, can on the other
hand preserve them for a long time in their barns.
The Squirrel, who may be seen all the summer leaping
like a little madman from branch to branch, and who
seems to have no cares except to exhibit his red
fleece and show off his tail, is, contrary to appearance,
a most sensible and methodical animal. He knows
that winter is a hard time for poor beasts, and that
fruits are then rare or hidden beneath the snow; in
the autumn, therefore, when all the riches of the earth
are abundant, and beech-nuts, acorns, and chestnuts
 have ripened, he harvests quantities of them and
hides them wherever he can. Making use of the
cavities he is acquainted with around his domain,
hollow trees, holes that he makes in the earth beneath
bushes, etc., he fills them with fruits, and when winter
has come he extracts them to munch.

Animals who construct barns. — The Field Rat of
Hungary and Asia (Psammomys) gathers wheat
during the summer. He cuts the blades and transports
them to his home, where he stores them up in
very considerable quantities; and during rigorous
winters when famine appears also among men,
gleaners of another species appear on the scene and
seek for corn under the earth in the nests of the
Psammomys. A single rat can store up more than a
bushel. Those who are skilful in finding their holes
can thus in a day glean a good harvest, to the detriment
of the rats who are thus in their turn reduced to
beggary.

The Hamster also makes provision of grain, but he
introduces two improvements: the first at the harvest
by only taking the edible part of the ear, and the
second by constructing barns distinct from his home.
Each possesses a burrow composed of a sleeping
chamber, around which he has hollowed one or two
others communicating with the first by passages, and
intended to serve as barns. The old and more experienced
animals prepare even four or five of these
storehouses. The end of summer is their season for
work. They scatter themselves in the fields of barley
or wheat, pull down the stalks of the cereals with their
anterior paws, and then cut off the ear with their
teeth. This done, they set about thrashing their
wheat — that is to say, they separate the grain from the
 straw by turning the ear round and round between
their paws. When the grains come out they pile
them up in their cheeks, and thus transport them to
one of the chambers already mentioned; they then
return to exploit the field and continue these labours
until they have completed the stores for winter.

A certain Vole (Arvicola economus) acts in much
the same way as the Hamster, though he harvests a
different class of objects. It is not wheat which he
collects but roots. He has to find these roots, to dig
them up, to cut them into fragments of suitable
dimensions for transport, and finally to pile them up in
rooms disposed to receive them. This species, which
inhabits Siberia, measures about twelve centimetres in
length, but during summer and autumn Voles accomplish
an amount of work which is surprising having
regard to their size. The moment having arrived to
think about winter, the Voles spread themselves about
the steppe. Each hollows little pits around the roots
he wishes to extract. After having bared them he
cleans them while still in position, so as not to
encumber his storehouses with useless earth. This
preparatory labour having been completed, he divides
the root into slices of a weight proportioned to his
strength, and carries away the fragments one by one.
Seizing each with his teeth, he walks backwards drawing
it after him, and thus traverses a long road,
crossing paths, going round tufts of grass or other
obstacles, not letting himself be rebuffed by the
difficulty and length of the task. Arrived at his hole,
he enters this also backwards, drawing his burden
through all his galleries. His dwelling, though the
entrance is rather more complicated, resembles that
of the Hamster. Like the latter, it is composed of a
 central room placed in communication with the outside
by a maze of passages, which cross one another.
That is the sleeping-room, the walls of which are well
formed, and which is carpeted with hay. From this
various underground passages start which lead to the
storerooms, which are three or four in number. It is to
these that the Vole bears his harvest. Each compartment
is large enough to contain four or five kilogrammes
of roots, so that the little rodent finds himself at the
end of the season the proprietor of about fifteen kilogrammes
of food in reserve. He would have enough
to enable him to revel in abundance if he were able
to reckon without his neighbours. This diligent
animal has in fact one terrible parasite. This is
Man, who will not allow him to enjoy in peace the
fruits of his long labour and economy. In Siberia, a
long and severe winter follows a very hot summer; in
this season the inhabitants often lack provisions. A
moment comes when they are glad to make up for
want of bread by edible roots; but the search for
these is long and troublesome, and should indeed
have been thought of during summer. Man, during
the fine weather less foreseeing than the rodent,
does not hesitate when famine has come to turn to
him for help. As he is the weaker, the Vole is
obliged to submit to this vexatious tax. According
to Pallas,48 the inhabitants seek these nests full
of provisions and dig them up. The conqueror
takes all he pleases, and abandons the rest to
the unfortunate little beast, who, whether he likes
it or not, has to be content. In this region the
 burrows of the Vole abound; therefore this singular
tithe ensures a considerable revenue to
those who levy it, as may be understood when we
remember the extent of the stores amassed by the
animal.

A Vole resembling the Arvicola arvalis, but larger,
paler, and more rat-like, with large shining eyes and
very short tail, overran in 1892-93 the classic land
of Thessaly, the land of Olympus, and the Vale of
Tempe. It has always inhabited this region, and the
old Greeks had an Apollo Smintheus, or Myoktonos,
the Mouse-destroying God. “At the beginning of
March,” according to Prof. Loeffler, who has given an
account of this invasion,49 “the Voles were only beginning
to troop from the slopes of the hills and the
fallow-lands to the cultivated fields. It was frequently
observed that they followed regular paths during their
inroads. Thus they advanced along the railway embankment.
Their progress seemed to be rather slow.
Perhaps they do not advance further till the inhabitants
of one of their strongholds or so-called castles
have become too numerous. The runs which they
excavate are at a depth of about twenty to thirty
centimetres below the surface of the ground. The
extent of their runs varies, and we found them extending
in length from thirty to forty metres and
more. These runs are connected with the surface by
vertical holes of about five centimetres in diameter.
In many places four, five, and more holes have led to
the same run. In such cases there is generally, not
far off, an enlargement for the nest, lined with finely-ground
vegetable material, where the young are produced
 and reared. In front of newly-opened holes the
earth, which has been thrown far out, forms smooth
hillocks. There were many well-defined and well-trodden
paths on the ground, by which the Voles pass
from one hole to another. They are never seen out
of their holes by day, not even in places where the
entire ground is riddled with holes like a sieve. They
do not come out in search of food till the evening;
even then not many are to be seen, but the peculiar
squeaking noise they make is to be heard everywhere.
Next day all sorts of freshly-severed plants are to be
found in the holes. Stalks of corn they manipulate
by standing on their hind legs and gnawing through
the stalk; when this is bitten off they drag it into
their holes to devour it there, sometimes making it
smaller. They do their work with amazing rapidity.
One evening a field was visited which was to be
mowed next day, but when the labourers came in the
morning they found nothing to cut. The Voles had
destroyed the entire crop in a single night. A miller
in the neighbourhood of Velestino reported that he
went to his field early one morning, cut a measure of
corn, loaded it on his ass, and brought it to his mill.
When he returned to his mill with a second load
he found scarcely a vestige of the first remaining.
Thinking it had been stolen he kept watch for the
thief; but suddenly, to his great astonishment, hosts
of Voles appeared and set to work to carry off the
second load.” Such facts as these recorded by
Loeffler are by no means a merely recent phenomenon;
Aristotle was familiar with the devastations
of the Voles, and wrote that “some small farmers,
having one day observed that their corn was ready
for harvest, when they went the following day to cut
 their corn, found it all eaten.” Other ancient writers
record similar facts.50

Two birds of North America, belonging to the
Woodpecker family, prepare their provisions for the
bad season with consummate art; not only do they
harvest them and place them in shelter, but they
arrange them in such a manner that at the right
moment they can utilise them in the most convenient
manner.

One of them which is common in California, the
Melanerpes formicivorus, nourishes himself, as his name
indicates, by insects, and especially ants. All the
summer he gives himself up to this hunt, but at the
same time he collects acorns, which he does not
touch, however, so long as he can find other food.
He amasses them in the following ingenious manner:
he chooses a tree and hollows out in its trunk a cavity
just capable of receiving one acorn. He then carries
a fruit and introduces it forcibly into the hole he
has just made. Thus buried, the acorn can neither
fall nor become the prey of another animal. In the
domain of these birds trees may be found which are
riddled like a sieve with holes stopped up by an
acorn as by a plug. When the hunting of insects
ceases to be fruitful, the Melanerpes visits his barns.
If an ordinary bird wished to eat one of these fruits,
at each stroke of his beak, on account of the polish
and convexity of the acorn’s surface, it would escape
 him, and only by a series of reiterated efforts would
the interior be exposed; but for the American woodpecker
the task is simplified; each acorn being maintained
firmly in the bark, it is sufficient to break the
envelope and the pulp is easily seized.51

A relation of this bird, the Colaptes mexicanus, does
not yield to him in economy and skill. He places
his barn in the interior of a plant which is very
abundant in the zone he inhabits. Insectivorous
during a part of the year, he is forced to renounce
this diet during the dry season. In the regions of
Mexico where this bird is found the dry period is so
absolute that he would die of hunger for want of
insects or fruits if he had not taken the precaution of
laying up stores during spring. His store consists of
acorns. He has not time to fix them one by one, like
the Melanerpes, and only thinks at first of rapidly
collecting a large quantity. But it is in deciding the
question as to where they are to be laid up that the
Colaptes shows his remarkable intelligence. In the
forests where he lives are to be found aloes, yuccas, and
agaves. When the agaves have flowered, the flower-bearing
stem, two or three metres in length, shrivels,
but remains standing for some time. Its peripheral
portion is hardened by the heat, while the sap in the
interior almost entirely disappears. A hollow cylinder
with a well-sheltered cavity is thus formed, and the
Colaptes proposes to utilise it as a storehouse. His
acorns will there be well protected against external
influences and against the birds whose beaks are too
weak to pierce the agave. It is then a question of filling
 the tube. The animal first pierces the wall towards
the base of the stalk; through this hole he introduces
acorns until he has filled the lower part of the cavity.
This done, he makes a new hole rather above the
first, and fills the interval between the two, continuing
this process until he has arrived at the top of the
stalk and filled the whole interior. (Figs. 10 and 11.)
The bird seems at first to take unnecessary trouble
by boring so many holes. He would reach his end as
well, it would seem, by making a single hole at the
top to fill his storehouse, and another at the bottom
to empty it. But we must not thus accuse him of
lack of judgment. The interior of the tube is just
large enough for the passage of an acorn; but at
certain points the sap is not entirely absorbed, and
there might easily be an impediment which would
leave a large part of the cavity empty. Hence the
necessity for a number of openings. When the sun
has scorched up plants, and provisions are rare, he
turns to his barns of abundance. Now and every
time that he has need he can utilise the method that
has been employed by his cousin the Melanerpes.
In order to feed on each acorn without too much
trouble, or allowing it to slip from his beak, the bird
places it in a vice. He hollows a hole in the trunk of
a tree, introduces the fruit there forcibly, and eats it
at his ease.52

Fig. 10. Fig. 11.

The provisions collected by these two birds reveal
a remarkable fact. They possess indeed two distinct
diets; they do not preserve for the period of famine
the overplus of the foods which they consume in the
period of abundance. They chase insects and feed on
 them as long as they can find them, while they gather
up in their storehouses an entirely different food.

Physiological reserves. — All the animals of which I
have just spoken place their provisions for the future
in barns in the same manner as Man. Those who
have not this foresight are either able to nourish
themselves in all seasons by the chase, or else, after
having feasted one half of the year, they fast during
the other half. In the latter case they consume
during the fasting period a portion of their own substance,
and use up materials placed in reserve in their
organism, in the form of fat for example. This
arrangement, which allows them to prolong life,
though growing thin, until the next season of prosperity,
is not under the control of the will. It is
a complication of physiological phenomena resulting
from the functioning of different parts of the
organism.

Stages between physiological reserves and provisions. — Between
physiological reserves and industrial stores
we may place as an intermediate stage the interesting
case of the Honey Ants.53

Fig. 12.

These insects (Myrmecocystus) live in Texas, and
form colonies in which certain individuals play a very
special part They exaggerate to an extreme point
the power of preserving provisions in their crops.
These materials are not assimilated; they do not
form part of the animal’s body, and although placed
inside it cannot be compared to physiological
reserves. It is especially curious that they are not to
be utilised only by the animal itself, but also by the
other members of the colony who are not able to form
 such stores. Among the Myrmecocystus there are
workers of two sorts; the first kind resemble other
ants with some differences of detail, and build and
hollow the earth nest which shelters the community.
The second kind is quite different; the
abdomen in these workers is enormously distended
so as to constitute a voluminous sphere, which may
become four or five times larger than the thorax and
head together. (Fig. 12.) On this distended receptacle
appear several darker plates; these are the
remains of the chitinous parts of the primitive wings.
In the fine season these ants go out in a band and
collect a sweet liquor
which forms pearly
drops on certain galls
of oak leaves. These
drops, elaborated into
honey, gradually fill the
crop, distending it and
pushing back neighbouring
organs until it
receives its globular form. When they have arrived
at this obese condition, the heavy honey ants no longer
leave the nest. They remain without movement, hanging
by their legs to the roof or lying against the walls
of a room. The workers who have remained slender
come and go, attending to their usual occupations, and
pass near the others without paying attention to them
or going out of the way to lend assistance to their
impotent sisters when one of them has rolled over on
the ground and can no longer arise unaided. (Fig.
13.) They only cease to be indifferent when impelled
by the selfish sentiment of hunger, and then it
is to ask and not to give assistance. The fat ants in
 fact could not themselves consume all the honey that
they have elaborated; the others in times of famine
approach them, caress them with their antennæ, and
obtain by solicitation a drop of honey which the large
ones disgorge from the crop. Here, then, is a colony
in which the division of labour has reached a remarkable
degree of polymorphism. Some of the members
accomplish the work of engineers and masons, while
the others fabricate for the community a store of
honey. Instead of depositing these provisions in
cells like bees, they preserve them in their own
digestive tube. This custom has re-acted to such an
 extent on the form of their bodies that at first sight
they seem to belong to a different species.

Fig. 13.

Animals who submit foods to special preparation in
order to facilitate transport. — Not content with collecting
materials as they are found in nature, certain
animals submit them to preparation with various
aims, either to render transport easier or that they
may not deteriorate when stored. Among those of
whom I have just spoken, some collect with the view
of utilising their stores in a more remote future than
others. The Ateucus sacer intends to consume the
provisions he prepares almost immediately. Yet he
acts in so careful a manner that I cannot pass him in
silence. This beetle is the sacred Scarabæus so
venerated by the Egyptians, who have everywhere
reproduced his image in porphyry and granite. He
is a most singular insect. The celebrated Fabre has
given a complete and very picturesque history of his
customs.54 I have myself had an opportunity of
seeing him at work. It was in Persia, in the plain
of Susiana, on a hot morning in March. We had
passed the night in the open air, proposing to continue
our journey in the early morning, but our mules,
rendered rather lively by the fresh grass brought out
by the spring weather, had decided otherwise. They
had all decamped to take a ramble on their own
account. In order to pass away the hours taken up
by the muleteers in searching for the strayed animals,
the Scarabæus would, I thought, furnish me with an
amusing and instructive spectacle. During the night
the mules had not failed to leave here and there the
relics of their digestion. The aroma, borne on the
morning breeze, had struck the Scarabæus on awaking.
 It was his favourite dish. From all points of
the sky their heavy silhouettes could be seen against
the blue. It was still fresh, the sun having only
risen about an hour before; the heat would soon
become oppressive, and the sybaritic beetle, without
attending to his morning appetite, which his
fresh meal could not fail to excite, nourishes the
bourgeois dream of making his little pile in order to
enjoy himself sheltered from the hot rays. Immediately
on arriving on the scene of the accident each
began to display feverish activity. All set to work.
With their heads, the anterior edge of which is flat
and supplied with six strong spines, they raised their
provisions; with their anterior feet, which are large
and also armed with spines, they moulded the paste
and placed it beneath the abdomen between the four
other legs, giving it a rounded form. Little by
little the sphere increased and acquired the size of a
small apple. That was sufficiently large, and besides
it was already becoming hot. The insect set about
carting away his prize to a sheltered dining-room.
 He placed his four posterior legs on the ball; with
the two last, which were continually moving, he made
certain of the equilibrium of the mass; then resting
his head and two anterior feet on the ground he
pushed backwards, and with extreme rapidity. (Fig.
14.) There was enough for all; each worker could
find the just reward for his labour; I witnessed none
of the regrettable facts narrated by Fabre. It happens
sometimes, according to this ingenious observer, that
a cunning Scarabæus, who has taken no part in the
laborious labour of moulding the paste, arrives when
it is on the road to aid the convoy, or even simply to
pretend to help, in order that when the moment has
come he may claim a share in the coveted meal, or
even carry it all away if he can profit by a momentary
inattention on the part of the lawful proprietor. I
followed one of these Coleoptera for more than five
metres from the place where his labour began. After
having deposited his ball he began to dig up the earth
around it;55 but the mules had returned and I was
obliged to depart.

Fig. 14.

I have no doubt that subsequent events were not
exactly the same as narrated by Fabre for the Scarabæus
of Provence. The insect having made his hole,
buries himself in it for a tête à tête with the precious
sphere. He immediately sets about passing the
whole through his body. Without haste but without
rest, for a week or a fortnight, as long as
there is any of it left, he eats continuously,
and continuously digests. He does not stop for
a moment, his jaws are working the whole time;
and Fabre has called attention to the fact that
 from the opposite extremity of the animal a continuous
thread emerges without breaking, and
becomes coiled up.

Care bestowed on harvested provisions. — Among the
animals who take particular care of the provisions
they have amassed, special mention must be made of
certain species of Ants. It was formerly believed that
these industrious Hymenoptera are not accustomed to
store up in barns for the winter. This opinion long
prevailed owing to the authority of Huber, so competent
in these matters, although the ancients were
well acquainted with the storehouses of ants.56 But it
was founded on an exclusive study of these insects in
northern countries, in which, during the cold season,
they become torpid and buried in their hybernal
sleep. Naturally they have no need of food during
this period, but it was incorrect to generalise from
this fact. The ants of the south are active all the
year round. An English naturalist, Moggridge, who
passed several winters at Mentone, has placed this
fact out of doubt. Suffering from an incurable disease,
he occupied the last years of his life in observing and
setting down for the instruction of others the habits
of these insects. He found that ants of the species
Atta barbara store up grains. They utilise plants of
various kinds, but usually fumitory, oats, nettle, various
species of Veronica, etc. They procure these grains
towards the end of autumn, collecting them on the soil,
or even, when they do not fall in sufficient quantities,
climbing up the plants and gathering them in position.
An ant will, for instance, ascend the stem of a fruiting
plant, of shepherd’s-purse, let us say, and select a
 well-filled but green pod, mid-way up the stem, those
below being ready to shed their seeds at a touch.
Then seizing it in its jaws, and fixing its hind legs
firmly as a pivot, it contrives to turn round and
round, and so to strain the fibres of the fruit-stalk
until they snap; it then patiently backs down the
stem. Sometimes two ants combine their efforts;
one, at the base of the peduncle, gnaws at the point of
greatest tension, while the other hauls upon it and
twists it. And sometimes the ants drop the capsules
to their companions below, corresponding with the
curious account given by Ælian of the way the spikelets
of corn are thrown down “to the people below.”
In this labour they display the activity usual in their
race, and do not stop until they have carried away
to their barns the amount of provision they desire.
When their wealth is stored up in the nest, the ants
pile up the grains in some hundred little rooms
designed for this purpose, each measuring from seven
to eight centimetres in diameter, and three or four in
height; the average granary being about the size of
a gentleman’s gold watch. Adding up the quantities
of grain divided between these different barns, it is
found that they may be estimated at about 500 or
600 grammes, which represents a very large number
of meals for such small appetites, and must cost
colossal labour if we take into consideration the size
of the workers. But when the harvest is completed,
the Atta barbara have not completed their task; they
are too ingenious to limit themselves to waiting with
crossed legs for the moment to come when they may
enjoy their labour, without considering the damage
that may arise. Their first care is to prevent the grains
from germinating for some weeks. How they obtain
 this result is not exactly known, but it is certain that
germination does not take place, although all the
conditions of heat and moisture offered by the interior
of the ant-hill are favourable to it; it is not less certain
that this arrest is due to the ants. This is shown in
a very simple manner. It is sufficient to prevent the
access of the insects to one of these chambers to cause
the grains to germinate immediately. We can only
suppose some direct action of the ants, every other
hypothesis falling before this single fact: the arrested
phenomenon is produced as soon as the Atta barbara
no longer acts on it. Therefore they arrest germination
without rendering it impossible, and when the
moment arrives for utilising the accumulated stores,
their first care is to allow the grains to follow the
normal course of evolution. The envelope breaks,
the little plant makes its appearance; radicle and
stalk come to light. But the ants do not permit the
development to go too far. The little plant, in order
to grow, digests the starch which is associated with
the albumen, for it is not yet able to draw its
nourishment direct from the soil. To be absorbed
and assimilated this starch must first be transformed
into sugar. This chemical transformation being
effected, the grain is in the condition in which the
ants prefer it. Like a wine-grower who watches
over the fermentation in his vat, and stops it before
the wine turns sour, they stop the digestion of the
starch at this stage. If we do not know how they
retard germination, we know at all events how they
render it impossible at this later stage. It is the
young plant which absorbs the glucose, and which
must therefore be destroyed; they cut off the radicle
with their mandibles, and gnaw the stalk; the germ
 is thus suppressed. They have not yet finished their
manipulations, which must enable them to preserve
without further alteration the provisions which they
have already rendered palatable. They bring out all
their provisions to the sun, dry them, and take them
back to the barns. As long as winter lasts they feed
on this sweet flour. An anatomical peculiarity enables
them to make the most of it; their mouth is so
arranged that they can absorb solid particles and
eat the albuminous powder. In this they differ from
their northern kin, who are obliged to feed exclusively
on juices.

