Spider-Monkeys

Perhaps the most curious of all the American monkeys are the spider-monkeys, which look very much like big black spiders when one sees them gamboling among the branches of the trees. The reason is that their bodies are very slightly built, and their arms and legs are very long and slender, while the tail is often longer than the head and body together, and looks just like an extra limb. And indeed it is used as an extra limb, for it is prehensile; that is, it can be coiled round any small object so tightly as to obtain a