I have compared the labours of these ants to those
of the wine-grower. Both of them in fact utilise the
chemical phenomena going on in living matter; both
of them know how at a given moment to prevent
the transformation from going further. Neither
of them for the rest take into account the part
played by diastasis and ferments. The ancestors
of one as of the other have by chance found out the
method, and they transmit it from generation to
generation.57

Agricultural Ants. — The art of amassing stores is
still more highly perfected by an Ant which inhabits
North America. It is called the Pogonomyrmex
barbatus, or, on account of its customs, the Agricultural
Ant. It carries out a certain number of
preparatory acts, and pushes foresight further than
any other animal, since it looks after its property
while still growing. It is grain which these insects
collect, but only a single species of graminaceous
grain. This choice leads them to spend great trouble
 on their preferred plant. They act in such a way
that in the case of men we should say, purely and
simply, that they were cultivating. The art of
treating the earth with a view of augmenting the
products which it yields is certainly of all the manifestations
of human activity that which we should
least expect to find among animals. It is, however,
impossible otherwise to describe the conduct of
Agricultural Ants. The field which they prepare is
found in front of their ant-hill; it is a terrace in
extent about a square metre or more; there they will
allow no other plant to grow but that from which they
propose to gather fruit. This latter (Aristida stricta)
is rather like a grain of oats, and in taste resembles
rice; in America it is called ant rice. This culture
represents for these insects a much more important
property than a wheat field for man. It is, in relation
to their size, a forest planted with great trees, in comparison
with which baobabs and sequoias are dwarfs.
It is not known if the Pogonomyrmex sow their rice;
Lincecum asserted that the ants actually sow the
seeds, that he had seen the process going on year
after year; “there can be no doubt,” he concludes,
“of the fact that this particular species of grass is
intentionally planted, and in farmer-like manner
carefully divested of all other grasses and weeds
during the time of its growth.”58 McCook is not able
to accept this unqualified conclusion. “I do not
believe that the ants deliberately sow a crop, as
Lincecum asserts, but that they have, for some reason,
 found it to their advantage to permit the Aristida to
grow upon their disks, while they clear off all other
herbage; that the crop is seeded yearly in a natural
way by droppings from the plant, or by seeds cast out
by the ants, or dropped by them; that the probable
reason for protecting the Aristida is the greater convenience
of harvesting the seed; but, finally, that
there is nothing unreasonable, nor beyond the probable
capacity of the emmet intellect, in the supposition
that the crop is actually sown. Simply, it is the
Scotch verdict — Not proven.”59 However it may be,
they certainly allow no other plant to grow in the
neighbourhood of their grain, to withdraw the nourishment
which they wish to reserve entirely for it.
Properly speaking, they weed their field, cutting off
with their jaws all the troublesome plants which
appear above the soil. They pursue this labour very
diligently, and no strange shoot escapes their investigations.
Thus cared for, their culture flourishes,
and at the epoch of maturity the grains are collected
one by one and carried within. Like all harvesters,
these Hymenoptera are at the mercy of a shower that
may fall during the harvest. They are well aware
that in this case their provisions would be damaged,
and that they would run the risk of germination or
decay in the barns. Therefore, on the first sunny
day all the ants, as observed by Lincecum and
Buckley, may be seen carrying their grains outside,
only bringing them back when they have been
thoroughly dried, and always leaving behind those
that have sprouted.60

 Gardening Ants. — The Leaf-cutting Ants (Œcodoma)
of tropical America are often alluded to by
travellers on account of their ravages on vegetation;
and they are capable of destroying whole plantations
of orange, mango, and lemon trees. They climb the
tree, station themselves on the edge of a leaf and
make a circular incision with their scissor-like jaws;
the piece of leaf, about the size of a sixpence, held
vertically between the jaws, is then borne off to the
formicarium. This consists of low wide mounds, in
the neighbourhood of which no vegetation is allowed,
probably in order that the ventilation of the underground
galleries may not be interfered with.

For a long time there was considerable doubt as to
the use to which the leaf-cutting ants put the leaves;
some naturalists supposed they are used directly as
food, others that the ants roof their underground
dwellings with them. The question was set at rest by
Fritz Müller, who observed these ants in Brazil,61 and
independently by Belt, who studied them in Nicaragua,
and has written an interesting account of their
proceedings.62 The real use of the leaves is as manure
on which to grow a minute species of fungus; these
ants are, in reality, mushroom growers and eaters.
Belt several times exposed the underground chambers
to observation and found that they were always about
three parts filled with “a speckled, brown, flocculent,
spongy-looking mass of a light and loosely-connected
substance.” Scattered throughout these masses were
the pupæ and larvæ, together with the smallest
division of workers who do not engage in leaf-carrying,
but whose duties appear to be to cut up the
 leaves into small fragments and to care for the young.
On examination the masses proved to be composed
of “minutely sub-divided pieces of leaves, withered
to a brown colour, and overgrown and lightly connected
together by a minute white fungus that
ramified in every direction throughout it.” That they
do not eat the leaves themselves was shown by the
fact that near the tenanted chambers were found
deserted ones filled with the refuse of leaves that had
been exhausted as manure, and which served as food
for the larvæ of various beetles. There are numerous
holes leading up from the underground chambers,
and these are opened out or closed up, apparently in
order to regulate the temperature below. Great care
is also taken that the nest should be neither too dry
nor too damp; if a sudden shower comes on the
leaves are left near the entrance, and carried down
when nearly dry; during very hot weather, on the
other hand, when the leaves would be parched in a
very short time, the ants only work in the cool of the
day and during the night. Occasionally, inexperienced
ants carry in grass and unsuitable leaves;
these are invariably brought out again and thrown
away.63

Domestic animals of Ants. — Following through different
species the perfection reached in the art of laying
up provisions for the future, we have gradually arrived
at methods resembling those of Man. But a foresight
still greater and nearer to his is manifested by
those ants who breed and keep near them animals of
different species, not for the sake of their flesh, but
for certain secretions, just as man utilises the milk
 of the cow or the goat. Ants have true domestic
animals belonging to a variety of species, but the
most widely spread are the Claviger and the Aphides
or plant-lice. To keep these insects at their disposal,
Hymenoptera act in various ways: some, who are a
little experienced, are content to take advantage of a
free aphis which chance may put in their way; others
shut up their cattle in stables situated in the midst
of the ant-hill, or else pen them in the country at a
spot where they can best find their food. These facts
have long since been carefully studied and leave no
room for doubt.

The Claviger testaceus is a small beetle, often
met in the dwellings of ants. Nature has not been
very generous on its behalf. It is blind, and its eyes
are indeed altogether atrophied. The elytra are
soldered at the median edge, so that it cannot spread
its wings to fly. It is an animal predestined to the
yoke; and for the rest its masters treat it with
extreme kindness. The yellow ants, according to
Müller,64 have reduced this outcast beetle to domesticity,
and it is almost a piece of good fortune
for him to have lost his freedom and to have gained
in exchange a shelter and a well-furnished trough.
These insects are in fact cared for by their masters,
who feed them by disgorging into their mouths the
sweet liquids they have gathered here and there. If a
nest is disturbed the ants hasten to carry their eggs and
larvæ out of danger; they display the same solicitude
with regard to the Claviger, and carefully bear them to
the depth of their galleries. It must not be believed
 that the practical insect takes so much care in order
to repair the injustice of nature towards the beetle;
the part of a devoted sick nurse would not suit
him; he cares for the Claviger because it is his
property, a capital which brings in interest in the
shape of excellent sweet little drops which are good
to suck.65

A yellow ant, who wishes to enjoy the result
of the cares given to his pensioner, approaches it
and gently caresses it with his antennæ; the other
shows signs of pleasure at this visit, and soon
a pearly drop appears on the tuft of hairs at the
edge of its elytra, and this the ant hastens to
lick. The beetle is thus exploited and tickled by
all the members of the community to which he
belongs who meet him on their road. But when
it has been milked two or three times it ceases to
 secrete. A solicitous ant arriving at this moment
finds its efforts in vain, but still behaves like a good
shepherd; it shows no impatience or anger towards
its exhausted beast, knowing well that it is only necessary
to come back a little later or to go to another
member of the herd. Nor are his cares lessened by
finding the source dried up. He foresees that it will
still be good after repose, and if it is hungry he disgorges
food for it.

Degrees of civilisation in the same species of Ants. — These
facts are sufficiently marvellous in themselves,
but are more surprising when we recollect that they
cannot be regarded as an innate and unreflecting
instinct with which all the individuals of the same
species are endowed. The art of domesticating the
Claviger is a stage of civilisation reached by some
tribes and not by others. Lespès66 has placed this
out of doubt in the following manner. He had specimens
of Lasius niger who exploited a flock of
Coleoptera. Having met ants of the same species
who possessed no flocks, he brought them some. At
the sight of the little insects they threw themselves on
them, killed them, and devoured them. If we compare
these facts with those which pass in human societies,
it will seem to us that these latter Hymenoptera
behave like a horde of hunters in the presence of a
flock of sheep, while the first have already arrived at
the sheep-herding stage.

Aphis-pens and paddocks. — Ants can also keep
Aphides in their homes. In this case, fearing that
the adult beasts may not be able to adopt a change of
surroundings and food, they bring the eggs to their
 nests and care for them at the same time as their own
children. In time they come out and constitute a
flock easy to tame. Other ants, still more intelligent,
have discovered a method of holding the Aphides
captive, while allowing them to enjoy their accustomed
life, and to feed at will on the foods they prefer on
their own favourite spots. It is sufficient for this
purpose to establish barriers around a group of cattle
who have themselves fixed the place of their sojourn.
The Lasius niger, a skilful architect, constructs
vaulted passages from his dwelling into the country.
These covered roads, built with earth moistened with
saliva, have various ends; some have been made in
order to reach remote work sheltered from the sun,
or to give concealment from enemies. Many lead to
the pens of the Aphides; they reach from the anthill
as far as the foot of a plant where these insects
are abundant. In order to have their milkers at their
disposal, without removing them from pasture, the
ants make tunnels along the stalk, and enclose within
it all the Aphides they meet. They thus prevent any
desire for a distant ramble. But in order that the
flock may not be too closely confined, the Lasius
niger enlarge the galleries in places, and make a sort
of chamber or stable in which the beasts may disport
themselves at ease. These halls, which are proportionately
very vast, are supported against the
branches and leaves of the plant which bears up the
walls and the vaults. The captives find themselves
then with all the advantages of material life, and may
be milked with every facility.67

An allied species of ant, the Lasius brunneus, lives
 almost entirely on the sweet secretion of large
Aphides in the bark of oaks and walnut trees. The
ants construct around these insects cabins made of
fragments of wood, and wall them in completely so
as to keep them at their own disposal.

The Myrmica also forms similar pasture lands; its
system is rather less perfect than that of the Lasius,
as it does not form covered galleries to reach its
stables. It is content to build large earth huts around
a colony. A large hole, which allows the passage of
the ants, but not the escape of the flock, is formed so
that they may come to milk their cows. They use
the same methods we have seen practised on the
Claviger, caressing the insect with their antennæ
until the sugared drop appears.68

An example is quoted which shows still greater
intelligence and foresight in Ants. They have been
known to repopulate their territories after an epidemic,
or at least after the destruction of their Aphides.
The proprietor of a tree, finding it covered with these
exploited beasts, cleared it of its inconvenient guests by
repeated washes; but the dispossessed Hymenoptera,
considering that this pasture close to their nest was
very convenient for a flock, resolved to repopulate it,
and for some time these tenacious insects could be
seen bringing back among the foliage Aphides
captured elsewhere.69

 Slavery among Ants. — The custom of making
slaves is widely spread in the ant world; I have
already described the expeditions organised to obtain
them. We will now consider the relations of
these insects among themselves.

The Formica sanguinea takes possession of the
eggs of the Formica fusca and rears them with its own.
When the slaves reach the adult condition they live
beside their masters and share their labours, for the
latter work, are skilful in all tasks, and can by their
own activity construct an ant-hill and keep it going.
If they desire servants, it is not in order to throw all
the work on them, but to have intelligent assistants.
This is the primitive form of slavery as it first existed
among men. It was not until later that it became
modified, to become at last an institution against
which the sentiment of justice arose. Other species
of Ants have pushed the exploitation of slaves to a
point Man has never reached. But the Formica
sanguinea are companions to their helpers rather than
masters, and even show them great consideration.
When the colony emigrates one may see the owners
of the nest, who are of larger size than the Formica
fusca, take these up in their jaws and carry them the
entire way.

The Amazons (Polyergus rufescens) act otherwise.
Very skilful in obtaining slaves and powerfully armed
for triumphant raids, their nests always contain
legions of servants, and the custom of being waited
upon has become so impressed on the race by heredity
that it is an instinct stronger even than personal preservation.
The master ant has not only lost the taste
and the idea of work, but even the habit of feeding
himself, and would die of hunger beside a pile of
 honey or sugar if a grey ant was not there to put it into
his mouth. Thus Huber, the earliest accurate observer
of these ants, enclosed thirty Amazons with several
pupæ and larvæ of their own species, and twenty
negro pupæ, in a glass box, the bottom of which was
covered with a thick layer of earth; honey was given
to them, so that, although cut off from their auxiliaries,
the Amazons had both shelter and food. At first
they appeared to pay some little attention to the
young; this soon ceased, and they neither traced out
a dwelling nor took any food; in two days one-half
died of hunger, and the other remained weak and languid.
Commiserating their condition, he gave them
one of their black companions. This little creature,
unassisted, formed a chamber in the earth, gathered
together the larvæ, put everything into complete
order, and preserved the lives of those which were
about to perish.

All their industry is expended in the acquisition of
captives. The Polyergus avoid introducing into their
houses adults who would not become reconciled to
the loss of liberty, and would prefer to die rather than
work for others. They carry off the larvæ of Formica
fusca and Formica cunicularia. When brought
into the ant-hill these larvæ are placed in the jaws of
slaves of their own species, who care for them; they
are born captives, and have neither the regret nor the
idea of a free life. Among the Amazons the slaves
undertake every labour; it is they who build and who
care for the larvæ of their masters, as well as those
carried away in expeditions. They have also complicated
personal services towards the Polyergus.
They bring them food, lick off the dust from their
hairs, clean them, carry them from one place to
 another, if there is need to emigrate, although they
themselves are much smaller. The masters, by force
of losing interest in work, lose also their votes when
it is a question of taking a resolution concerning the
whole colony. The servants act on their own initiative
and their own responsibility, direct constructions
according to their own ideas, and even in grave
concerns, such as emigration, the idle masters do not
seem to be consulted. The workers deliberate among
themselves, and having come to a decision, proceed
to execute it. They transport the household goods,
the eggs, the future of the city, and the Amazons
who have become its parasites. It is a most curious
fact that the slaves should submit to this precarious
fate when their masters are absolutely dependent on
them. It is just to add that the robust mandibles of
the latter may contribute to preserve the position they
enjoy.70

CHAPTER V.
PROVISION FOR REARING THE YOUNG.

THE PRESERVATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE PRESERVATION
OF THE SPECIES — FOODS MANUFACTURED
BY THE PARENTS FOR THEIR YOUNG — SPECIES WHICH
OBTAIN FOR THEIR LARVÆ FOODS MANUFACTURED BY
OTHERS — CARCASSES OF ANIMALS STORED UP — PROVISION
OF PARALYSED LIVING ANIMALS — THE CAUSE
OF THE PARALYSIS — THE SURENESS OF INSTINCT — SIMILAR
CASES IN WHICH THE SPECIFIC INSTINCT IS
LESS POWERFUL AND INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE GREATER — GENERA
LESS SKILFUL IN THE ART OF PARALYSING
VICTIMS.

The preservation of the individual and the preservation
of the species. — In the previous chapter we have
seen animals preparing for the future, and amassing
materials for their own subsistence. In other cases
these provisions are destined to feed the young. It is
the same industry, sometimes exercised for the preservation
of the individual, sometimes for the perpetuation
of the race. We must expect to find acts
of the last kind more instinctive and less reflective
than those of the first, and this agrees well with what
we know of natural selection. If we now see living
beings display so many resources and calculate with
such certainty all that will favour the healthy development
 of their descendants, we must not necessarily
conclude that the species possess these instincts from
the beginning. They are not to be regarded as
mechanisms artfully wound up and functioning since
the appearance of life on the earth with the same
inevitable regularity. The qualities which we find in
them were weak at first; they have developed in the
course of ages, and have finally, by heredity, been
impressed upon the creatures to manifest themselves
by necessary acts from which there is no longer any
escape. There is no need for surprise if we meet
to-day, I do not say among all, but among a very
large number of animals, this foresight for offspring
in a well-marked form. It is easy to understand that
the species that first acquired and fixed an instinct
propitious to the increase of the race has rapidly
prospered, stifling beneath its extension those that
are less favoured from this point of view, which is of
capital importance in a struggle for a place beneath
the sun. At the present day if the struggle of animal
life offers few facts of lack of foresight for the rearing
of young, it is because this defect has killed the races
who were subject to it; they have disappeared, or have
only been saved by qualities of another order.

For the rest, if it is difficult to reconstitute except
in imagination the different stages through which, in
time, and in a determined species, acts at first imperfect,
but designed, have become perfect and
instinctive, we can at least find in space different
degrees of the same instinct in allied genera which
lead us by a succession of transitions from mechanical
action to reflective action.

As I cannot quote all the facts showing this care
for the future, I will select a few. It must be said at
 first that a considerable number of animals show
nothing of the kind. Let us leave aside all the
inferior beings to speak of those among whom we
may expect some degree of method. Crustacea, fish,
Batrachians, and many others lay their eggs, are
contented to conceal them a little so that they may
not become a too easy prey, and are altogether
indifferent as to what may happen afterwards. As
soon as they come out, the young obtain their own
food from day to day; myriads are destroyed, and if
the races remain so strong numerically it is because
they are saved by the innumerable quantity of eggs
produced by a single female. If it were not for this
prodigious fecundity these species would have disappeared.
Birds make no provision for their young;
but, on the other hand, as long as the latter are weak
and unable to obtain their own prey, the parents feed
them every day by hunting both for themselves and
the brood.

I will not insist on those beings who, like mammals,
produce physiological reserves, not for their own use,
but for the profit of their young. The females of
these animals elaborate materials from their own
organism and store them up in the form of milk to
nourish the young. This fact is related to foresight,
with a view to offspring, exactly in the same way as
the Honey Ants show a transformation of foresight for
the individual. In both cases industry is replaced by
the function of a specially adapted organ.

Foods manufactured by the parents for the young. — It
is especially insects with whose industries
we are here concerned, and they are more or less
instinctive in various cases. Every one knows how
the Hymenoptera prepare honey from the pollen of
 flowers, to some extent for themselves, but especially
in order that their young may at the moment of
appearance possess a food which will enable them
to undergo their first metamorphosis sheltered from
the inclemencies outside. These foods are enclosed
with great art, according to the species, either in
skilfully-constructed cells of wax, as by Bees, or in
nests of paper or cardboard which the Wasps fabricate,
or again in huts built of earth in the manner of the
Chalicodoma.

Species which obtain for their larvæ foods manufactured
by others. — Other insects have not this taste
for lengthy labours, and do not know how to execute
them; but they do not intend that their young shall
be the victims of maternal lack of skill, and they
display marvellous resources to enable them to profit
by the foresight of others.

The Sitaris muralis, a beetle whose customs
have been described by Fabre in a remarkable
manner,71 may be counted among the cleverest in
assuring to its larvæ the goods of others. It puts
them in a position to profit by it, and when they are
installed they know sufficiently well what to do.
The species has so long perpetuated itself by this process
that it has become, both in mother and offspring,
highly automatic. It is a hymenopterous insect which
this family, whose first vital manifestation is theft,
thus levies a contribution on. It is called the Anthophora
pilifera, and during the fine weather it makes a
collection of honey intended to be absorbed by its
 own larvæ, if it had not the misfortune to be watched
by one of these intriguing Coleoptera. Wherever in
Provence there is a perpendicular wall, natural or
artificial, a little cliff, a sloping ditch, or the wall of
one of those caves which the people of the country
use for putting their tools in, the Anthophora hollows
out galleries, at the bottom of which he builds a
certain number of chambers. He fills each of them
with honey, places in it an egg which floats in the
midst of this little lake of nectar, and closes it all up.
The Sitaris covets this honey to nourish its offspring,
and the chamber to shelter it. After having discovered
one of the galleries of which I have spoken,
the female Sitaris comes about the beginning of
September to lay her eggs, which are numerous, being
not generally fewer than two thousand. In the following
month the larvæ appear; they are black, and
swarm in a little heap mixed up with the remains of
egg-shells. They vegetate in this condition for a
long time, and may still be found there in May. At
this period they have become more active, and, in
order to complete their development, are thinking
of profiting by their favourable situation near the
entrance to a gallery of the Hymenoptera; when a male
Anthophora comes within reach, two or three of them
catch hold of him and climb on to his thorax. They
maintain themselves there by clinging to the hairs.
At the moment of fertilisation the male, thus burdened,
comes in contact with the female; the coleopterous
larvæ then pass on to her, so that, according to
Fabre’s expression, the meeting of the sexes brings
death and life to the eggs at the same time. Henceforth
fixed on this laying insect, the little Sitaris remain
quiet, and have only to wait; their future is assured.
 The Anthophora has made her chambers, and with
the greatest care has filled each of them with honey.
Then in the midst she deposits an egg, which remains
floating on the surface like a little boat; when her
task is accomplished, the mother passes to a new cell
to confide to it another of her descendants. During
this time the parasite larva hastily descends the
abdominal hairs and allows itself to fall on the egg
of the Anthophora, to be then borne upon it as
upon a raft; its fall must take place at the precise
instant which will enable it to embark without falling
into the honey, in which just now it would be glued
fast, and perish. This series of circumstances results
only in the introduction of a single Sitaris into a
chamber; the moment which must be profited by is
too short for many of them to seize. If the female
Anthophora carries others hidden in her hairs, they
are obliged to await a new hatching to let themselves
glide off. Thus enclosed with the egg of the Anthophora
and its provision of honey, the larva has no
other rival to fear, and may alone utilise the whole
store. This parasitism has to such an extent become
a habit with the species, that the larva’s organisation
has become modified by it. At the moment when it
falls into the cell it cannot feed on honey. It is
indispensable for its development that it should first
devour the egg on which it floats; it can at this
period be nourished by no other food. In acting in
this way it also frees itself from a voracious being
who would require much food. This first repast lasts
about eight days, at the end of which it undergoes
a moult, takes another form, and begins to float on
the honey, gradually devouring it, for at this stage
it becomes able to assimilate honey. Slowly its
 development is completed, with extremely interesting
details with which we need not now concern ourselves.
The larva of Sitaris is then in conditions
exceptionally favourable for growth; but, in spite
of appearances, there is no reason for admiring the
marvellous foresight and extraordinary sureness of
instinct; nearly everything depends on a fortuitous
circumstance, a chance. This becomes very evident
if we study another related beetle; it is called
the Sitaris colletis, and lives at the expense of the
hymenopterous Colletes, as its relative at the
expense of the Anthophora. But these two species
of the same genus are very unequally aided by
chance. The one whose history we have just traced
attaches itself to an insect whose egg floats above a store
of honey; the second chooses a victim who attaches
its egg to the walls of a chamber. (Fig. 15.) This
almost insignificant difference has a considerable
influence on the parasite’s evolution. In the first case
it is alone, and may develop with certainty; in the
second, on the contrary, several Sitaris penetrate the
 chamber and climb up to attack the egg, which in this
case also must be their first food. This rivalry
causes a struggle to the death. If one of the larvæ
is notably more vigorous than its rivals, it may free
itself from them and survive. Let us consider the
fate in store for the two species. The first is much
more favoured, since a happy chance permits each
germ to produce an individual; in the second, each
individual which completes its evolution deprives
several of its brothers of life. And even this only
happens in the most favourable cases, for it may be
that not one Sitaris in the chamber may reach the
adult state. If the first arrival begins to absorb the
egg of the Colletes, a second hungry one may kill it
in the midst of its repast and take its place. But the
conqueror finds the provisions already reduced and
insufficient to enable it to reach the moulting stage,
at the end of which it could profit by the honey.
Ill-nourished and weakened, it cannot support this
crisis, and its corpse falls beside that of its fellow whom
it had sacrificed. Three or four parasites may thus
succeed to the same feast, and the victory of the last
is useless to him. His first struggle for life and his
first triumph are followed by irreparable defeat.
These two examples show very well how a slight
difference may favour a species, and how a happy
quality is capable of being perpetuated by heredity,
since by its very nature it is destined to be extended
to more numerous beings.

Fig. 15.

Carcasses of animals stored up. — These insects lay
up for their offspring stores manufactured by themselves
or by others. The class we are now about to
consider makes provision of animals either dead or in
a torpid condition, with more or less art and more or
 less sure instinct. Most people have seen the Necrophorus
or Burying Beetle working in fields or gardens.
These are large Coleoptera who feed on abandoned
carrion; everything is good to them — bodies of small
mammals, birds, or frogs; they are very easy to please,
and as long as the beast is dead that is all they
require. When they have found such remains, and
consider only how to satisfy their hunger, they do
not take much trouble, and gnaw the prey on the
spot where they have found it. They are not alone
at the feast, and in spite of their diligence numerous
rivals come up to dispute it; it is necessary to share
with a great number of noisy and voracious flies and
insects. In the adult state they come out well from
this competition; but as good parents they wish to
save their larvæ from it, as in a feeble condition these
might suffer severely. They desire to lay up a carcass
for their young alone, and with this object they bury
it in the earth. The eggs also which will thus develop
in the soil have more chance of escaping destruction
by various insectivorous animals. If these diggers
find a rat (Fig. 16) or a dead bird, three or four unite
their efforts, glide beneath it, and dig with immense
activity, kicking away with their hind legs the earth
withdrawn from the hole. They do not pause, and
their work soon perceptibly advances. The rat
gradually sinks in the pit as it grows deeper. When
they have the good fortune to find the earth soft they
can sink the prey in less than two hours to a depth
of thirty centimetres. At this level they stop, and
throw back into the hole the earth they have dug
out, carefully smoothing the hillock which covers the
grave. Thus stored up, the carcass is ready to receive
the Necrophorus eggs. The females enter the soil and
 lay on the buried mammal; then they retire, satisfied
to leave their
little ones, when
they appear, face
to face with
such abundant
nourishment.
When they
emerge from the
envelope the
young larvæ
find themselves
in the presence
of this stored
food, which has
been softened
by putrefaction
and rendered
more easy of
digestion. If the
treasure has not
fallen on a spot
easy to dig, the
Necrophorus
quickly recognise
the fact, and
do not waste
time in useless
labour. Endowed
with
considerable
strength relatively
to their
size, three or four of them creep beneath the prey,
 and co-ordinating their efforts they transport it
several metres off to a spot which they know by
experience to be suitable for their labours. It may
happen that soft earth is too far away, and transport
becoming too difficult a task, they renounce it. But
as good food should never be wasted, they utilise it
by feeding themselves, awaiting a more manageable
god-send for their offspring.

Fig. 16.

Many observers have studied these beetles, and
all are surprised at their sagacity, and the way in
which their various operations are adapted to circumstances;
genuine reflection governs their acts,
which are always combined to produce a definite
effect.

Provision of paralysed living animals. — It is unnecessary
to say how much better it would be for
the young larva to have at its disposal instead of a
carcass a living animal, but paralysed and rendered
motionless by some method. It is difficult to believe
the thing possible, yet nothing is better established.
There is a hymenopterous relative of the Wasp called
the Sphex. Instead of laying up honey they store
animal provisions for their larvæ. Fabre has studied
one of them, the Sphex flavipennis.72 It is in September
that this wasp lays her eggs; during this month
to shelter her little ones she hollows out a dozen
burrows and provisions them. She has then to
devote about three days’ work to each of them, for
there is much to do, as may be imagined. For
each of these hiding-places the Sphex first pierces
a horizontal gallery about two or three inches long;
then she bends it obliquely so that it penetrates
 deeply into the earth, and it is again continued in
this direction for about three inches. At the end of
this passage three or four chambers are made, usually
three; each of these is meant to receive one egg.
The insect interrupts its mining task, not forming
the three chambers consecutively; when the
first is completed she provisions it — we shall soon see
in what manner — and lays an egg there; then she
blocks it up, suppressing all communication between
this cell and the gallery; this done she bores a second
passage, provisions it, and lays another egg, closes up
the orifice, and proceeds to prepare the third. This
work is pushed on with great activity, and when
completed the Sphex entirely fills up the subterranean
passage, and completely isolates the hope of
the race at a depth sufficient to shelter it well. A
last precaution is taken: before leaving, the rubbish
in front of the obstructed opening is cleared away,
and every trace of the operation disappears. The
nest is then definitely abandoned, and another one
prepared.

The chambers in which the larvæ are enclosed — hastily
made with little care, and with rough unsmoothed
walls — are not very solid, and could not last
long without slipping; but as they only have to last
for a single season they possess sufficient resistance for
the insect’s purpose. The larva also knows very well
how to protect itself against the roughness of the
walls, and overlays them with a silky secretion produced
by its glands.

We have now to consider the nature of the provisions
placed by the Sphex near the egg. Each cell
must contain four crickets. That is the amount of
food necessary for a larva during its evolution, and
 these insects are in fact large enough to supply a
considerable amount of nourishment. When the
Sphex interrupts digging operations it is to fly on
a hunting expedition. It soon returns with a cricket
it has seized, holding it by one antenna which it turns
round in its jaws. It is a heavy burden for the slender
Sphex to bear. Sometimes on foot, dragging its
burden after it, sometimes flying, and carrying the
suspended cricket always in a passive condition,
the burrow is gradually reached, not without difficulty.
In spite of appearances, the cricket is not dead; it
cannot move, but if kept for several days it will not
putrefy, and its joints remain supple. It is simply the
victim of a general paralysis.

The cause of the paralysis. — It was evidently of the
greatest interest to know how the Sphex contrived
this capture, and what method it used to suppress the
movements of the prey. In order to obtain the
solution of this problem, Fabre during a long period
accumulated experiments and observations, and at
last discovered in every detail how the thing was done.
In order to compel the Sphex to act in his presence, he
placed himself in front of the orifice of a gallery in which
the insect was working; he soon saw it returning
with a paralysed cricket. Arrived at the burrow,
the insect placed the prey on the ground for a moment
and disappeared in the passage to see that everything
was in order, and that no damage had taken place
since its departure. Everything was going well, and
it reappeared, took up its burden, and again entered
the subterranean passage, drawing the victim along.
It brought it into the chamber for which it was
destined, placing it on its back, the head down and
the feet towards the door. Then it set out hunting
 again until it had ranged four crickets side by side.
Before attempting a decisive experiment, the observer
felt his way. At the moment when the Sphex was
buried in the earth examining the chamber, Fabre
withdrew the prey a short distance and awaited events.
Having made the domiciliary visit, the Sphex then
went straight to the place where it had left its insect,
but could not find it. It was naturally very perplexed,
and examined the neighbourhood with extreme agitation,
not knowing what had happened, and evidently
regarding the whole affair as very extraordinary; at
last it found the victim it was seeking. The cricket
still preserved the same immobility; its executioner
seized it by an antenna and drew it anew to the
entrance of the hole. In the interior of the subterranean
domain everything is in good order; the insect
had just assured itself of the fact, and we should
expect to see it enter with its prey; not at all, it
entered alone, and only decided to introduce the prey
after it had made a fresh inspection. This fact is
surprising, and it is still more surprising that if the
practical joke of removing the cricket is repeated
several times in succession, the Sphex drags it anew
every time to the entrance of the burrow and first
descends alone; forty times over this experiment
succeeded without the insect deciding to renounce the
habitual manœuvre. Fabre insists on this fact, and
rightly, for nothing should be neglected; he makes it
a text to show how automatic instinct is, and how the
acts which proceed from it are invariably regulated so
as to succeed one another always in the same order.
In their nature these acts are quite indistinguishable
from intelligent acts; only the creature is not capable
of modifying them to bring them into harmony with
 unforeseen circumstances. All this is correct, but
where it becomes excessive is in endowing animals
alone with instinct and separating them from this
point of view from Man. It is incontestable that the
custom of visiting the burrow before introducing a
victim into it has become so imperious in the Sphex
that it cannot be broken, even when it is of no use.
It is a mechanical instinct. But we may see an
exactly parallel manifestation of human intelligence.
In face of danger man utters cries of distress; they
are heard and assistance comes. But these appeals
are not intelligent and appropriate to the end; they
are instinctive. Place the same individual in a situation
where he knows very well that his voice cannot be
heard; this will not hinder him from reproducing the
same acts if he finds himself in the presence of danger.
It is thus that the Sphex proceeds, guided by instincts,
and it is no reason for despising it. And even in the
course of this little experiment the insect gives proof
of judgment. When it finds its cricket, it is perfectly
aware that it is the same cricket which it brought,
that there is no life in it, and that there is no need to
re-commence the struggle; it sees too that it is not
an ordinary corpse liable to putrefaction, but the very
same cricket, and it does not hesitate to utilise it
at once.

These habits being ascertained, Fabre proceeded to
find out how the paralysis is produced. He awaited
near a burrow the Sphex’s arrival, dragging a victim
by an antenna, and while the insect was occupied in
the subterranean survey he substituted a living
cricket for that which the Sphex had left, expecting
to find it on the spot where it had been placed.
On emerging it perceives the cricket scampering
 away; not a moment was to be lost, and without
reflection it leapt on the refractory victim. A lively
struggle followed, a duel to the death among the
blades of grass; it was a truly dramatic spectacle,
the agile assailant whirling around the Cricket,
who kicked violently with his hind legs. If a blow
were to reach the Sphex it would be disembowelled;
but it avoids the blows skilfully without
ceasing its own violent attack. At last the combat
ends; the cricket is brought to earth, turned on to its
back, and maintained in this position by the Sphex.
Still on its guard, the latter seizes in its jaws one of
the filaments which terminate the abdomen of the
vanquished, placing its legs on the belly; with the
two posterior legs it holds the head turned back so as
to stretch the under side of the neck. The cricket is
unable to move and the conqueror’s sting wanders
over the horny carapace seeking a joint, feeling for a
soft place in which it can enter to give the finishing
stroke. The dart at last reaches, between the head and
the neck, the spot where the hard portions articulate,
leaving between them a space without covering. The
joint in the armour is found. The Sphex’s abdomen
is agitated convulsively; the sting penetrates the
skin, piercing a ganglion situated just beneath this
point; the venom spreads and acts on the nervous
cells, which can no longer convey messages to the
muscles. That is not all; the sting wanders over
the cricket’s belly, this time seeking the joint
between the neck and the thorax; it finds it,
and is again thrust in with fury; a second ganglion
of the nervous chain is thus perforated and poisoned.
After these two wounds the victim is completely
paralysed.

 As already mentioned, several facts enable us to
recognise that the Cricket is by no means dead.
It is simply incapable of movement, as would happen
after an injection of curare. This poison kills a
superior animal, for it hinders the muscular movements
of the chest and diaphragm, necessary to
respiration; but if a frog, which can breathe through
its skin, is thus acted on it comes to life again at the
end of twenty-four or forty-eight hours if the dose
has not been too strong. The cricket is in a similar
condition; it neither eats nor breathes; being incapable
also of movement, there is no vital expenditure;
it remains in a sort of torpor, or latent life,
awaiting the tragic fate that is reserved for it. When
it has been deposited in the little mortuary chamber
the Sphex lays an egg on its thorax. The larva will
soon come out to penetrate the body of the prey by
enlarging the hole left by the sting. It thus finds
for its first meals a food which unites the flavour
of living flesh with the immobility of death. Nothing
can be more convenient. When the first body is
eaten it proceeds to the second, and thus devours
successively the four victims stored up by maternal
foresight.

In order not to interrupt the description and interfere
with the succession of the acts, I have passed
without remark the experiment in which Fabre
substituted a living animal for the Sphex’s already
paralysed captive. It seems to me, however, that in
this circumstance the insect showed judgment, and
knew how to act in accordance with new requirements.
It was evidently the first time in insect
memory in which so surprising a phenomenon had
been seen as a victim at the last moment again taking
 the field. We cannot make instinct intervene here.
If the Sphex’s acts are so automatic as we are sometimes
led to believe, in accordance with facts which
are perfectly accurate, we ought always to observe the
following succession of acts: first, hollowing of the
burrow; second, the chase; third, the blows of the dart;
fourth, the different manœuvres for placing the victim
in the sarcophagus. Now in the present case the insect
had accomplished the first three series of actions, and
had even begun the fourth; it ought next to drag the
cricket into the burrow without listening to the
recriminations which the latter had no business to
make, since it was to be regarded as having received
the two routine doses of poison. But the Sphex sees
its victim come to life, understands this fact, and
without seeking to fathom the cause judges that a
new struggle and new blows of the sting are necessary;
he understands that it is necessary to begin
afresh, since the usual result has not been attained.
He is then capable of reflection, and the series of acts
which he accomplishes are not ordained with such
inflexibility that it is impossible for him to modify
them in order to conform them to varying circumstances.

The Sphex occitanica acts in the same manner as
its relative in this complicated art of laying up provisions
for the family. The differences are only in
detail. Instead of hollowing the burrow first and
then setting out on the chase to fill it, it does not devote
itself to the labour of digging until a successful
expedition has already assured the victim. (Fig. 17.)
Instead of attacking crickets it seeks a larger orthopterous
insect, the Ephippigera. The struggle is no
doubt more difficult, but the result is proportionately
 greater, and the pursuit does not need to be so often
renewed; a single captive is sufficient for its larva.73

Fig. 17.

The sureness
of instinct. — It
is not
doubtful that
a sure inherited
instinct
conducts the
Sphex to
prick its victim
in the
situation of
the nervous
ganglia,
which will be
wounded in
the act. It
may be said
that the lesion
results
from the position
in which
the hymenopterous
insect
maintains its
victim; for
the sting is
on the median
line, and
can only
 penetrate at the soft points; the two points attacked
are then rigorously determined by physical circumstances.
But these arguments have no bearing if we
consider the method of procedure adopted by the
Ammophila,74 a hymenopterous insect related to the
preceding, which paralyses caterpillars. It is free in this
case to insert its sting at any portion of the body; yet
it knows how to turn over and arrange the captive so
that the dart shall penetrate both times at two points
where ganglia will be poisoned and immobility without
death be induced. It must then be agreed that
there is here an instinct much too sure to be called
mechanical; but these facts, which considered alone
seem simply marvellous, become much less so, and
lend themselves to evolutionary interpretation, when
it is recognised that they are related by insensible
degrees to other facts of the same order, much more
intelligent and at the same time less sure.

Similar cases in which the specific instinct is less
powerful and individual initiative greater. — Here is,
for instance, the case of the Chlorion, where each
animal possesses more considerable initiative.75 It
attacks the Cockroach. These insects are of an
extremely varied size, according to age, and as they
are also very agile the Chlorion is not certain of
being always able to obtain victims of the same
dimension. The orifice of its burrow, which it
hollows in walls between the crevices of the stones,
is calculated on the average size of its victims. It
has also the habit of paralysing the cockroach by
 stinging it on the nervous chain. These preliminary
operations do not impede it, but it is embarrassed
when it wishes to introduce through the entrance of
its gallery an insect which is too large. It pulls at
first as much as it can, but seeing the failure of its
efforts it does not persevere in this attempt, and
comes out to survey the situation. Decidedly the
victim is too large and cannot pass through. The
Chlorion begins by cutting off the elytra, which
maintain it rigid and prevent it from being compressed.
This done, it harnesses itself anew and re-commences
its efforts. But this is not sufficient, and the victim
still resists. The insect returns, and again examines
the situation. Now it is a leg which is placed cross-ways
and opposes the introduction of the body;
strong diseases need strong remedies, and our
Chlorion sets itself to amputate this encumbering
appendage. It triumphs at last; the cockroach
yields to its efforts, and little by little penetrates the
hole. As may be seen, the labour is laborious and
painful, and may present itself beneath various aspects
which call for a certain ingenuity on the part of the
animal.

Up to recent years the Cerceris was considered to
act with as much certainty as the Sphex, and to obey
an infallible instinct which always guided it for the
best in the interests of its offspring. The insects it
attacks belong to the genus Buprestis. It consumes
them in considerable numbers. Its manner of action,
as described by Léon Dufour,76 much resembles that
of the Sphex, and it would be superfluous to describe
it. The only fact which I wish to mention, and
 which has been put out of doubt by the illustrious
naturalist, is this: the Buprestis are paralysed, not
dead; all the joints of the antennæ and legs remain
flexible and the intestines in good condition. He
was able to dissect some which had been in a state of
lethargy for at least a week or a fortnight, although,
under normal conditions, these insects in summer
decay rapidly, and after forty-eight hours cannot be
used for anatomical purposes. Another observer,
Paul Marchal, took up this question afresh, and the
results which he obtained seemed to indicate an
instinct much less firm than earlier studies tended
to show.77

Genera less skilful in the art of paralysing victims. — These
researches show us that in the Cerceris instinct
is still subject to defect. In some neighbouring genera
we can seize it, as it were, in process of formation.
The way in which the Bembex, or Sand Wasp, provisions
burrows by maternal foresight is much less
mechanical than that of the Sphex. It is again Fabre
who has described with most care the customs of
this hymenopterous insect.78 It hollows out for each
egg a chamber communicating with the air by a
gallery, and performs this work with little care and
very roughly. Less skilful than the others, it does
not amass at once all the provisions which its larvæ
will need during the period of evolution. When the
offspring has absorbed the last prey brought, it is
necessary to bring a new victim. This insect is
scarcely more advanced than birds, who feed their
young from day to day. And it is a great labour to
re-open every time the gallery which leads to the
 nursery; on all these visits, in fact, the Bembex fills
it up on leaving, and causes the disappearance of
all revealing traces. It is obliged to take so much
trouble, because it has not inherited from its ancestors
the receipt for the paralysing sting; it throws itself
without care on its victim, delivers a few chance
blows, and kills it. Necessarily it cannot, under
these conditions, lay up provisions for the future;
they would corrupt, and the larvæ would not be
benefited; hence the obligation of frequently returning
to the nest, and of a perpetual hunt to feed
descendants whom nature has gifted with an excellent
appetite. According to the age of the offspring, the
mother chooses prey of different sizes; at first she
brings small Diptera; then, when it has grown, she
captures for it large blow-flies, and lastly gadflies.79 It
will be seen, then, that if we suppose the instinct of the
Sphex to be slowly developed by being derived from
a sting given at random, we make a supposition
which is quite admissible and rests on ascertained
facts. However this may be, the Bembex, returning
to its burrow, is able to find it again with marvellous
certainty, in spite of the care taken to hide it by
removing every trace that might reveal its existence.
It is guided by an extraordinary topographic instinct,
which men not only do not possess, but cannot even
understand the nature of.

It would appear that certain Hymenoptera, fearing
to kill their victim with the sting, and not knowing
 the art of skilful lesions, attempt to immobilise them
by wounds of another sort. This is the case with the
Pompilius, according to Goureau,80 who has studied it.
This insect nourishes its larvæ with spiders; it seems
certain that in most cases the spider is not pricked.
Victims who have been taken from the interior of
provision burrows can live for a long time in spite of
their wounds; they cannot, therefore, have received
venom by inoculation. The author already quoted
believes that the Pompilius seizes its captive by
the pedicle which unites the abdomen to the cephalothorax,
and that it triturates this point between its
jaws. From this either death or temporary immobility
may follow. The Pompilius also makes up
for its relative ignorance by considerable ingenuity.
Thus sometimes, when it fears a return to life of the
victim destined for its larvæ, it cuts off the legs while
it is still passive. Goureau has found in the nest of
this insect living spiders with their legs cut off.

CHAPTER VI.
DWELLINGS.

ANIMALS NATURALLY PROVIDED WITH DWELLINGS — ANIMALS
WHO INCREASE THEIR NATURAL PROTECTION BY
THE ADDITION OF FOREIGN BODIES — ANIMALS WHO
ESTABLISH THEIR HOME IN THE NATURAL OR ARTIFICIAL
DWELLINGS OF OTHERS — CLASSIFICATION OF
ARTIFICIAL SHELTERS — HOLLOWED DWELLINGS — RUDIMENTARY
BURROWS — CAREFULLY-DISPOSED BURROWS — BURROWS
WITH BARNS ADJOINED — DWELLINGS
HOLLOWED OUT IN WOOD — WOVEN DWELLINGS — RUDIMENTS
OF THIS INDUSTRY — DWELLINGS FORMED
OF COARSELY-ENTANGLED MATERIALS — DWELLINGS
WOVEN OF FLEXIBLE SUBSTANCES — DWELLINGS WOVEN
WITH GREATER ART — THE ART OF SEWING AMONG
BIRDS — MODIFICATIONS OF DWELLINGS ACCORDING TO
SEASON AND CLIMATE — BUILT DWELLINGS — PAPER
NESTS — GELATINE NESTS — CONSTRUCTIONS BUILT OF
EARTH — SOLITARY MASONS — MASONS WORKING IN
ASSOCIATION — INDIVIDUAL SKILL AND REFLECTION — DWELLINGS
BUILT OF HARD MATERIALS UNITED BY
MORTAR — THE DAMS OF BEAVERS.

Animals construct dwellings either to protect
themselves from the cold, heat, rain, and other chances
of the weather, or to retire to at moments when the
search for food does not compel them to be outside
and exposed to the attacks of enemies. Some inhabit
 these refuges permanently; others only remain there
during the winter; others, again, who live during the
rest of the year in the open air set up dwellings to
bring forth their young, or to lay their eggs and rear
the offspring. Whatever the object may be for which
these retreats are built, they constitute altogether
various manifestations of the same industry, and I
will class them, not according to the uses which they
are to serve, but according to the amount of art
displayed by the architect.

In this series, as in those which we have already
studied, we shall find every stage from that of beings
provided for by nature, and endowed with a special
organ which secretes for them a shelter, up to those
who are constrained by necessity to seek in their own
intelligence an expedient to repair the forgetfulness
of nature. These productions, so different in their
origin, can only be compared from the point of view
of the part they play; there are analogies between
them but not the least homology.

Animals naturally provided with dwellings. — Nearly
all the Mollusca are enveloped by a very hard calcareous
case, secreted by their mantle: this shell, which
is a movable house, they bear about with them and
retire into at the slightest warning.

Caterpillars which are about to be transformed into
chrysalides weave a cocoon, a very close dwelling in
which they can go through their metamorphosis far
from exterior troubles. It is an organic form of
dwelling, or produced by an organ. It is not necessary
to multiply examples of this kind; they are extremely
numerous. In the same category must be ranged
the cells issuing from the wax-glands which supply
Bees with materials for their combs in which they
 enclose the eggs of the queen with a provision of
honey.

I do not wish to insist on creations of this kind
which are independent of the animal’s will and reflection.
Near these facts must be placed those in
which animals, still using a natural secretion, yet
endeavour to obtain ingenious advantages from it
unknown by related species.

There is, for example, the Macropus viridi-auratus,
or Paradise-fish, which blows air bubbles in the mucus
produced from its mouth. This mucus becomes fairly
resistant, and all the bubbles imprisoned and sticking
aside by side at last form a floor. It
is beneath this floating shelter that
the fish suspends its eggs for its
little ones to undergo their early
development.

Fig. 18.

Animals who increase their natural
protection by the addition of
foreign bodies. — Certain tubicolar
Annelids, whose skin furnishes
abundant mucus which does not
become sufficiently hard to form an efficacious protection,
utilise it to weld together and unite around
them neighbouring substances, grains of sand, fragments
of shell, etc. They thus construct a case
which both resembles formations by special organs
and manufacture by the aid of foreign materials.
The larvæ of Phryganea, who lead an aquatic life, use
this method to separate themselves from the world
and prepare tubes in which to dwell. (Fig. 18.)
All the fragments carried down by the stream are
good for their labours on condition only that they are
denser than the water. They take possession of
 fragments of aquatic leaves, and little fragments of
wood which have been sufficiently long in the water
to have thoroughly imbibed it and so become heavy
enough to keep themselves at the bottom, or at least
to prevent them from floating to the surface. It is
the larva of Phryganea striata which has been best
studied; those of neighbouring species evidently act
much in the same way, with differences only in detail.
The little carpenter stops a fragment rather longer
than his own body, lies on it and brings it in contact
with other pieces along his own sides. He thus
obtains the skeleton of a cylinder. The largest holes
are filled up with detritus of all kinds. Then these
materials are agglutinated by a special secretion.
The larva overlays the interior of its tube with a
covering of soft silk which renders the cylinder watertight
and consolidates the earlier labours. The insect
is thus in possession of a safe retreat. Resembling
some piece of rubbish, it completes its metamorphosis
in peace, undisturbed by the carnivora of the stream.
There is here already a tendency towards the dwellings
of which I shall speak later on, and which are entirely
formed of the external environment.

Animals who establish their home in the natural
or artificial dwellings of others. — Between the beings
whom nature has endowed with a shelter and those
who construct it by their own industry, we may
intercept those who, deprived of a natural asylum and
not having the inclination or the power to make one,
utilise the dwellings of others, either when the latter
still inhabit them, or when they are empty on account
of the death or departure of the owner. In the
natural sciences there is no group of facts around
which may be traced a clear boundary; each of them
 is more or less closely related to a group which
appears at first of an entirely different nature. Thus
it does not enter into our plan to speak of parasites.
Yet, if among these some turn to a host to demand
of him both food and shelter, if even they can come
to be so modified and so marked by parasitism that
they can live in no other way, there are others who
ask for lodging only from an animal better protected
than they are themselves. It is these whose customs
we are called upon to consider. In the interior of the
branchial chamber of many bivalvular Mollusca, and
especially the Mussel, there lives a little crustaceous
commensal called the Pea-crab (Pinnoteres pisum).
He goes, comes, hunts, and retires at the least alarm
within his host’s shell. The mussel, as the price of its
hospitality, no doubt profits by the prizes which fall
to the little crab’s claws. It is even said that the crab
in recognition of the benefits bestowed by his indolent
friend keeps him acquainted with what is passing
on around, and as he is much more active and alert
than his companion he sees danger much farther
away, and gives notice of it, asking for the door to be
shut by lightly pinching the mussel’s gill. But this
gratitude of the Crustacean towards a sympathetic
bivalve is merely a hypothesis; we do not exactly
know what passes in the intimacy of these two
widely-differing natures.

For birds like the Cuckoo and the Molothrus it is
not possible to plead attenuating circumstances.
They occupy a place in an inhabited house without
paying any sort of rent. Every one knows the
Cuckoo’s audacity. The female lays her eggs in
different nests and troubles herself no further about
their fate. She seeks for her offspring a shelter which
 she does not take the trouble to construct, and moreover
at the same time assures for them the cares of a
stranger in place of her own.

In North America a kind of Starling, the Molothrus
pecoris, commonly called the Cow-bird, acts in the
same careless fashion. It lives in the midst of herds,
and owes its specific name to this custom; it feeds on
the parasites on the skin of cattle. This bird constructs
no nest. At the moment of laying the female
seeks out an inhabited dwelling, and when the owner
is absent she furtively lays an egg there. The young
intruder breaks his shell after four days’ incubation,
that is to say, usually much before the legitimate
children; and the parents, in order to silence the beak
of the stranger who, without shame, claims his share
with loud cries, neglect their own brood which have
not yet appeared, and which they abandon. Their
foster children repay them, however, with the blackest
ingratitude. As soon as the little Molothrus feels his
body covered with feathers and his little wings strong
enough to sustain him he quits his adopted parents
without consideration. These birds show a love of
independence very rare among animals, with whom
conjugal fidelity has become proverbial; they do not
unite in couples; unions are free, and the mother
hastens to deliver herself from the cares of bringing
up her young in the manner we have seen. Two
other species of Molothrus have the same habit, as have
the American Cuckoo and the Golden Cuckoo of
South Africa.

The habits of the Molothrus bovariensis, a closely
allied Argentine Cow-bird, have been carefully studied
by Mr. W. H. Hudson, who has also some interesting
remarks as to the vestiges of the nesting instinct in
 this interesting parasitical bird, which now is constantly
dropping eggs in all sorts of places, even
on the ground, most of them being lost. “Before and
during the breeding-season the females, sometimes
accompanied by the males, are seen continually
haunting and examining the domed nests of the
Dendrocolaptidæ. This does not seem like a mere
freak of curiosity, but their persistence in their
investigations is precisely like that of birds that
habitually make choice of such breeding-places. It
is surprising that they never do actually lay in such
nests, except when the side or dome has been accidentally
broken enough to admit the light into the
interior. Whenever I set boxes up in my trees, the
female Cow-birds were the first to visit them. Sometimes
one will spend half a day loitering about and
inspecting a box, repeatedly climbing round and over
it, and always ending at the entrance, into which she
peers curiously, and when about to enter starting
back, as if scared at the obscurity within. But after
retiring a little space she will return again and again,
as if fascinated by the comfort and security of such
an abode. It is amusing to see how pertinaciously
they hang about the ovens of the Oven-birds, apparently
determined to take possession of them,
flying back after a hundred repulses, and yet not
entering them even when they have the opportunity.
Sometimes one is seen following a Wren or a Swallow
to its nest beneath the eaves, and then clinging to
the wall beneath the hole into which it disappeared.
That it is a recurrence to a long-disused habit I can
scarcely doubt. I may mention that twice I have
seen birds of this species attempting to build nests,
and that on both occasions they failed to complete
 the work. So universal is the nest-making instinct
that one might safely say the M. bovariensis had once
possessed it, and that in the cases I have mentioned
it was a recurrence, too weak to be efficient, to the
ancestral habit.” Mr. Hudson suggests that this bird
lost the nest-making instinct by acquiring the semi-parasitical
habit, common to many South American
birds, of breeding in the large covered nests of the
Dendrocolaptidæ, although, owing to increased severity
in the struggle for the possession of such nests, this
habit was defeated.81

The Rhodius anarus, a fish of European rivers, also
ensures a quiet retreat for his offspring by a method
which is not less indiscreet. At the period of spawning,
a male chooses a female companion and with
great vigilance keeps off all those who wish to
approach her. When the laying becomes imminent,
the Rhodius, swimming up and down at the bottom
of the stream, at length discovers a Unio. The
bivalve is asleep with his shell ajar, not suspecting
the plot which is being formed against him. It is a
question of nothing less than of transforming him
into furnished lodgings. The female fish bears underneath
her tail a prolongation of the oviduct; she
introduces it delicately between the Mollusc’s valves
and allows an egg to fall between his branchial folds.
In his turn the male approaches, shakes himself over
it, and fertilises it. Then the couple depart in search
of another Unio, to whom to confide another representative
of the race. The egg, well sheltered against
 dangers from without, undergoes development, and
one fine day the little fish emerges and frisks away
from his peaceful retreat.

Other animals, more respectful of property, avoid
using another’s dwelling until it is abandoned by its
proprietor, and no reproach of indelicacy can be
addressed to the Gobius minutus, a fish which lives
on our coasts at the mouth of rivers. The female lays
beneath overturned shells, remains of Oysters, or
Cardium shells. The valve is buried beneath several
centimetres of sand, which supports it like a vault. It
forms a solid roof, beneath which the eggs undergo
their evolution. Sometimes the male remains by the
little chamber to watch over their fate. It is possible
to distinguish the two holes of entrance and exit
which mark his habitual passage.

The Hermit-crab perhaps knows best how to take
advantage of old clothes. (Fig. 19.) He collects
shells of Gasteropods, abandoned flotsam, the first
inhabitant of which has died. The Hermit-crab
(Pagurus Bernhardus) is a Decapod Crustacean — that
is to say, he resembles a very small Crab.
But his inveterate habit during so many generations
of sheltering his abdomen in a shell prevents this
part from being encrusted with lime and becoming
hard. The legs and the head remain in the
ordinary condition outside the house, and the
animal moves bearing it everywhere with him; on
the least warning he retires into it entirely. But
the Crustacean grows. When young he had chosen
a small shell. A Mollusc, in growing, makes his
house grow with him. The Hermit-crab cannot do
this, and when his dwelling has become too narrow
he abandons it for one that is more comfortable.

 

Fig. 19.

 At first enclosed in the remains of a Trochus, he
changes into that of a Purpura; a little later he seeks
asylum in a Whelk. Beside the shelter which these
shells assure to the Crustacean, they serve to mask
his ferocity, and the prey which approaches confidently
what it takes to be an inoffensive Mollusc,
becomes his victim.

The Great Horned Owl likewise does not construct
a nest; but takes possession of the dwellings
abandoned by others. These birds utilise for laying
their eggs sometimes the nest of a Crow or a Dove,
sometimes the lair which a Squirrel had considered
too dilapidated. The female, without troubling
about the bad state of these ruins, or taking pains
to repair them, lays her eggs here and sits on
them.

Classification of artificial shelters. — It is time to
turn to animals who have more regard for comfort,
and who erect dwellings for themselves or their
offspring. These dwellings may be divided into three
groups: (1) Those which are hollowed in earth or in
wood; (2) those which in the simplest form result
from the division of material of any kind; then, as a
complication, of materials bound together; then, as
a last refinement, of delicate materials, such as blades
of grass or threads of wool woven together; such are
the nests of certain birds and the tents of nomads;
(3) those which are built of moist earth which
becomes hard on drying; the perfection of this
method consists of piling up hard fragments, pieces
of wood or ashlar, the moist earth being only a
mortar which unites the hard parts together. Animals
exercise with varying success these different methods,
all of which Man still practises.

 Hollowed dwellings — Rudimentary burrows. — We
will first occupy ourselves with the dwelling hollowed
in the earth. It is the least complicated form. The
number of creatures who purely and simply bury
themselves thus to obtain shelter is incalculable; I
will only mention a few examples, and pass on from
simple combinations to the more perfected industries,
of which they present the first sketch.

It is known that at a certain epoch of the year
Crabs abandon their hard carapaces. This phenomenon
is known by the name of the moult; they
remain in this condition for some time; it is the
period during which they grow; then their integuments
are encrusted anew with lime and again become
resistant. While they are thus deprived of their
ordinary protection they are exposed to a crowd of
dangers, and they are so well aware of this that they
remain hidden beneath rocks and pebbles. A crab
of Guadeloupe, called Gecarinus ruricola, escapes the
perils of this situation, thanks to its kind of life and
its habit of hollowing out a burrow to live in while it
is deprived of its habitual defence. This Crustacean
lives on the earth, at a distance of about ten or twelve
kilometres from the sea-shore, and nourishes itself on
animal and vegetable remains. It approaches the
water only at the period of laying eggs, turning
towards the coast in the months of February and
March. This migration does not take place, like some
others, in compact bands; each follows the road in
independence, and preserves a certain amount of
liberty with regard to the path and the epoch of the
journey. They lead an aquatic life till May or June;
then the female abandons her little ones, who had
begun their development attached to her claws, and
 they return to land. The moult takes place in
August. At the approach of this dreaded crisis each
hollows a hole between two roots, supplies it with
green leaves, and carefully stops up the entrance.
These labours accomplished, the crab is entirely
sheltered; it undergoes the moult in safety, and does
not emerge from its retreat until it is again capable of
facing enemies, and of seizing food with its claws,
which have become hard again. This seclusion
appears to last a month. Here is, then, an example of
a temporary dwelling rendered necessary by special
conditions of defect for external life. We are here
still in the infancy of the art.

Speaking generally, birds are accomplished architects.
Certain of them are, however, content with a
rudimentary cavern. There is no question here of
those who retire to clefts in the rock or in trunks of
trees, for in these cases the cavity is only the support
of the true house, and it is in the construction of this
that the artist reveals his talent. I wish to speak of
animals which remain in a burrow without making a
nest there. A Parroquet of New Zealand called the
Kakapo (Strigops habroptilus) thus dwells in natural
or hollowed excavations. It is only found in a
restricted portion of the island and leads a miserable
life there, habitually staying in the earth and pursued
by numerous enemies, especially half-wild dogs. It
tries to hold its own, but its wings and beak do not
suffice to protect it, and the race would have completely
disappeared if these birds were not able to
resist, owing to the prudence with which they stay
within their dwellings. They profit by a natural
retreat, or one constructed in rocks or beneath roots
of trees; they only come out when impelled by
 hunger, and return as soon as they can in case of
danger.

A large number of animals also hollow out shelters
for their eggs, with the double object of maintaining
them at a constant temperature and of concealing
them. Most reptiles act in this manner. The way
in which a Tortoise, the Cistudo lunaria, prepares its
nest is extremely curious. When the time for this
labour arrives, the tortoise chooses a site. It commences
by boring in the earth with the end of its tail,
the muscles of which are held firmly contracted; it
turns the tail like a gimlet and succeeds in making a
conical hole. Gradually the depth of the hole becomes
equal to the length of the tail, and the tool then
becomes useless. The Cistudo enlarges the cavity
with the help of its posterior legs. Using them
alternately it withdraws the earth and kicks it away,
then piles up this rubbish on the edge of the hole,
arranging it so as to form a circular rampart. Soon
the posterior members can take nothing more from
the too distant bottom. The moment for laying has
now come. As soon as the egg arrives at the cloaca
one of the feet seizes it and lowers it gently into
the nest, while the second foot seizes another egg,
which during this time had appeared at the orifice.
This manipulation lasts until the end of the operation,
when the tortoise buries all its family, and
to flatten the prominence which results she strikes
it repeatedly with her plastron, raising herself on
her legs.

It is not only land animals which adopt this custom
of living in the earth, and there sheltering their offspring.
Fish also make retreats on the bank or at
the bottom. To mention only one case, the Bullhead
 (Cottus gobio) of our rivers, which spawns in the Seine
in May, June, and July, acts in this manner. Beneath
a rock in the sand it prepares a cavity; then seeks
females and brings them to lay eggs in its little
lodging. During the four or five weeks before they
come out it watches the eggs, keeping away as far as
possible every danger which threatens them. It only
leaves its position when pressed by hunger, and as
soon as the hunt is concluded, returns to the post of
duty.

Other animals when digging have a double object;
they wish to shelter themselves, and at the same time
to find the water which they need for themselves or
for the development of their young.

It is well known that Frogs and Toads generally go
in the spring to lay their eggs in streams and ponds.
A Batrachian of Brazil and the hot regions of South
America, the Cystignathus ocellatus, no doubt fearing
too many dangers for the spawn if deposited in the
open water, employs the artifice of hollowing, not far
from the bank, a hole the bottom of which is filled by
infiltration. It there places its eggs, and the little
ones on their birth can lead an aquatic life while
being guaranteed against its risks.

A terrestrial Crab, the Cardisoma carnifex, found
in Bengal and the Antilles, acts in the same manner;
but in this case it has in view its own convenience
and not care for its offspring. Its habitat is especially
in low-lying spots near the shore, where water may
be found at a trifling depth beneath the soil. To
establish its dwelling, the Crustacean first buries itself
until it reaches the liquid level. Arrived at this point,
it makes a large lair in the soft soil, and effects communication
with the outside by various openings. It
 can thus easily come and go and retire into its cave,
where it finds security and a humidity favourable for
branchial respiration. From time to time it cleans
out the dirt and rubbish which accumulate in the
hole. It makes a little pile of all the refuse which it
finds, and, seizing it between its claws and abdomen,
carries it outside. Executing several journeys very
rapidly, it soon clears out its dwelling.

The dipnoid Protopterus, which inhabits the
marshes of Senegal and Gambia, is curious in more
than one respect. Firstly, it can breathe oxygen,
whether, like other fish, it finds it dissolved in water
or in the atmospheric air. When during the summer
the marshes in which it lives dry up, it takes refuge
in the mud at the bottom, which hardens and imprisons
it, and it thus remains curled up until the
time when the water after the rainy season has
softened the earth which surrounds it. This fact had
been known for some time; travellers had brought
back lumps of dried earth of varied size, the largest
about as big as two fists. On opening them the
same fish was always found within, and the chamber
in which it is contained was lined with a sort of
cocoon, having the appearance of dry gelatine.
Duméril was able to observe one of these animals
in captivity. At the period corresponding to the
dry period of its own country, the Protopterus buried
itself in the mud which had been placed at the bottom
of the aquarium. In order to realise the conditions
found in nature, the water which covered it was
gradually withdrawn. The earth hardened in drying,
and when broken the recluse was seen surrounded by
hardened mucus, exactly like those which came from
Senegal.

 Carefully-disposed burrows. — All the cases which we
have considered show us the industry of the hollowed
dwelling in its primitive state; but other animals
know how to furnish it with greater luxury. I will
continue in the same order of increasing complication.
Many beings live permanently in a burrow;
Reptiles — Snakes or Lizards — are to be placed among
these. Among others, the Lacerta stirpium arranges
a narrow and deep hole, well hidden beneath a thicket,
and retires into it for the winter, when cold renders
it incapable of movement and at the mercy of its
enemies. Before giving itself up to its hybernal sleep,
it is careful to close hermetically the opening of the
dwelling with a little earth and dried leaves. When
spring returns and the heat awakens the reptile, it comes
out to warm itself and to hunt, but never abandons
its dwelling, always retiring into it in case of alarm
and to pass there cold days and nights.

Darwin has observed and described82 how a little
Lacertilian, the Conolophus subcristatus, conducts its
work of mining and digging. It establishes its burrow
in a soft tufa, and directs it almost horizontally,
hollowing it out in such a way that the axis of the
hole makes a very small angle with the soil. This
reptile does not foolishly expend its strength in this
troublesome labour. It only works with one side of
its body at a time, allowing the other side to rest.
For instance, the right anterior leg sets to work
digging, while the posterior leg on the same side
throws out the earth. When fatigued, the left legs
come into play, allowing the others to repose.

Other animals, without building their cavern with
remarkable skill, show much sagacity in the choice of
 a site calculated to obtain certain determined advantages.
In Egypt there are dogs which have become
wild. Having shaken off the yoke of man, which
in the East affords them little or no support, they
lead an independent life. During the day they
remain quiescent in desert spots or ruins, and at night
they prowl about like jackals, hunting living prey or
feeding on abandoned carcasses. There are hills
which have in a manner become the property of
these animals. They have founded villages there,
and allow no one to approach. These hills have an
orientation from north to south, so that one slope is
exposed to the sun from morning to mid-day and the
other from mid-day to evening. Now, dogs have a
great horror of heat. They fear the torrid heat of
the south as much as in our climate they like to lie
warmed by gentle rays; there is no shadow too deep
for their siesta. Therefore, on these Egyptian hills
every dog hollows out a lair on both slopes. One of
these dwellings is thus turned towards the east, the
other towards the west. In the morning, when he
returns from his nocturnal expeditions, the animal
takes refuge in the second, and remains there until
mid-day, sunk in refreshing sleep. At that hour the
sun begins to reach him, and to escape it he passes
over to the opposite slope; it is a curious sight to see
them all, with pendent heads and sleepy air, advance
with trailing steps to their eastern retreat, settle down
in it, and continue their dream and their digestion
till evening, when they again set forth to prowl. We
never grow tired of admiring the intelligence of their
domesticated fellows, but this trait seems to me worthy
of remark; it proves a very developed power of observation
and reflection.

Fig. 20.

 The Trap-door Spiders of the south of Europe
construct burrows which have been studied with great
care and in much detail by Moggridge.83 He found
that there were four chief types of burrow, shown in
the accompanying illustration (Fig. 20) at about one-third
 the actual size (except C1 and D1, which are of
natural size). While A and B have only one door, C
and D, besides the surface door, have another a short
way under ground. The whole burrow as well as the
door are lined with silk, which also forms the hinge.
The great art of the Trap-door Spider lies in her
skilful forming of the door, which fits tightly, although
it opens widely when she emerges, and which she
frequently holds down
when an intruder
strives to enter, and in
the manner with which
the presence of the
door is concealed, so
as to harmonise with
surrounding objects.
Perhaps in no case is
the concealment more
complete than when
dead leaves are employed
to cover the
door. In some cases
a single withered olive
leaf is selected, and it
serves to cover the
entrance; in other
cases several are woven together with bits of wood
or roots, as in the accompanying illustration, which
represents such a door when open and when shut.
(Fig. 21.)

Fig. 21.

The Trap-door Spider (Mygale henzii, Girard),
which is widely diffused in California, forms a simple
shaft-like burrow, but, like the European Trap-door
Spider, it is very skilful in forming an entrance and
 in concealing its presence. Its habits have lately
been described by D. Cleveland of San Diego.84 In
the adobe land hillocks are numerous; they are about
a foot in height, and some three or four feet in
diameter. These hillocks are selected by the spiders — apparently
because they afford excellent drainage,
and cannot be washed away by the winter rains — and
their stony summits are often full of spiders’ nests.
These subterranean dwellings are shafts sunk vertically
in the earth, except where some stony obstruction
compels the miner to deflect from a downward
course. The shafts are from five to twelve inches in
depth, and from one-half to one and a half inches in
diameter, depending largely upon the age and size of
the spider.

When the spider has decided upon a location,
which is always in clay, adobe or stiff soil, he
excavates the shaft by means of the sharp horns at
the end of his mandibles, which are his pick and
shovel and mining tools. The earth is held between
the mandibles and carried to the surface. When the
shaft is of the required size, the spider smoothes and
glazes the wall with a fluid which is secreted by
itself. Then the whole shaft is covered with
a silken paper lining, spun from the animal’s
spinnerets.

The door at the top of the shaft is made of several
alternate layers of silk and earth, and is supplied
with an elastic and ingenious hinge, and fits closely
in a groove around the rim of the tube. This door
simulates the surface on which it lies, and is distinguishable
from it only by a careful scrutiny. The
clever spider even glues earth and bits of small plants
 on the upper side of his trap-door, thus making it
closely resemble the surrounding surface.

The spider generally stations itself at the bottom
of the tube. When, by tapping on the door, or by
other means, a gentle vibration is caused, the spider
runs to the top of his nest, raises the lid, looks
out and reconnoitres. If a small creature is seen, it
is seized and devoured. If the invader is more
formidable, the door is quickly closed, seized and
held down by the spider, so that much force is
required to lever it open. Then, with the intruder
looking down upon him, the spider drops to the
bottom of his shaft.

It has been found by many experiments that when
the door of his nest is removed, the spider can renew
it five times — never more than that. Within these
limitations, the door torn off in the evening was found
replaced by a new one in the morning. Each successive
renewal showed, however, a greater proportion
of earth, and a smaller proportion of silk, until finally
the fifth door had barely enough silk to hold the
earth together. The sixth attempt, if made, was a
failure, because the spinnerets had exhausted their
supply of the web fluid. When the poor persecuted
spider finds his domicile thus open and defenceless,
he is compelled to leave it, and wait until his stock of
web fluid is renewed.85

Skilful diggers prepare burrows with several entrances;
some even arrange several rooms, each for a
special object. The Otter seeks its food in the water,
 and actively hunts fish in ponds and rivers. But
when fishing is over, it likes to keep dry and at the
same time sheltered from terrestrial enemies. Its
dwelling must also present an easy opening into the
water. In order to fulfil all these conditions, its house
consists first of a large room hollowed in the bank at
a level sufficiently high to be beyond reach of floods.
From the bottom of this keep a passage starts which
sinks and opens about fifty centimetres beneath the
surface of the water. It is through here that the
Otter noiselessly glides to find himself in the midst
of his hunting domain without having been seen or
been obliged to make a noisy plunge which would
put the game to flight. If this were all, the hermetically-closed
dwelling would soon become uninhabitable,
as there would be no provision for renewing the air,
so the Otter proceeds to form a second passage from
the ceiling of the room to the ground, thus forming a
ventilation tube. In order that this may not prove a
cause of danger, it is always made to open up in the
midst of brushwood or in a tuft of rushes and reeds.

Marmots also are not afraid of the work which will
assure them a warm and safe refuge in the regions
they inhabit, where the climate is rough. In summer
they ascend the Alps to a height of 2,500 to 3,000
metres and rapidly hollow a burrow like that for
winter time, which I am about to describe, but smaller
and less comfortable. They retire into it during bad
weather or to pass the night. When the snow
chases them away and causes them to descend to a
lower zone, they think about constructing a genuine
house in which to shut themselves during the winter
and to sleep. Twelve or fifteen of these little animals
unite their efforts to make first a horizontal passage,
 which may reach the length of three or four metres.
They enlarge the extremity of it into a vaulted and
circular room more than two metres in diameter.
They make there a good pile of very dry hay on
which they all install themselves, after having carefully
protected themselves against the external cold
by closing up the passage with stones and calking the
interstices with grass and moss.

In solitary woods or roads the Badger (Meles), who
does not like noise, prepares for himself a peaceful
retreat, clean and well ventilated, composed of a vast
chamber situated about a metre and a half beneath
the surface. He spares no pains over it, and makes
it communicate with the external world by seven or
eight very long passages, so that the points where
they open are about thirty paces distant from one
another. In this way, if an enemy discovers one of
them and introduces himself into the Badger’s home,
the Badger can still take flight through one of the
other passages. In ordinary times they serve for the
aëration of the central room. The animal attaches
considerable importance to this. He is also very
clean in his habits, and every day may be seen coming
out for little walks, having an object of an opposite
nature to the search for food. This praiseworthy
habit is, as we shall see, exploited by the Fox in an
unworthy manner.

The Fox has many misdeeds on his conscience, but
his conduct towards the Badger is peculiarly indelicate.
The Fox is a skilful digger, and when he
cannot avoid it, he can hollow out a house with
several rooms. The dwelling has numerous openings,
both as a measure of prudence and of hygiene, for
this arrangement enables the air to be renewed. He
 prepares several chambers side by side; one of which
he uses for observation and to take his siesta in; a
second as a sort of larder in which he piles up what
he cannot devour at once; a third, in which the
female brings forth and rears her young. But he
does not hesitate to avoid this labour when possible.
If he finds a rabbit warren he tries first to eat the
inhabitants, and then, his mind cleared from this
anxiety, arranges their domicile to his own taste, and
comfortably installs himself in it. In South America,
again, the Argentine Fox frequently takes up permanent
residence in a vizcachera, ejecting the rightful
owners; he is so quiet and unassuming in his manners
that the vizcachas become indifferent to his presence,
but in spring the female fox will seize on the young
vizcachas to feed her own young, and if she has eight
or nine, the young of the whole village of vizcachas
may be exterminated.

The Badger’s dwelling appears to the Fox particularly
enviable. In order to dislodge the proprietor he
adopts the following plan. Knowing that the latter
can tolerate no ordure near his home, he chooses as a
place of retirement one of the passages which lead
to the chamber of the peaceful recluse. He insists
repeatedly, until at last the Badger, insulted by this
grossness, and suffocated by the odour, decides to
move elsewhere and hollow a fresh palace. The Fox
is only waiting for this, and installs himself without
ceremony.

The Vizcacha (Lagostomus trichodactylus) is a large
Rodent inhabiting a vast extent of country in the
pampas of La Plata, Patagonia, etc. Unlike most
other burrowing species, the Vizcacha prefers to work
on open level spots. On the great grassy plains it is
 even able to make its own conditions, like the Beaver,
and is in this respect, and in its highly-developed social
instinct, among the two or three Mammals which
approach Man, although only a Rodent, and even in
this order, according to Waterhouse, coming very low
down by reason of its marsupial affinities.

The Vizcacha lives in small communities of from
twenty to thirty members, in a village of deep-chambered
burrows, some twelve or fifteen in number, with
large pit-like entrances closely grouped together, and
as the Vizcachera, as this village is called, endures for
an indefinitely long period, the earth which is constantly
brought up forms an irregular mound thirty
or forty feet in diameter, and from fifteen to thirty
inches above the level of the road; this mound serves
to protect the dwelling from floods on low ground.
A clearing is made all round the abode and all
rubbish thrown on the mound; the Vizcachas thus
have a smooth turf on which to disport themselves,
and are freed from the danger of lurking enemies.

The entire village occupies an area of one hundred
to two hundred square feet of ground. The burrows
vary greatly in extent; usually in a Vizcachera there
are several that, at a distance of from four to six feet
from the entrance, open into large circular chambers.
From these chambers other burrows diverge in all
directions, some running horizontally, others obliquely
downwards to a maximum depth of six feet from the
surface; some of these galleries communicate with
those of other burrows.

On viewing a Vizcachera closely, the first thing that
strikes the observer is the enormous size of the
entrances to the central burrows in the mound; there
are usually several smaller outside burrows. The
 entrance to some of the principal burrows is sometimes
four to six feet across the mouth, and sometimes
it is deep enough for a tall man to stand in up to
the waist.

It is not easy to tell what induces a Vizcacha to
found a new community, for they increase very slowly,
and are very fond of each other’s society. It is
invariably one individual alone who founds the new
village. If it were for the sake of better pasture he
would remove to a considerable distance, but he
merely goes from forty to sixty yards off to begin
operations. Sooner or later, perhaps after many
months, other individuals join the solitary Vizcacha,
and they become the parents of innumerable generations
in the same village: old men, who have lived
all their lives in one district, remember that many
of the Vizcacheras around them existed when they
were children.

It is always a male who begins the new village.
Although he does not always adopt the same method,
he usually works very straight into the earth, digging
a hole twelve or fourteen inches wide, but not so
deep, at an angle of about 25° with the surface. After
he has progressed inwards for a few feet, the animal is
no longer content merely to scatter the loose earth;
he cleans it away in a straight line from the entrance,
and scratches so much on this line, apparently to make
the slope gentler, that he soon forms a trench a foot
or more in depth, and often three or four feet in
length. This facilitates the conveyance of the loose
earth as far as possible from the entrance of the
burrow. But after a while the animal is unwilling
that earth should accumulate even at the end of this
long passage, and proceeds to form two additional
 trenches, making an acute or right angle converging
into the first trench, so that the whole when completed
takes a Y shape. These trenches are continually
deepened and lengthened in this manner,
the angular segment of earth between them being
scratched away, until by degrees it gives place to one
large deep irregular mouth. The burrows are made
best in the black and red moulds of the pampas; but
even in such soils the entrances may be varied. In
some the central trench is wanting, or so short that
there appear to be but two passages converging
directly into the burrow, or these two trenches may
be so curved inwards as to form the segment of
a circle. Usually, however, the varieties are only
modifications of the Y-shaped system.

On the pampas a wide-mouthed burrow possesses
a distinct advantage over the more usual shape. The
two outer trenches diverge so widely from the mouth
that half the earth brought out is cast behind instead
of before it, thus creating a mound of equal height
about the entrance, by which it is secured from water
during great rainfalls, while cattle avoid treading over
the great pit-like entrances, though they soon tread and
break in the burrows of the Armadillo and other
species when these make their homes on perfectly
level ground.

The Vizcachas do not usually leave their burrows
until dark, but in summer they come out before sunset.
Usually one of the old males first appears,
and sits on some prominent place on the mound,
apparently in no haste to begin his evening meal.
Other Vizcachas soon begin to appear, each quietly
taking up his position at the burrow’s mouth. The
females, known by their smaller size and lighter
 colour, sit upright on their haunches, as if to command
a better view; they are always wilder and sprightlier
in their gestures than the males. They view a human
stranger with a mixture of fear and curiosity, sometimes
allowing him to come within five or six paces
of them; in desert regions, however, where enemies
are numerous, the Vizcacha is very timid and
wary.

These animals are very sociable, and their sociability
extends beyond their own vizcachera. On approaching
a vizcachera at night, usually some of the Vizcachas
on it scamper off to distant burrows. These are neighbours
merely come to pay a friendly visit. The
intercourse is so frequent that little straight paths are
formed from one village to another. Their social
instinct leads members of one village to assist those
of another when in trouble. Thus, if a vizcachera is
covered over with earth in order to destroy the
animals within, Vizcachas from distant burrows will
subsequently be found zealously digging out their
friends. The hospitality of the Vizcacha does not,
however, extend to his burrow; he has a very strong
feeling with regard to the sanctity of the burrow.
A Vizcacha never enters another’s burrow, and if by
chance driven into one by dogs will emerge speedily,
apparently finding that the danger within is greater than
the danger without. In connection with the sociability
of the Vizcacha, we must take into consideration the
fact that Vizcachas possess a wonderfully varied and
expressive language, and are engaged in perpetual
discussion all night long.86

 Burrows with barns adjoined. — Certain Rodents
have carried hollow dwellings to great perfection.
Among these the Hamster of Germany (Cricetus
frumentarius) is not the least ingenious. To his
dwelling-room he adds three or four storehouses for
the amassed provisions of which I have already had
occasion to speak. The burrow possesses two openings:
one, which the animal prefers to use, which
sinks vertically into the soil; the other, the passage
of exit with a gentle and very winding slope. The
bottom of the central room is carpeted with moss and
straw, which make it a warm and pleasant home.
A third tunnel starts from this sleeping chamber,
soon forking and leading to the wheat barns. Thus
during the winter the Hamster has no pressing need
to go out except on fine days for a little fresh air.
He has everything within his reach, and can remain
shut up with nothing to fear from the severity of the
season.

Dwellings hollowed out in wood. — It is not only the
soil which may serve for retreat; wood serves as an
asylum for numerous animals, who bore it, and find
in it both food and shelter. In this class must be
placed a large number of Worms, Insects, and Crustaceans.
One of these last, the Chelura terebrans, a
little Amphipod, constitutes a great danger for the
works of man. It attacks piles sunken to support
structures, and undermines them to such a degree that
they eventually fall. Wood is formed of concentric
layers alternately composed of large vessels formed
during the summer, and smaller vessels formed during
the winter. The latter zones are more resistant, the
former are softer. When one of these Crustaceans
attacks a pile, it first bores a little horizontal passage,
 stopping at a layer of summer-growth. It there
hollows a large grotto, leaving here and there pillars
of support. It lays in this space. The new generation
working around the parents increases the space
and feeds on the wood removed. A second generation
is produced, and the inhabitants become pressed
for space. The new-born pierce numerous passages
and penetrate towards the interior of the pile as far as
the next summer layer. There they spread themselves,
always boring; they construct new rooms like
the first, and arrange pillars here and there. Their
descendants gain the subjacent zone, and so the
process goes on. During this time the early ancestors
who hollowed the surface dwellings have died, and
the holes which they made are no longer habitable;
but they have all contributed to diminish the resistance
of the wood, and this continues as long as the
race which they produced makes its way towards the
centre of the stake.

Fig. 22.

An insect, the Xylocopa violacea (Fig. 22), related
to our Humble-bee, from which it differs in several
anatomical characters, and by the dark violet tint of
its wings, brings an improvement to the formation of
the shelter which it makes in wood for its larvæ.
Instead of hollowing a mere retreat to place there all
its eggs indiscriminately, it divides them into compartments,
separated by horizontal partitions. It is the
female alone who accomplishes this task, connected
with the function of perpetuating the race. She
chooses an old tree-trunk, a pole, or the post of a
fence, exposed to the sun and already worm-eaten, so
that her labour may be lightened. She first attacks
the wood perpendicularly to the surface, then suddenly
turns and directs downwards the passage, the
 
diameter of which is about equal to the size of the
insect’s body. The Xylocopa thus forms a tube about
thirty centimetres in length. Quite at the bottom
she places the first egg, leaving beside it a provision
of honey necessary to nourish the larva during its
evolution; she then closes it with a partition. This
partition is made with fragments of the powder of
wood glued together with saliva. A first horizontal
ring is applied round the circumference of the tube;
then in the interior of this first ring a second is
formed, and so on continuously, until the central
opening, more and more reduced, is at last entirely
closed up. This ceiling forms the floor for the next
chamber, in which the female deposits a new egg,
provided, like the other, with abundant provisions.
The same acts are repeated until the retreat becomes
 transformed into a series of isolated cells in which
the larvæ can effect their development, and from
which they will emerge either by themselves perforating
a thin wall which separates them from daylight,
or by an opening which the careful mother has
left to allow them to attain liberty without trouble.87

Woven dwellings. — The second class of habitation,
which I have called the woven dwelling, proceeds at
first from the parcelling up of substances, then of
objects capable of being entangled like wisps of wood
or straw, then of fine and supple materials which the
artisan can work together in a regular manner, that is
to say by felting or weaving. Facts will show us the
successive stages of improvement which have been
introduced into this industry. I will begin with the
more rudimentary.

Rudiments of this industry. — There are, first, cases
in which the will of the animal does not intervene, or
at least is very slightly manifested. The creature is
found covered and protected by foreign bodies which
are often living beings. Spider-crabs (Maïa), for
example, have their carapaces covered with algæ and
hydroids of all sorts. Thus garnished, the Crustaceans
have the advantage of not being recognised
from afar when they go hunting, since beneath this
fleece they resemble some rock. H. Fol has observed
at Villefranche-sur-Mer a Maïa so buried beneath
this vegetation that it was impossible at first sight to
distinguish it from the stones around. Under these
conditions the animal submits to a shelter rather than
creates it. Yet it is not so passive as one might at
first be led to suppose. When the algæ which
 flourish on its back become too long and impede or
delay its progress, it tears them off with its claws
and thoroughly cleans itself. The carapace being
quite clean, the animal finds itself too smooth and
too easy to distinguish from surrounding objects; it
therefore takes up again fragments of algæ and replaces
them where they do not delay to take root like
cuttings and to flourish anew. This culture is therefore
intentional; the crab directs it and arrests its
exuberance; it is no more the victim of it than the
gardener is the slave of the vegetables which he
waters day by day. From generation to generation
this crab has acquired the habit, the instinct if one
prefers, of thus covering itself so that it may be confused
with neighbouring objects. Naturally it is
ignorant of botany, and knows nothing of cuttings.
If placed in an aquarium with little fragments of
paper it will seize them and place them on its back,
as it would have done with algæ, without troubling
as to whether they become fixed or not. In spite of
this lack of judgment, we cannot fail to recognise
in this Maïa a certain ingenuity in self-concealment.

Fig. 23.

The Sponge-crab (Dromia vulgaris) also practises
this method of shelter. It seizes a large sponge and
maintains it firmly over its carapace with the help of
the posterior pair of limbs. The sponge continues to
prosper and to spread over the Crustacean who has
adopted it. (Fig. 23.) The two beings do not
seem to be definitely fixed to each other; the contact
of a sudden wave will separate them. When the
divorce is effected, the Dromia immediately throws
itself on its cherished covering and replaces it. M.
Künckel d’Herculais tells of one of these curious
 
crustaceans which delighted the workers in the laboratory
of Concarneau. The need for covering themselves
experienced by these Crabs is so strong that
in aquariums when their sponge is taken away they
 will apply to the back a fragment of wrack or of
anything which comes to hand. A little white cloak
with the arms of Brittany was manufactured for one
of these captives, and it was very amusing to see him
put on his overcoat when he had nothing else wherewith
to cover himself.88

In these two cases which I have brought forward
to exhibit the rudiments of this industry, the animals’
reflection and will play but a small part; even in
the Dromia custom is so inveterate in the race that
it has reacted on the animal’s organisation, and its
four posterior legs are profoundly modified for the
purpose of firmly holding the sheltering sponge; they
no longer serve for swimming or walking. The
animals of which I have now to speak possess more
initiative; although all do not act with the same
success, or show themselves equally skilful. Let us
turn first to the least experienced.

An Australian bird, the Catheturus Lathami, as
described by Gould, is still in the rudiments, and
limits itself to preparing an enormous pile of leaves.
It begins its work some weeks before laying its
eggs; with its claws it pushes behind it all the dead
leaves which fall on the earth and brings them into a
heap. The bird throws new material on the summit
until the hole is of suitable height. This detritus
ferments when left to itself, and a gentle heat is
developed in the centre of the edifice. The Catheturus
returns to lay near this coarse shelter; it then
takes each egg and buries it in the heap, the larger
end uppermost. It places a new layer above, and
quits its labour for good. Incubation takes place
favoured by the uniform heat of this decomposing
 mass, hatching is produced, and the young emerge
from their primitive nest.

Fig. 24.

Birds are not alone in constructing temporary
dwellings in which to lay their eggs; some Fish are
equally artistic in this kind of industry, and even
certain Reptiles. The Alligator of the Mississippi
would not perhaps at first be regarded as a model
of maternal foresight. Yet the female constructs a
genuine nest. She seeks a very inaccessible spot in
the midst of brushwood and thickets of reeds. With
her jaw she carries thither boughs which she arranges
on the soil and
covers with leaves.
She lays her eggs
and conceals them
with care beneath
vegetable remains.
Not yet considering
her work completed,
she stays in
the neighbourhood
watching with jealous
eye the thicket
which shelters the dear deposit, and never ceases to
mount guard threateningly until the day when her
young ones can follow her into the stream.

A hymenopterous relative of the Bees, the Megachile,
cuts out in rose-leaves fragments of appropriate form
which it bears away to a small hole in a tree, an
abandoned mouse nest or some similar cavity. There
it rolls them, works them up, and arranges them with
much art, so as to manufacture what resemble thimbles,
which it fills with honey and in which it lays.89 (Fig. 24.)

 The Anthocopa acts in a similar manner, carpeting
the holes of which it takes possession with the delicate
petals of the corn poppy.

The retreats of nocturnal birds of prey do not
differ in method of construction from these two kinds
of nests. They are holes in trees, in ruins, in old walls,
and are lined with soft and warm material. These
dwellings are related, not to the type of the hollowed
cave, but to that of the habitation manufactured
from mingled materials. They constitute an inferior
form in which the pieces are not firmly bound together
but need support throughout. The cavity is the
support which sustains the real house.

Dwellings formed of coarsely-entangled materials. — Diurnal
birds of prey are the first animals who
practise skilfully the twining of materials. Their
nests, which have received the name of eyries, are
not yet masterpieces of architecture, and reveal the
beginning of the industry which is pushed so far by
other birds. Usually situated in wild and inaccessible
spots, the young are there in safety when their
parents are away on distant expeditions. The abrupt
summits of cliffs and the tops of the highest forest
trees are the favourite spots chosen by the great birds
of prey. The eyrie generally consists of a mass of
dry branches which cross and mutually support one
another, constituting a whole which is fairly resistant.

Even these primitive nests are not, however, without
more complicated details of interest. Thus Mr.
Denis Gale wrote to Bendire concerning the Golden
Eagle in America: “Here in Colorado, in the
numerous glades running from the valleys into the
foothills, high inaccessible ledges are quite frequently
met with which afford the Eagles secure sites for their
 enormous nests. I know of one nest that must
contain two waggon-loads of material. It is over
seven feet high, and quite six feet wide on its upper
surface. In most cases the cliff above overhangs the
site. At the end of February or the beginning of
March, the needful repairs to the nest are attended
to, and the universal branch of evergreen is laid upon
the nest, seemingly for any purpose save that of
utility. This feature has been present in all the nests
I have examined myself, or have had examined by
others; it would seem to be employed as a badge of
occupancy.”90 This curious feature is also found in the
nests of the Bald or American Eagle. Thus Dr. W. L.
Ralph furnished Bendire with the following observations
made in Florida on the dwellings of this, the
national bird of the United States: — “The nests are
immense structures, from five to six feet in diameter,
and about the same in depth, and so strong that a man
can walk around in one without danger of breaking
through; in fact, my assistant would always get in
the nest before letting the eggs down to me. They
are composed of sticks, some of which are two or
three inches thick, and are lined with marsh grass
or some similar material. There is usually a slight
depression in the centre, where the eggs are placed,
but the edge of the nest extends so far beyond this
that it is almost impossible to see the bird from
below, unless it has its head well up. I have frequently
found foreign substances in their nests,
usually placed on the edges of it, the object of which
I cannot account for. Often it would be a ball of
grass, wet or dry, sometimes a green branch from a
pine tree, and again a piece of wood, bark, or other
 material. It seemed as if they were placed in
the nests as if to mark them. From its frequent
occurrence, at least, it seemed to me as if designedly
done.”91

The abodes of Squirrels, though exhibiting more
art, are constructions of the same nature; that is to
say, they are formed of interlaced sticks. This
animal builds its home to shelter itself there in the
bad season, to pass the night in it, and to rear its
young. Very agile, and not afraid of climbing, it
places its domicile near the tops of our highest forest
trees. Rather capricious also, and desiring change of
residence from time to time, it builds several of them;
at least three or four, sometimes more. The materials
which it needs are collected on the earth among fallen
dead branches, or are torn away from the old
abandoned nest of a crow or some other bird. The
Squirrel firsts builds a rather hollow floor by intermingling
the fragments of wood which it has brought.
In this state its dwelling resembles a magpie’s nest.
But the fastidious little animal wishes to be better
protected and not thus to sleep in the open air. Over
this foundation he raises a conical roof; the sticks
which form it are very skilfully disposed, and so well
interlaced that the whole is impenetrable to rain.
The house must still be furnished, and this is done
with oriental luxury; that is to say, the entire furniture
consists of a carpet, a carpet of very dry moss,
which the Squirrel tears from the trunks of trees, and
which it piles up so as to have a soft and warm
couch. An entrance situated at the lower part gives
access to the aërial castle; it is usually directed
towards the east. On the opposite side there is
 another orifice by which the animal can escape if an
enemy should invade the principal entrance. In
ordinary times also it serves to ventilate the chamber
by setting up a slight current of air. The Squirrel
greatly fears storms and rain, and during bad
weather hastens to take refuge in his dwelling. If
the wind blows in the direction of the openings,
the little beast at once closes them with two stoppers
of moss, and keeps well shut in as long as the
storm rages.

The great Anthropoid Apes have found nothing
better for shelter than the Squirrels’ method. It
must, however, be taken into account that they have
much more difficulty in arranging and maintaining
much heavier rooms, and in building up a shelter with
larger surface.

The Orang-outang, which lives in the virgin forests
of the Sunda Archipelago, does not feel the need of
constructing a roof against the rain. He is content
with a floor established in the midst of a tree, and
made of broken and interlaced branches. He piles
up on this support a considerable mass of leaves and
moss; for the Orang does not sleep seated like the
other great apes, but lies down in the manner of Man,
as has often been observed when he is in captivity.
When he feels the cold he is ingenious enough to
cover himself with the leaves of his couch.

In Upper and Lower Guinea the Chimpanzee
(Troglodytes niger) also establishes his dwelling on
trees. He first makes choice of a large horizontal
branch, which constitutes a sufficient floor for the
agile animal. Above this branch he bends the
neighbouring boughs, crosses them, and interlaces
them so as to obtain a sort of framework. When
 this preliminary labour is accomplished, he collects
dead wood or breaks up branches and adds them to
the first. Before commencing he had taken care
when choosing the site that the whole was so
arranged that a fork was within reach to sustain the
roof. He thus constructs a very sufficient shelter.
These apes are sociable and prefer to live in each
other’s neighbourhood. They even go on excursions
in rather large bands. Notwithstanding this, more
than one or two cabins are never seen on the same
tree; perhaps this is because the complicated conditions
required for the construction are not likely
to be realised several times on the same tree;
perhaps also it is a desire for independence which
impels the Chimpanzees not to live too near to each
other.92

The Troglodytes calvus, a relative of the preceding,
inhabiting the same regions, as described by Du
Chaillu, shows still more skill in raising his roof. A
tree is always chosen for support. He breaks off
boughs and fastens them by one end to the trunk, by
the other to a large branch. To fix all these pieces
he employs very strong creepers, which grow in
abundance in his forests. Above this framework, which
indicates remarkable ingenuity, the animal piles up
large leaves, forming in layers well pressed down and
quite impenetrable to the rain. The whole has the
appearance of an open parasol. The ape sits on a
branch beneath his handiwork, supporting himself
against the trunk with one arm. He has thus an
excellent shelter against the mid-day sun as well as
against tropical showers. Male and female each
 possess a dwelling on two neighbouring trees, the
principle of conjugal cohabitation not being admitted
in this species. As to the child, it appears that it
sleeps near its mother, until it is of age to lead an
independent life.

There exists in Australia, the country of zoological
singularities, a bird with very curious customs. This
is the Satin Bower-bird. The art displayed in this
bird’s constructions is not less interesting than the
sociability he gives evidence of, and his desire to
have for his hours of leisure a shelter adorned to his
taste. The bowers which he constructs, and which
present on a small scale the appearance of the arbours
in our old gardens, are places for re-union and for
warbling and courtship, in which the birds stay during
the day, when no anxiety leads them to disperse.
They are not, properly speaking, nests built for the
purpose of rearing young; for at the epoch of love
each couple separates and constructs a special retreat
in the neighbourhood of the bower. These shelters
are always situated in the most retired parts of the
forest, and are placed on the earth at the foot of trees.
Several couples work together to raise the edifice, the
males performing the chief part of the work. At first
they establish a slightly convex floor, made with
interlaced sticks, intended to keep the place sheltered
from the moisture of the soil. The arbour rises in
the centre of this first platform. Boughs vertically
arranged are interlaced at the base with those of the
floor. The birds arrange them in two rows facing
each other; they then curve together the upper
extremities of these sticks, and fix them so as to
obtain a vault. All the prominences in the materials
employed are turned towards the outside, so that the
 interior of the room may be smooth and the birds
may not catch their plumage in it. This done, the
little architects, to embellish their retreat, transport
to it a number of conspicuous objects, such as very
white stones from a neighbouring stream, shells, the
bright feathers of the parroquet, whatever comes to
their beak. All these treasures are arranged on the
earth, before the two entries to the bower, so as to
form on each side a carpet, which is not smooth, but
the varied colours of which rejoice the eye. The
prettiest treasures are fixed into the wall of the hut.
These houses of pleasure, with all their adornments,
form a dwelling very much to the taste of this
winged folk, and the birds pass there the greater
part of the day, preening their feathers and narrating
the news of the forest. Bower-birds’ clubs
are drawing-rooms raised at the common expense by
all who frequent them. The Spotted Bower-bird, the
Chlamydera maculata, which also lives in the interior
of Australia, exercises this method of construction
with equal success. The bowers built by these birds
may be one metre in length; this is on a very
luxurious scale, the animal itself only measuring
twenty-five centimetres. In this species, as among
other Bower-birds, the bowers are not the labour and
the property of a single couple; they are the result
of the collaboration of several households, who come
together to shelter themselves there. These birds
feed only on grains, so that it is to a very pronounced
taste for collecting that we must attribute
this mania of piling up before the entrance of the
bower white stones, shells, and small bones. (Fig. 25.)
These objects are intended solely for the
delight of these feathered artists. They are very
 careful also only to collect pieces which have been
whitened and dried by the sun.93

Certain Humming-birds also, according to Gould,
decorate their dwellings with great taste. “They
instinctively fasten thereon,” he stated, “beautiful
pieces of flat lichen, the larger pieces in the middle,
and the smaller on the part attached to the branch.
Now and then a pretty feather is intertwined or
fastened to the outer sides, the stem being always
so placed that the feather stands out beyond the
surface.”94

Dwellings woven of flexible substances. — In spite of
their lack of skill and the inadequacy of their organs
for this kind of work, Fish are not the most awkward
architects. The species which construct nests for
laying in are fairly numerous; the classical case of
the Stickleback is always quoted, but this is not the
only animal of its class to possess the secret of the
manufacture of a shelter for its eggs.

A fish of Java, the Gourami (Osphronemus olfax),
establishes an ovoid nest with the leaves of aquatic
plants woven together. It makes its work about the
size of a fist, takes no rest until it is completed, and
is able to finish it in five or six days. It is the male
alone who weaves this dwelling; when it is ready a
female comes to lay there, and generally fills it; it
may contain from six hundred to a thousand eggs.

 

Fig. 25.

In the sea of Sargasso lives a fish which has received
the name of the Antennarius marmoratus. Its
 flattened and monstrous head gives it a strange
aspect, and it is marbled with brown and yellow.
These colours are those of the tufts of floating seaweed
around it, and, thanks to this arrangement, it
can easily hide itself amid them without being recognised
from afar. This animal constructs for its
offspring a fairly safe retreat. The materials which it
employs are tufts of Sargasso so abundant in this portion
of the Atlantic. It collects all the filaments, and
unites them solidly by surrounding them with viscous
mucus which it secretes and which hardens. When its
work is sufficiently firm not to be destroyed by the
waves it lays its eggs in it, and the floating nest is
abandoned to its fate. The little ones come out and
find within it a sufficient protection for their early
age. These dwellings thus floating on the surface
of the sea are rounded and about the size of a
cocoa-nut.

In Guiana and Brazil another species, the Chœstostomus
pictus, is found, which is equally skilful. With
aquatic plants it constructs a spherical nest and
arranges it in the midst of the reeds, level with the
water. At the lower part a hole is left, through which
the female comes to lay. After fertilisation, the couple,
as is rarely found among fish, remain in the neighbourhood
of their offspring to assist them if necessary.
This praiseworthy sentiment is often the cause of
their ruin. The inhabitants of the banks speculate on
the love of these fish for their offspring to gain
possession of them. It is sufficient to place a basket
near the entrance of the dwelling, which is then lightly
struck. The animal, threatened in its affections, darts
furiously forward with bristling spines and throws
itself into the trap.

 It is scarcely necessary to recall the skilful art with
which the Stickleback which inhabits all our streams
plaits its nest and remains sentinel near it. (Fig. 26.)
This fish has indeed monopolised our admiration,
and is considered as the most skilful, if not the
only aquatic architect. Yet, besides those which I have
already mentioned, there is one which equals the
Stickleback in the skill it displays in constructing a
shelter for its spawn. This is the Gobius niger met
on our coasts, especially in the estuaries of rivers.
The male interlaces and weaves the leaves of algæ,
etc., and when he has finished his preparations, he
goes to seek females, and leads them one by one to
lay in the retreat he has built. Then he remains in
the neighbourhood until the young come out, ready
to throw himself furiously with his spines on any
imprudent intruders.

 

Fig. 26.

Dwellings woven with greater art. — Without doubt
the class of Birds furnishes the most expert artisans
in the industry of the woven dwelling. In our own
country we may see them seeking every day to right
and left, carrying a morsel of straw, a pinch of moss,
a hair from a horse’s tail, or a tuft of wool caught in
a bush. They intermingle these materials, making the
framework of the construction with the coarser pieces,
keeping those that are warmer and more delicate for
the interior. These nests, attached to a fork in a
branch or in a shrub, hidden in the depth of a thicket,
are little masterpieces of skill and patience. To
describe every form and every method would fill a
volume. But I cannot pass in silence those which
reveal a science sure of itself, and which are not very
inferior to what man can do in this line. The
Lithuanian Titmouse (Ægithalus pendulinus), whose
 works have been well described by Baldamus, lives in
the marshes in the midst of reeds and willows in
Poland, Galicia, and Hungary. Its nest, which
resembles none met in our own country, is always
suspended above the water, two or three metres above
the surface, fixed to a willow branch.95 All individuals
do not exhibit the same skill in fabricating their
dwelling; some are more careful and clever than
others who are less experienced. Some also are
obliged by circumstances to hasten their work. It
frequently happens that Magpies spoil or even
altogether destroy with blows of their beaks one of
these pretty nests. The unfortunate couple are
obliged to recommence their task, and if this accident
happens two or three times to the same household, it
can easily be imagined that, discouraged and depressed
by the advancing season, they hasten to build a shelter
anyhow, only doing what is indispensable, and neglecting
perfection. However this may be, the nests
which are properly finished have the form of a
purse, twenty centimetres high and twelve broad.
(Fig. 27.) At the side an opening, prolonged by a
passage which is generally horizontal, gives access to
the interior. Sometimes another opening is found
without any passage. Every nest in the course of
construction possessed this second entry, but it is
usually filled up when the work is completed. When
the bird has resolved to establish its retreat, it first
chooses a hanging branch presenting bifurcations
which can be utilised as a rigid frame on which to
weave the lateral walls of the habitation. It intercrosses
wool and goat’s hair so as to form two courses
which are afterwards united to each other below, and
 constitute the first sketch of the nest, at this moment
like a flat-bottomed basket. This is only the beginning.
The whole wall is reinforced by the addition of
new material. The architect piles up down from the
poplar and the willow, and binds it all together with
filaments torn from the bark of trees, so as to make
a whole which is very resistant. Then a couch is
formed by heaping up wool and down at the bottom
of the nest.

 

Fig. 27.

The American Baltimore Oriole, also called the Baltimore
Bird, is a distinguished weaver. With strong
stalks and hemp or flax, fastened round two forked
twigs corresponding to the proposed width of nest, it
makes a very delicate sort of mat, weaving into it
quantities of loose tow. The form of the nest might
be compared to that of a ham; it is attached by the
narrow portion to a small branch, the large part being
below. An opening exists at the lower end of the
dwelling, and the interior is carefully lined with soft
substances, well interwoven with the outward netting,
and it is finished with an external layer of horse-hair,
while the whole is protected from sun and rain by a
natural canopy of leaves.

Fig. 28.

The Rufous-necked Weaver Bird, as described by
Brehm, shows itself equally clever. Its nest is woven
with extreme delicacy, and resembles a long-necked
decanter hung up with the opening below. From the
bottom of the decanter a strong band attaches the
whole to the branch of a tree. (Fig. 28.) The
Yellow Weaver Bird of Java, as described by Forbes,
constructs very similar retort-shaped nests.96

These birds have no monopoly of these careful
 dwellings; a considerable number of genera have
carried this industry to the same degree of perfection.

Fig. 29.

When animals apply themselves in association to
any work, they nearly always exhibit in it a marked
superiority over neighbouring species among whom
the individuals work in isolation. The construction of
dwellings is no exception, and the nests of the Sociable
Weaver Birds of South Africa are the best constructed
that can be found. These birds live together in considerable
colonies; the members of an association are
at least two hundred in number, and sometimes rise
to five hundred. The city which they construct is a
 marvel of industry. They first make with grass a
sloping roof; giving it the form of a mushroom or an
open umbrella, and they place it in such a way that
it is supported by the trunk of a tree and one or two
of the branches. (Fig. 29.) This thatch is prepared
with so much care that it is absolutely impenetrable
to water. Beneath this protecting shelter
each couple constructs its private dwelling. All the
individual nests have their openings below, and they
 are so closely pressed against one another that on
looking at the construction from beneath, the divisions
cannot be seen. One only perceives a surface riddled
with holes like a skimmer; each of these holes is the
door of a nest. The work may endure for several
years; as long as there is room beneath the roof the
young form pairs near their cradle; but at last, as the
colony continues to increase, a portion emigrate to
found a new town on another tree in the forest.97

Fig. 30.

The industry of the woven dwelling does not
flourish among mammals; but there is one which
excels in it. This is the Dwarf Mouse (Mus minutus),
certainly one of the smallest Rodents. It generally
lives amidst reeds and rushes, and it is perhaps this
circumstance which has impelled it to construct an
aërial dwelling for its young, not being able to deposit
them on the damp and often flooded soil. This
retreat is not used in every season; its sole object
is for bringing forth the young. It is therefore a
genuine nest, not only by the manner in which it is
made, but by the object it is intended to serve. The
mouse chooses in the midst of its usual domain a tuft
with leaves more or less crossed; but not too inextricable,
so that there may remain in the midst an
empty space, in the centre of which the work will be
arranged. Great ingenuity is shown in the preliminaries;
the mouse simplifies its task by utilising
material within its reach instead of going afar to
collect them with trouble. The little animal examines
the thicket, and on reflection chooses some
 thirty leaves which appear suitable. Then, without
detaching them, it tears each into seven or eight
threads which are held together by the base, and
remain attached to the reeds. It is a clever idea to
avoid losing a natural point of support. The little
bands being thus prepared, they are interlaced and
crossed with much art, the animal comes and goes,
placing first one of them, then another above, taken
from a different leaf. It has soon woven a ball about
 the size of the fist, and hollowed out the interior.
(Fig. 30.) Delicate materials are not lacking around
to make a soft bed. The mouse gleans and constantly
brings in the light down of the willow,
grains with cottony crests, and the petals of flowers.
This is all carefully fitted, and when the edifice is
completed the female retires into it to bring forth
her young, which are there well sheltered against the
dangers without, and the caprices of storms and
floods. The nest is made with as much delicacy as
that of any bird, and no other mammal except Man
is capable of executing such weaver’s work.

The art of sewing among birds. — There are birds
which have succeeded in solving a remarkable difficulty.
Sewing seems so ingenious an art that it must
be reserved for the human species alone. Yet the
Tailor Bird, the Orthotomus longicauda, and other
species possess the elements of it. They place their
nests in a large leaf which they prepare to this end.
With their beaks they pierce two rows of holes along
the two edges of the leaf; they then pass a stout
thread from one side to the other alternately. With
this leaf, at first flat, they form a horn in which they
weave their nest with cotton or hair. (Fig. 31.)
These labours of weaving and sewing are preceded
by the spinning of the thread. The bird makes it
itself by twisting in its beak spiders’ webs, bits of
cotton, and little ends of wool. Sykes found that the
threads used for sewing were knotted at the ends.98
It is impossible not to admire animals who have
skilfully triumphed over all the obstacles met with
in the course of these complicated operations.99

Fig. 31.

 Certain Spiders, while they do not actually
sew in the sense that they perforate the leaves
they use to build their nest, and draw the thread
through them, yet subject the leaves to an operation
 which cannot well be called anything else but
sewing it.100

Modifications of dwellings according to season and
climate. — A certain number of facts show that these
various industries are not fixed and immutable instincts
imposed on the species. Certain Birds change
the form of their dwelling according to the climate,
or according to the season in which they inhabit it.
For example, the Crossbill, Loxia tænioptera (Fig. 32),
does not build its nest according to the same rules
in Sweden as in France. It builds in every season.
The winter shelter is spherical, constructed with very
dry lichens, and it is very large. A very narrow
opening, just sufficient for the passage of the owner,
prevents the external cold from penetrating within.
The summer nests are much smaller, in consequence
of a reduction in the thickness of the walls. There is
no longer need to fear that the cold will come through
them, and the animal gives itself no superfluous
trouble.

Fig. 32.

Again, the Baltimore Oriole, which inhabits both the
Northern and Southern States of North America, knows
very well how to adapt his manner of work to the
external circumstances in which he lives. Thus, in
the Southern States the nest is woven of delicate
materials united in a rather loose fashion, so that the
air can circulate freely and keep the interior fresh;
it is lined with no warm substance, and the entrance
is turned to the west so that the sun only sends into
it the oblique evening rays. In the north, on the
contrary, the nest is oriented to the south to profit by
all the warm sunshine; the walls are thick, without
 interstices, and the dwelling is carpeted in the warmest
and softest manner. Even in the same region
there is great diversity in the style, neatness, and
finish of the
nests, as well as
in the materials
used. Skeins
of silk and
hanks of thread
have frequently
been found in
the Baltimore
Bird’s nest, so
woven up and
entangled that
they could not
be withdrawn.
As such materials
could
not be obtained
before the introduction
of
Europeans, it
is evident that
this bird, with
the sagacity of
a good architect,
knows how
to select the
strongest and
best materials for his work. Many other facts might
be quoted, but these suffice to show that the species
is not animated by an inevitable instinct, but that each
individual, skilful no doubt by heredity, can modify the
 methods transmitted to him by his ancestors, according
to his own experience and his own judgment.

Built dwellings. — The built dwelling, the expression
of the highest civilisation, still remains to be studied.
Man has only known how to construct this kind of
shelter at a comparatively late period in his evolution;
and among animals we do not find it widely spread,
much less so, certainly, than the two foregoing methods,
especially the first. The difficulty of this work is
greater, and it only arrives at considerable development
among very sociable species, since the united
efforts of a great number of individuals are needed to
carry it on.

There are, however, masons who operate separately;
but their constructions are rudimentary. The characteristic
of all these works is that they are manufactured
with some substance to which the animal
gives a determined form while it is still soft, and that
in drying it preserves this form and acquires solidity.
The matter most usually employed is softened and
tempered earth — mortar; but there are animals who
use with success more delicate bodies. Two examples
will suffice to indicate the nature of these exceptions:
the labours of Wasps and those of certain Swallows.

 

Fig. 33.

Paper nests. — Certain Wasps, by the material of
their dwellings, approach the Japanese; they build
with paper. This paper or cardboard is very strong
and supplies a solid support; moreover, being a bad
conductor of heat, it contributes to maintain an
equable temperature within the nest. The constructions
of these insects, though they do not exhibit the
geometric arrangement of those of Bees, are not less
interesting. The paper which they employ is manufactured
on the spot, as the walls of the cells develop.
 Detritus of every kind enters into its
preparation: small fragments of wood, sawdust, etc.;
anything is good. These Hymenoptera possess no
organ specially adapted to aid them; it is with their
saliva that they glue this dust together and make of
it a substance very suitable for its purpose. The
dwellings often reach considerable size, yet they are
always begun by a single female, who does all the
work without help until the moment when the first
eggs come out; she is thus furnished with workers
capable of taking a share in her task. The Vespa
sylvestris builds a paper nest of this kind, hanging to
the branch of a tree, like a great grey sphere prolonged
to a blunt neck. (Fig. 33.) The Hornet’s
nest is similar in construction.

Gelatine nests. — These are made by certain Swallows
who nest in grottoes or cliffs on the edge of the sea.
After having collected from the water a gelatinous
substance formed either of the spawn of fish or the
eggs of Mollusca, they carry this substance on to a
perpendicular wall, and apply it to form an arc of a
circle. This first deposit being dry, they increase it
by sticking on to its edge a new deposit. Gradually
the dwelling takes on the appearance of a cup and
receives the workers’ eggs. (Fig. 34.) These dwellings
are the famous swallows’ nests, so appreciated by the
epicures of the extreme East, which are edible in
the same way as, for example, caviare.

Constructions built of earth — Solitary masons. — Certain
animals, whose dwelling participates in the
nature of a hollow cavern, make additions to it
which claim a place among the constructions with
which we are now occupied.

Fig. 34.

The Anthophora parietina is in this group; it is
 a small bee which lives in liberty in our climate. As
its name indicates, it prefers to frequent the walls of
old buildings and finds a refuge in the interstices,
hollowing out the mortar half disintegrated by time.
The entrance to the dwelling is protected by a tube
curved towards the bottom, and making an external
prominence. (Fig. 35.) The owner comes and goes
by this passage, and as it is curved towards the earth
 the interior is protected against a flow of rain, while
at the same time the entry is rendered more difficult
for Melectes and Anthrax. These insects, in fact,
watch the departure of the Anthophora to endeavour
to penetrate into their nests and lay their eggs there.
The gallery of entry and exit has been built with
grains of sand, the débris produced by the insect in
working. These grains of sand glued together form,
on drying, a very resistant wall.101

 

Fig. 35.

The other animals of which I have to speak are
genuine masons, who prepare their mortar by tempering
moistened earth. Every one has seen the Swallow
in spring working at its nest in the corner of a window.
It usually establishes its dwelling in an angle, so that
the three existing walls can be utilised, and to have an
enclosed space there is need only to add the face. It
usually gives to this the form of a quarter of a sphere,
and begins it by applying earth more or less mixed with
chopped hay against the walls which are to support
the edifice. At the summit of the construction a hole
is left for entry and exit. During the whole of its
sojourn in our country the Swallow uses this dwelling,
and even returns to it for many years in succession,
as long as its work will support the attacks of time.
The faithful return of these birds to their old nest has
been many times proved by attaching ribbons to their
claws; they have always returned with the distinctive
mark.

Fig. 36.

The Chalicodoma, whose name of Mason Bee indicates
the industry it exercises, is a hymenopterous
relative to our Bees, long since carefully studied by
Réaumur. It does not live in societies like the latter,
 and exhibits individual initiative and skill as great
as the swallows. The females accomplish the work
which I am about to describe. The little cells which
they build are arranged, to the number of eight or
ten together, in the most various places; sometimes
on a pebble, sometimes on a branch, or, again, on a
stone wall. (Fig. 36.) The insect collects earth as
fine as possible, such as the dust of a trodden path,
and tempers it with its own saliva. It places side
by side these little balls of mortar and the work soon
takes the form of a cupola, to the edge of which it
constantly adds new deposits. The sun quickly dries
the hole and gives it the necessary consistence.
When the cell has acquired sufficient height, the
Chalicodoma abandons its occupation of mason, and
visits flowers for pollen and nectar wherewith to fill
the little chamber. It goes back to the nest, disgorges
its supply, and returns to the field, until the
 little cup of earth is full to the edge. When the
dwelling is thus prepared and provisioned, the insect
lays an egg there and closes the upper part with a
vault, built by successive deposits over the opening,
which is more and more narrowed until it is finally
shut up. Having completed a chamber, it passes on
to the next, and so on until it has assured the fate of
all its descendants.

This hymenopterous insect certainly shows in its acts
as an artisan an inevitable instinct: hereditary intelligence
has become less personal and less spontaneous.
In certain cases, however, the instinct loses its rigidity
and automatism. Thus, when a Chalicodoma, at the
moment of preparing to accomplish its task, finds an
old nest, still capable of repair although dilapidated,
it does not hesitate to take possession of it and to
silence its assumed innate instinct of building. It
profits by the work already done, and is content to
fill up the cracks or to re-establish the masonry where
defective; then it provisions the renewed cells with
honey, and lays its eggs in them. In certain circumstances
it shows itself still more sparing of trouble,
and boldly rebels against the law which seems to be
imposed on it by nature. If it feels itself sufficiently
strong, the Chalicodoma throws itself on one of its
fellows, a peaceful constructor that has almost completed
its work; it chases it away, and takes possession
of its property to shelter its own eggs. Instead of
manufacturing the cell from bottom to top, it has
only to complete it. Such acts evidently show the
reflection appearing through instinct.

Besides the Swallows, of which I have already
spoken, birds offer us several types of skilful construction
with tempered earth.

 The Flamingo, which lives in marshes, cannot
place its eggs on the earth nor in the trunks of trees,
which are often absent from its domain. It builds a
cone of mud, which dries and becomes very resistant,
and it prepares at the summit an excavation open to
the air; this is the nest. The female broods by
sitting with her legs hanging over the sides of the
hillock on which her little family prospers above the
waters and the damp soil.

A Perch in the Danube also manufactures a dwelling
of dried earth. It gives it the form of an elliptic
cupola, and prepares a semicircular opening for
entry and exit.

The bird which shows itself the most skilful mason
is probably the Oven-Bird (Furnarius rufus) of
Brazil and La Plata. Its name is owing to the form
of the nest which it constructs for brooding, and which
has the appearance of an oven. It is very skilful and
knows how to build a dome of clay without scaffolding,
which is not altogether easy. Having chosen for the
site of its labours a large horizontal branch, it brings
to it a number of little clay balls more or less combined
with vegetable débris, works them altogether,
and makes a very uniform floor, which is to serve as a
platform for the rest of the work. When this is done,
and while the foundation is drying, the bird arranges
on it a circular border of mortar slightly inclined outwards.
This becomes hard; it raises it by a new
application, this time inclined inwards. All the other
layers which will be placed above this will also be
inclined towards the interior of the chamber. As the
structure rises, the circle which terminates it above
becomes more and more narrow. Soon it is quite
small, and the animal, closing it with a little ball of
 clay, finds itself in possession of a well-made dome.
Naturally it prepares an entrance; the form of this is
semicircular. But this is not all. In the interior it
arranges two partitions: one vertical, the other horizontal,
separating off a small chamber. The vertical
partition begins at one of the edges of the door, so
that the air from without cannot penetrate directly
into the dwelling, which is thus protected against
extreme variations of temperature. It is in the compartment
thus formed that the female lays her eggs
and broods, after having taken care to carpet it with
a thick layer of small herbs.

“In favourable seasons, the Oven-birds begin building
in the autumn,” Hudson tells us, “and the work is
resumed during the winter whenever there is a spell
of mild, wet weather. Some of their structures are
finished early in winter, others not until spring, everything
depending on the weather and the condition of
the birds. In cold, dry weather, and when food is
scarce, they do not work at all. The site chosen is a
stout horizontal branch, or the top of a post, and they
also frequently build on a cornice or the roof of a
house; and sometimes, but rarely, on the ground.
The material used is mud, with the addition of horse
hair or slender fibrous rootlets, which make the
structure harder and prevent it from cracking. I have
frequently seen a bird engaged in building first pick
up a thread or hair, then repair to a puddle, where it
was worked into a pellet of mud about the size of a
filbert, then carried to the nest. When finished the
structure is shaped outwardly like a baker’s oven, only
with a deeper and narrower entrance. It is always
placed very conspicuously, and with the entrance
facing a building, if one be near, or if at a roadside it
 looks towards the road; the reason for this being, no
doubt, that the bird keeps a continuous eye on the
movements of people near it while building, and
so leaves the nest opened and unfinished on that side
until the last, and then the entrance is necessarily
formed. When the structure has assumed the globular
form with only a narrow opening, the wall on one
side is curved inwards, reaching from the floor to the
dome, and at the inner extremity an aperture is left
to admit the bird to the interior or second chamber,
in which the eggs are laid. A man’s hand fits easily
into the first or entrance chamber, but cannot be
twisted about so as to reach the eggs in the interior
cavity, the entrance being so small and high up. The
interior is lined with dry soft grass, and five white
pear-shaped eggs are laid. The oven is a foot or
more in diameter, and is sometimes very massive,
weighing eight or nine pounds, and so strong that,
unless loosened by the swaying of the branch, it often
remains unharmed for two or three years. A new
oven is built every year, and I have more than once
seen a second oven built on the top of the first, when
this has been placed very advantageously, as on a
projection and against a wall.”102

Masons working in association. — Ants have already
furnished us with numerous proofs of their intelligence
and their prodigious industry. So remote from Man
from the anatomical point of view, they are of all
animals those whose psychic faculties bring them
nearest to him. Sociable like him, they have undergone
 an evolution parallel to his which has placed
them at the head of Insects in the same way as he
has become superior to all other Mammals. The
brain in Ants as in Man has undergone a disproportionate
development. Like Man, they possess a
language which enables them to combine their efforts,
and there is no human industry in which these insects
have not arrived at a high degree of perfection. If in
certain parts of the earth human societies are superior
to those of Ants, in many others the civilisation of
Ants is notably superior. No village of Kaffirs
can be compared to a palace of the Termites. The
classifications separate these insects (sometimes called
“White Ants”) from the Ants, since the latter are
Hymenoptera, while the former are ranked among the
Neuroptera, but their constructions are almost alike,
and may be described together. These small animals,
relatively to their size, build on a colossal scale compared
to Man; even our most exceptional monuments
cannot be placed beside their ordinary buildings.
(Fig. 37.) The domes of triturated and plastered clay
which cover their nests may rise to a height of five
metres; that is to say, to dimensions equal to one
thousand times the length of the worker. The Eiffel
Tower, the most elevated monument of which human
industry can boast, is only one hundred and eighty-seven
times the average height of the worker. It is
three hundred metres high, but to equal the Termites’
audacity, it would have to attain a height of 1,600
metres.

Fig. 37.

The different species of Termite are not equally
industrious. The T. bellicosus seems to have carried
the art of construction to the highest point. All the
individuals of the species are not alike; there exists
 a polymorphism which produces creatures of three
sorts: 1, the soldiers, recognised by their large heads
and long sharp mandibles, moved by powerful
muscles; it is their mission to defend the whole
colony against its adversaries, and the wounds they
can produce, fatal to creatures of their own size, are
painful even to man; 2, the workers, who labour as
navvies and architects, and take charge of the pupæ:
they form the great majority of the community; 3, the
king and queen. (Fig. 38.) To each nest there is
usually only a single fertile and lazy couple. These
two personages do absolutely nothing; the soldiers
and the workers care for them and bring them food.
They have both possessed wings, but these fall off.
The queen reigns but does not govern; she lays.
The king is simply the husband of the queen. The
internal administration of the palace is bound up with
the parts played by these three kinds of beings.

Fig. 38.
1. King before wings are cast off; 2. Worker (neuter); 3. Queen with abdomen distended with eggs; 4. Soldier (neuter); 5. Young (resembling adults).

 The lofty nest, or Termitarium, constitutes a hillock
in the form of a cupola. The interior arrangement is
very complicated, and at the same time very well
adapted to the life of the inhabitants. There are four
storeys in all, covered by the general exterior walls.
(Fig. 39.) The walls of the dome are very thick; at
the base they measure from sixty to eighty centimetres.
The clay in drying attains the hardness of brick, and
the whole is very coherent. The sentinels of herds of
wild cattle choose these tumuli as observatories and
do not break them down. The walls of this exterior
enceinte are hollowed by galleries of two kinds: some
horizontal and giving access from outside to all the
storeys; the others mounting spirally in the thickness
 of the wall to the summit of the dome. When the
colony is in full activity, after the construction is completed,
these little passages have no further use. They
served for the passage of the masons when building
the cupola; and they could be utilised again if a
breach should be made in the wall. At the lower
part these galleries in the wall are very wide, and they
sink into the earth beneath the palace to a depth of
more than 1 metre 50.

Fig. 39.

These subterranean passages (c) are the catacombs
of the Termites, and have a very close analogy with
those of old and populous human cities. Their origin
is similar; they are ancient quarries. The insects
hollowed them in obtaining the necessary clay for
their labours. Later, when the rains come, they serve
as drains to carry off the water which might threaten
to invade the dwelling.

Such is the external wall within which a busy
population swarms. On passing to the interior let us
first enter the ground-floor. In the centre is found
the royal chamber (r). The walls are extremely strong
and are supplied with windows for ventilation, and
with doors to enable the Termites to render their
services. It is necessary to renew the air in this
chamber, which constantly contains more than two
thousand insects. The openings are large enough for
the passage of the workers, but the queen cannot
pass through them. She is therefore a prisoner, as
immured as a goddess in her temple. The chain
which holds her is the prodigious development of her
abdomen. As a virgin she could enter, when fertilised
she cannot henceforth go out. She continuously
elaborates eggs; every moment one appears at the
orifice of the oviduct. The king remains near her,
 to give his assistance when occasion arises; hence he
has received the title, absolutely justified under the
circumstances, of Father of the People. Around the
couple zealous attendants crowd. There are about
two thousand of them, workers and soldiers, licking
the two royal captives to remove any dust from
their hairs, and bringing them food. As soon as the
queen lays an egg, one of the workers hastens to
take it gently between its jaws; it is the property of
the state, and is carefully carried off to the second
storey where the state nursery is situated.

The centre of the ground-floor, therefore, is occupied
by the royal apartment; around this, and
communicating with it by means of numerous
entrances, are a number of cells used by the attendants
on the queen (s). These little chambers are surrounded
by a labyrinth of passages. The central
room and its dependencies constitute a solid mass,
around which other chambers are grouped. The
whole space between it and the general wall is filled
by vast storehouses, divided into many very spacious
compartments. Within them are piled up the
provisions which the Termites harvest every day;
they consist especially of gums and the juices of
plants, dried and pulverised so as to form a fine
powder. Access to this property is given by means
of large corridors which cross one another, and conduct
to the outside through the horizontal galleries
traversing the wall.

Above the whole of this ground-floor rests a thick
vault of clay, which forms a strong floor for the first
storey (B). This is composed of only a single room;
it is put to no use, unless to isolate and support the
apartments of the second floor, in the arrangement of
 which great care is exercised. There are no partitions
on this floor, nothing but massive columns of clay
to support the ceiling. These columns are more than
a metre in height. It is a gigantic cathedral in which
the lilliputian architects have displayed considerable
art. By means of this immense empty chamber a
huge reservoir of air is placed in the very centre of the
construction; through the galleries in the external
wall it is sufficiently renewed for the purposes of
respiration without too great a change in temperature.

The second storey rests on the first. To this the
eggs are brought, and here the larvæ go through
their evolution. Partitions of clay divide the space
into a few large halls (a); these are again subdivided,
this time not by earth, which is employed throughout
the rest of the building, but by materials of a more
delicate kind, which are, moreover, very bad conductors
of heat (b). It is a question, in fact, of
maintaining these little chambers at an almost constant
temperature, favourable for the development of
the eggs. The substances utilised for this purpose
are fragments of wood and of gum. The Termites
glue them together and thus form the walls of these
important cells.

The arrangement of the top storey (D) is also
disposed with a view of protecting the young who
are the future of the city. It constitutes the attic,
situated just beneath the cupola, and contains
absolutely nothing; it simply serves to interpose
beneath the summit of the edifice and the storey
below a layer of air, which is a bad conductor of heat.
The chamber devoted to the young is thus placed
between two gaseous layers, a precaution which,
combined with the choice of material, places it in the
 very best conditions for protection against the alternation
of cold at night and torrid heat during the
day.

It is difficult to know which to admire most — the
audacity and vastness of the labour undertaken by
these insects, or the ingenious foresight by which they
ensure to their delicate larvæ a comfortable youth.
There can be no doubt that these animals show themselves
very superior to Man, taking into consideration
his enormous size compared to theirs, in the art of
building. Pillars, cupolas, vaults — nothing is too
difficult or too complicated for these small and patient
labourers.103

The Ants of our own lands do not yield to the
Termites in this industry, and their dwellings are
models of architecture. As they have been more
carefully studied we know more exactly how they
work, and the considerable sum of intelligence and
initiative which they reveal in the accomplishment
of their task. At the foot of hedges, on the outskirts
of woods, they raise their frail monuments. The
species are not equally skilful, and such differences as
we have found in other industries may also be found
here. In a general manner it was soon found that
Ants do not, like Bees, obey a rigid instinct which
 ordains the line of conduct under every circumstance,
and impels each individual to act so that his efforts
are naturally combined and harmonised with those of
his neighbours in the workshop. One soon perceives
when observing an ant-hill that any individual insect
follows, when working, a personal idea which it has
conceived, and which it realises without troubling
itself about the others. Often these latter are executing
a quite contradictory plan. It is rather an
anarchistic republic. Happily Ants are not obstinate,
and when they see the idea of one of them disengaging
itself from the labour commenced, they are
content to abandon their own less satisfactory idea
and to collaborate in the other’s work. They are
able, for the rest, to concert plans; the movements of
their antennæ are a very complicated language containing
many expressions, and the worker who desires the
acceptance of his own point of view is not sparing in
their use.104 It sometimes happens that his efforts are
vain, and that his companions manœuvre to thwart
his schemes. In the presence of such resistance those
who are determined to obtain the adoption of their
own plans destroy the labours of their opponents;
fierce struggles ensue, and here it is the strongest who
becomes the architect-general.

The Formica fusca constructs its nest of plastered
earth. The different superimposed storeys have
been added one by one to the upper part of the old
dwelling when the latter became too small for the
 growing colony. In opening an ant-hill, they are
found to be quite distinct from each other; each is
divided by a large number of partitions into vaulted
compartments. In the larger ones pillars of earth
support the ceiling. The rooms communicate with
one another by means of bull’s-eye passages formed
in the separating walls. The whole is small, proportioned
to the size of the works, but excellently
arranged.

When, in the council of the republic, it has been
resolved to raise a common habitation, the workers
operate in a singular manner. All the ants scatter
themselves abroad, and with extreme activity take
fragments of earth between their mandibles and place
them on the summit of the dwelling. After some
time the result of this microscopical work appears.
The ancient roof, strengthened by all this material,
becomes a thick terrace which the insects first cover
very evenly. The earth, having been brought in grain
by grain, is soft and easy to dig. The construction of
the new storey begins at first by the hollowing out
of a number of trenches. The ants scrape away in
places the terrace which they have just made. They
thus diminish the thickness of the layer at the spots
where rooms, corridors, etc., are to be formed, and
with the material thus obtained they form walls,
partitions, and pillars. Soon the entire plan of the
new storey may be perceived. It differs essentially
from that which Man would adopt; in the latter case
the walls would be shown by the hollowing out of the
foundations; the work of these Hymenoptera, on the
contrary, shows them in relief. These first arrangements
made, the six-footed architects have only to
complete their constructions by new deposits from
 without. Gradually the storey reaches a sufficient
height. It remains to cover it, and this is not the
easiest part of the business. The ceiling is formed
of vaults going from one wall to another, or from a
wall to a column. When one of these vaults is to be
small, some millimetres at the most, the Formica fusca
constructs it with the help of two ledges, which are
made facing each other on the tops of two partitions.
These prominences, formed of materials glued together
by saliva, are enlarged by additions to their
free edges. They advance to meet each other and
soon join; it is wonderful to see each insect, following
its individual initiative, profit by every twig or
fragment capable of bearing any weight, in order to
enlarge the overhanging ledges.

Individual skill and reflection. — This personality in
work, which reveals the intelligent effort of each, has
certainly its inconveniences for the common work.
Badly-concerted operations may not succeed, and
Huber witnessed an accident due to this cause.105 Two
walls facing each other were to be united by an arch.
A foolish worker had begun to form a horizontal
ledge on the summit of one of the walls without
paying attention to the fact that the other wall was
very much higher. By continuing the project the
ceiling would have come against the middle of the
opposite ceiling instead of resting on its summit.
Another ant passes, examines affairs with an intelligent
air, and evidently considers that this sort of
work is absurd. Without consideration for the
amour-propre of its unskilful fellow-citizen, it demolishes
its work, raises the wall that is too low, and
re-makes the construction correctly in the presence
 of the observer. If this incident reveals inconceivable
thoughtlessness in one of the members of this serious
republic, it also brings to light the judgment, reflection,
and decision of which they are capable, as well
as a freedom which cannot be found in the works of
instinct.

This Formica fusca sometimes finds itself in the
presence of other difficulties. It may happen that
the hall to be roofed is too large and the arch too
considerable to allow of the cohesion of the materials
employed. The insects soon become aware of the
existence of this embarrassing state of things and
remedy it in various ways, either by hastily constructing
pillars in the centre of the too large room,
or by some other method. Ebrard describes an
artifice he has seen employed, which shows to what
an extent ants can quickly appreciate and take
advantage of the most unforeseen circumstances.106
A worker was labouring to cover a large cell; two
prominences, parts of opposite walls, were advancing
towards each other, but there was still a space of
from twelve to fifteen millimetres between them, and
it seemed no longer possible to burden the two sides
without risking a general downfall. The little mason
was much disturbed. A graminaceous plant was growing
near. The ant seemed anxious to take advantage
of it, for it went to it and climbed up the stalk. After
having examined and devised, it set about curving
it in the direction of the edifice. To attain this
object, it placed a little mass of moist earth on the
extremity of the leaf, and fixed it there. Under the
influence of this weight flexion was produced, but
only at the end. This could not satisfy the insect;
 it became a question of decreasing the resistance at
the base. The ant gnawed a little at this spot; the
desired result was attained, and the whole length of
the leaf became bent over the building in course of
construction. To prevent it bending back, and to
ensure its remaining adherent to the roof, the worker
returned to the plant and placed earth between the
sheath and the stalk. This time all difficulties were
surmounted, and there was a solid scaffolding to
support the materials for the roof.

Among the Lasius niger the independence of the
workers is perhaps still greater; no doubt they do
their best to concert their efforts, but they do not
succeed so well as if an inevitable instinct impelled
them. Notwithstanding the irregularities of the construction,
it is possible to recognise in it a whole
formed of hollowed, concentric half-spheres; they
have been added one after the other to the surface to
increase the dwelling. The interval between these
clay spheres constitutes a storey, cut up by the partitions
which divide it into chambers and communicating
galleries; the roofs of the largest halls are
supported by numerous pillars. (Fig. 40.)

These ants, as Huber has shown, are highly
accomplished in the art of constructing a cupola.
When they wish to increase their nest by a new
layer, they take advantage of the first wet day, the
rain serving to agglutinate and unite the materials.
They operate in almost the same way as the Formica
fusca, though exhibiting more skill and resource as
architects; they know better how to calculate beforehand
the number of pillars required in a hall of a
determined size. As soon as the rain has given the
signal for work, they spread themselves abroad and
 prepare a very thick terrace on the external surface
of the dwelling which has become too small. They
carry to it small balls of earth ground very fine by
their jaws, and then lightly piled up so as to pulverise
afresh; these are then spread over the construction
with the anterior
legs. Then, by
hollowing out,
the ants trace
the plan of the
new storey,
leaving the walls,
partitions, and
columns in relief.
After having
raised these
parts to a sufficient
height, all
work together to
cover them with
a general ceiling,
each ant
applying itself to
one small corner
of the work.

Fig. 40.

The vaulting is
executed by the
method already
described; horizontal ledges, slanting from the summit
of pillar or wall, are formed to meet one another. The
insects are intelligent enough to begin their labour at
the spots best fitted to give strong support to the overhanging
materials, as for instance, at the angle of two
walls. There is so much activity among the workers,
 and they are so anxious to take advantage of the
damp, that the storey is sometimes completely
finished in seven or eight hours. If the rain suddenly
stops in the course of the work, they abandon operations,
to complete them as soon as another shower falls.

I have already had occasion to speak of the covered
passages and Aphis-pens built by Ants outside their
dwellings. Besides these constructions, they also
make roads in the fields, tearing up the grass and
hollowing out the earth so as to form a beaten path
free from the lilliputian bushes in which there would
be danger of becoming entangled, on returning to the
nest laden with various and often embarrassing burdens.

Nor are Ants by any means alone in exhibiting
the results of individual skill and reflection. It will,
however, be sufficient to mention only one other
example, that furnished by Spiders. McCook, in his
great work, after elaborately describing and carefully
illustrating the skill exhibited in individual cases by
Spiders in their aërial labours, considers himself
justified in concluding as follows: — “The manner in
which the ends of the radii which terminate upon the
herb are wrapped roundabout and braced by the
notched zone; the manner in which the wide non-viscid
scaffold lines are woven in order to give
vantage ground from which to place the close-lying
and permanent viscid spirals, upon which the usefulness
of the orb depends — all these, to mention no
other points, seem to indicate a very delicate perception
of those modes (shall I also say principles?)
of construction which are continually recognised
in the art of the builder, the architect, and the
engineer.”107

 Dwellings built of hard materials united by mortar. — Among
mammals few animals have become so
skilful in the art of building houses as the insects
we have just been considering. There are, however,
two who equal if they do not surpass them — the
Musk-rat and its relative, the Beaver.

The Musk-rats of Canada live in colonies on the
banks of streams or deep lakes, and construct dwellings
which are very well arranged. In their methods
we find combined the woven shelter with the house of
built earth. Their cabins are established over the
highest level of the water and look like little domes.
In building them the animals begin by placing reeds
in the earth; these they interlace and weave so as to
form a sort of vertical mat. They plaster it externally
with a layer of mud, which is mixed by means of the
paws and smoothed by the tail. At the upper part of
the hut the reeds are not pressed together or covered
with earth, so that the air may be renewed in the interior.
A dwelling of this kind, intended to house six
or eight individuals who have combined to build it,
may measure up to 65 centimetres in diameter. There
is no door directly opening on to the ground. A subterranean
gallery starts from the floor and opens out
beneath the water. It presents secondary branches,
some horizontal, through which the animal goes in
search of roots for food, while others descend vertically
to pits specially reserved for the disposal of
ordure.

But it is, above all, the Beaver (Castor fiber) who
exhibits the highest qualities as an engineer and
mason. This industrious and sagacious Rodent is well
adapted to inconvenience the partisans of instinct as
an entity, apart from intelligence, which renders
 animals similar to machines and impels them to
effect associated acts, without themselves being able
to understand them, and with a fatality and determination
from which they can under no circumstance
escape.

Beavers now only live in Canada. A few individuals
may, however, still be found on the banks of
the lower Rhône, in Camargue, and on a few other
European rivers. Several centuries ago they existed
in the neighbourhood of Paris in considerable numbers.
The Bièvre gained its name from the old French word
for Beaver, and its resemblance to the English name,
as well as to the German (Biber), is striking. In the
sixteenth century, according to Bishop Magnus of
Upsala, the Beaver was still common on the banks
of the Rhine, the Danube, and on the shores of the
Black Sea, and in the North it still exercised great
art in its constructions. In the twelfth century it
was found in Scotland and Wales. If we go back to
ancient times, we find that Herodotus mentions that
the Budini who lived in the neighbourhood of the Black
Sea used the skins of the Beavers, which abounded
there, on the borders of their garments; and in the
time of Pliny the Beaver was so common there that
he speaks of it as the Pontic Beaver. Fossil remains
of the Beaver have also been found throughout
Europe in conjunction with those of the Mammoth
and other extinct animals.

But the civilisation of the Beaver has perished in
the presence of Man’s civilisation, or rather of his
persecution. In regions where it is tracked and
disturbed by Man the Beaver lives in couples, and is
content to hollow out a burrow like the Otter’s, instead
of showing its consummate art. It merely vegetates,
 fleeing from enemies who are too strong for it, and
depriving itself of a dangerous comfort. But when
the security of solitude permits these animals to
unite in societies, and to possess, without too much
fear, a pond or a stream, they then exhibit all their
industry.

They build very well arranged dwellings, although
at first sight they look like mere piles of twigs,
branches, and logs, heaped in disorder on a small
dome of mud. At the edge of a pond each raises
his own lodge, and there is no work by the colony in
common. If, however, there is a question of inhabiting
the bank of a shallow stream, certain preliminary
works become necessary. The rodents establish a
dam, so that they may possess a large sheet of water
which may be of fair depth, and above all constant,
not at the mercy of the rise and fall of the stream. A
sudden and excessive flood is the one danger likely to
prove fatal to these dykes; but even our own constructions
are threatened under such circumstances.

When the Beavers, tempted by abundance of
willows and poplars, of which they eat the bark and
utilise the wood in construction, have chosen a site,
and have decided to establish a village on the edge of
the water, there are several labours to be successively
accomplished. Their first desire is to be in possession
of a large number of felled trunks of trees. To
obtain them they scatter themselves in the forest
bordering the stream and attack saplings of from
twenty to thirty centimetres in diameter. They are
equipped for this purpose. With their powerful
incisors, worked by strong jaws, they can soon gnaw
through a tree of this size. But they are capable of
attacking trees, even more than 100 cc. in circumference
 and some forty metres in height, with great
skill and adaptability; “no better work could be accomplished
by a most highly-finished steel cutting tool,
wielded by a muscular human arm” (Martin). They
operate seated on their hind quarters, and they make
their incision in the wood with a feather edge. It
was once supposed that they always take care so to
direct their wood-cutting task that the tree may fall
on the water-side, but this is by no means the case,
and appears to be simply due, as Martin points out,
to the fact that trees by the water-side usually slope
towards the water. The austerity of labour alternates,
it may be added, with the pleasures of the table.
From time to time the Beavers remove the bark of the
fallen trees, of which they are very fond, and feed on it.

Mr. Lewis H. Morgan studied the American Beaver
with great care and thoroughness, more especially on
the south-west shore of Lake Superior; he devotes
fifty pages to the dams, and it is worth while to quote
his preliminary remarks regarding them. “The dam
is the principal structure of the beaver. It is also the
most important of his erections as it is the most
extensive, and because its production and preservation
could only be accomplished by patient and long-continued
labour. In point of time, also, it precedes the
lodge, since the floor of the latter and the entrances
to its chamber are constructed with reference to the
level of the water in the pond. The object of the
dam is the formation of an artificial pond, the principal
use of which is the refuge it affords to them when
assailed, and the water-connection it gives to their
lodges and to their burrows in the banks. Hence, as
the level of the pond must, in all cases, rise from one
to two feet above these entrances for the protection of
 the animal from pursuit and capture, the surface-level
of the pond must, to a greater or less extent, be
subject to their immediate control. As the dam is
not an absolute necessity to the beaver for the maintenance
of his life, his normal habitation being rather
natural ponds and rivers, and burrows in their banks,
it is, in itself considered, a remarkable fact that he
should have voluntarily transferred himself, by means
of dams and ponds of his own construction, from a
natural to an artificial mode of life.

“Some of these dams are so extensive as to forbid
the supposition that they were the exclusive work of
a single pair, or of a single family of beavers; but it
does not follow, as has very generally been supposed,
that several families, or a colony, unite for the joint
construction of a dam. After careful examination of
some hundreds of these structures, and of the lodges
and burrows attached to many of them, I am altogether
satisfied that the larger dams were not the
joint-product of the labour of large numbers of
beavers working together, and brought thus to immediate
completion; but, on the contrary, that they
arose from small beginnings, and were built upon
year after year, until they finally reached that size
which exhausted the capabilities of the location;
after which they were maintained for centuries, at
the ascertained standard, by constant repairs. So far
as my observations have enabled me to form an
opinion, I think they were usually, if not invariably,
commenced by a single pair, or a single family of
beavers; and that when, in the course of time, by
the gradual increase of the dam, the pond had
become sufficiently enlarged to accommodate more
families than one, other families took up their residence
 upon it, and afterwards contributed by their
labour to its maintenance. There is no satisfactory
evidence that the American beavers either live or
work in colonies; and if some such cases have been
observed, it will either be found to be an exception
to the general rule, or in consequence of the sudden
destruction of a work upon the maintenance of which
a number of families were at the time depending.

“The great age of the larger dams is shown by their
size, by the large amount of solid materials they
contain, and by the destruction of the primitive forest
within the area of the ponds; and also by the extent
of the beaver-meadows along the margins of the
streams where dams are maintained, and by the
hummocks formed upon them by and through the
annual growth and decay of vegetation in separate
hills. These meadows were undoubtedly covered
with trees adapted to a wet soil when the dams were
constructed. It must have required long periods of
time to destroy every vestige of the ancient forest by
the increased saturation of the earth, accompanied
with occasional overflows from the streams. The
evidence from these and other sources tends to show
that these dams have existed in the same places for
hundreds and thousands of years, and that they have
been maintained by a system of continuous repairs.

“At the place selected for the construction of a dam,
the ground is usually firm and often stony, and when
across the channel of a flowing stream, a hard rather
than a soft bottom is preferred. Such places are
necessarily unfavourable for the insertion of stakes
in the ground, if such were, in fact, their practice in
building dams. The theory upon which beaver-dams
are constructed is perfectly simple, and involves no
 such necessity. Soft earth, intermixed with vegetable
fibre, is used to form an embankment, with sticks,
brush, and poles embedded within these materials to
bind them together, and to impart to them the
requisite solidity to resist the effects both of pressure
and of saturation. Small sticks and brush are used,
in the first instance, with mud and earth and stones
for down-weight. Consequently these dams are extremely
rude at their commencement, and they do
not attain their remarkably artistic appearance until
after they have been raised to a considerable height,
and have been maintained, by a system of annual
repairs, for a number of years.”108

There are two different kinds of beaver-dams,
although they are both constructed on the same
principle. One, the stick-dam, consists of interlaced
stick and pole work below, with an embankment of
earth raised with the same material upon the upper
or water face. This is usually found in brooks or
large streams with ill-defined banks. The other, the
solid-bank dam, is not so common nor so interesting,
and is usually found on those parts of the same
stream where the banks are well defined, the
channel deep, and the current uniform. In this kind
the earth and mud entirely buries the sticks and
poles, giving the whole a solid appearance. In the
first kind the surplus water percolates through the
dam along its entire length, while in the second it is
discharged through a single opening in the crest
formed for that purpose.

The materials being prepared in the manner I have
previously described, the animals make ready to
 establish their dyke. They intermix their materials — driftwood,
green willows, birch, poplars, etc. — in the
bed of the river, with mud and stones, so making
a solid bank, capable of resisting a great force of
water; sometimes the trees will shoot up forming
a hedge. The dam has a thickness of from three to
four metres at the base, and about sixty centimetres
at the upper part. The wall facing up-stream is
sloping, that directed down-stream is vertical; this is
the best arrangement for supporting the pressure of
the mass of water which is thus expended on an
inclined surface. In certain cases Beavers carry
hydraulic science still further. If the course of the
water is not very rapid, they generally make an
almost straight dyke, perpendicular to the two banks,
as this is then sufficient; but if the current is strong,
they curve it so that the convexity is turned up-stream.
In this way it is much better fitted to resist.
Thus they do not always act in the same way, but
arrange their actions so as to adapt them to the
conditions of the environment.

The embankment being completed, the animals
construct their lodges. Fragments of wood, deprived
of the bark, are arranged and united by clay or mud
which the Beavers take from the riverside, transport,
mix, and work with their fore-paws. During a single
night they can collect as much mud at their houses as
amounts to some thousands of their small handfuls.
They thus plaster their houses with mud every
autumn; in the winter this freezes as hard as a stone
and protects them from enemies. These cabins form
domes from three to four metres in diameter at the
base, and from two to two and a half metres in
height. The floor is on a level with the surface of
 the artificial pond. A passage sinks in the earth and
opens about one and a half metres below the level of
the water, so that it cannot be closed up by ice during
the severe winters of these regions.

Within, near the entry, the beavers form, with the
aid of a partition, a special compartment to serve as a
storehouse, and they there pile up enormous heaps of
nenuphar roots as provisions for the days when ice and
snow will prevent them from barking the young trunks.

A dwelling of this kind may last for three or four
years, and the animal here tranquilly enjoys the fruits
of its industry, as long as man fails to discover the
retreat; for the beaver can escape by swimming from
all carnivorous animals excepting, perhaps, the Otter.
During floods the level of the water nearly reaches the
hut; if the inundation is prolonged and the animal
runs the risk of being asphyxiated beneath his dome,
it breaks through the upper part with its teeth and
escapes. When the water returns to its bed the
beaver comes back, makes the necessary repairs, and
resumes the usual peaceful course of its life.109

We have thus seen, from a shapeless hole to these
complex dwellings, every possible stage; we have
found among animals the rudiments of the different
human habitations, certain animals, indeed, having
arrived at a degree of civilisation which Man himself
in some countries has not yet surpassed, or even
indeed yet attained.

CHAPTER VII.
THE DEFENCE AND SANITATION OF DWELLINGS.

GENERAL PRECAUTIONS AGAINST POSSIBLE DANGER — SEPARATION
OF FEMALES WHILE BROODING — HYGIENIC MEASURES
OF BEES — PRUDENCE OF BEES — FORTIFICATIONS
OF BEES — PRECAUTIONS AGAINST INQUISITIVENESS — LIGHTING
UP THE NESTS.

The building of comfortable dwellings is not the
last stage reached by the industry of animals. There
are among them some who show genuine skill in
rendering them healthy and defending them against
invasions from without.

General precautions against possible danger. — Some
animals show, even during the construction of the nest,
extreme prudence in preventing its site from being
discovered. Several authors refer to the stratagem
of the Magpie, who begins several nests at the same
time; but only one is intended to receive the brood,
and that only is completed. The aim of the others
is merely to distract attention. It is around these latter
that the bird shows ostentatious activity, while it
works at the real nest only for a few hours during
the day, in the morning and evening.

The Crane takes equally ingenious precautions in
order that its constant presence at the same spot
may not arouse suspicion. It never comes or goes
 flying, but always on foot, concealing itself along tufts
of reeds. De Homeyer even reports that the female
at the time of laying covers her wings and back with
mud. When dried this gives the animal a red tone,
which causes it to be confused with neighbouring
objects; this is intentional mimicry.

The Linnet (Fig. 41) again, wrongly accused of
wanting judgment, is well aware that a pile of excrement
at the foot of a tree announces a nest in the
branches. It is careful to suppress this revealing
sign, and every day takes it away in its beak to
disperse it afar.

Fig. 41.

Birds will sometimes take the trouble to remove
the eggs or the nest altogether, when the latter has
been discovered, in order to avoid further risks of
danger. The American Sparrow Hawk has been
observed to do this, and the following incident is
quoted by Bendire, from MacFarlane’s Manuscript
Notes on Birds Nesting in British America, concerning
the Pigeon Hawk (Falco columbarius): — “On
May 25, 1864, a trusty Indian in my employ found
a nest placed in a thick branch of a pine tree at a
height of about six feet from the ground. It was
rather loosely constructed of a few dry sticks and a
small quantity of coarse hay; it then contained two
eggs; both parents were seen, fired at, and missed.
On the 31st he revisited the nest, which still held but
two eggs, and again missed the birds. Several days
later he made another visit thereto, and, to his surprise,
the eggs and parents had disappeared. His
first impression was that some other person had
taken them; but after looking carefully around he
perceived both birds at a short distance, and this led
him to institute a search which soon resulted in finding
 that the eggs must have been removed by the
parent birds to the face of a muddy bank at least
forty yards distant from the original nest. A few
decayed leaves had been placed under them, but
nothing else in the way of lining. A third egg had
been added in the interim. There can hardly be any
doubt of the truth of the foregoing facts.”110

 Separation of females while brooding. — The Hornbill
of Malacca111 assures the protection of its nest and of
the female while she is brooding in a singular manner.
She lays in the hollow of a tree; as soon as she begins
to sit on her eggs, the male closes the opening with
diluted clay, only leaving a hole through which the
captive can pass her beak to receive the fruits which
he brings her in abundance. If the lady is thus
cloistered as closely as in the most jealous harem, her
lord and master at least expends on her the most
attentive cares.

What can be the object of this strange custom?
It has been asserted that during incubation the female
loses her feathers and becomes unable to fly. The
male would thus only wall her up as a precaution for
fear of seeing her fall from the nest; because if this
deplorable accident happened she would not be able
to get back again. It seems to me that the effect is
here taken for the cause, and that the falling off of
feathers and torpidity must be the result rather than
the motive of cloistration. One is tempted to believe
that the male desires by this method to guarantee his
female and her offspring against the attacks of squirrels
or rapacious birds.

Hygienic measures of Bees. — Among the animals
who expend industry on hygiene and the protection
of their dwellings, we must place Bees in the first line.
It may happen that mice, snakes, and moths may
find their way into a hive. Assaulted by the swarm,
and riddled with stings, they die without being able to
escape. These great corpses cannot be dragged out
by the Hymenoptera, and their putrefaction threatens
 to cause disease. To remedy this scourge the insects
immediately cover them with propolis — that is to say,
the paste which they manufacture from the resin of
poplars, birches, and pines. The corpse thus sheltered
from contact with the air does not putrefy. In other
respects Bees are very careful about the cleanliness of
their dwellings; they remove with care and throw
outside dust, mud, and sawdust which may be found
there. Bees are careful also not to defile their hives
with excrement, as Kirby noted; they go aside to
expel their excretions, and in winter, when prevented
by extreme cold or the closing of the hive from going
out for this purpose, their bodies become so swollen
from retention of fæces that when at last able to go
out they fall to the ground and perish. Büchner
records the observations of a friend of his during a
season in which a severe epidemic of dysentery had
broken out among the bees, which interfered with
the usual habits of the insects; on careful examination
of a hive it was found that a cavity in the
posterior wall of the hive, containing crumbled clay,
had been used as an earth closet. Many mammals
are equally careful in this respect; thus, for example,
the Beaver, as Hearne observed, always enters the
water, or goes out on the ice, to urinate or defæcate;
the fæces float and are soon disintegrated.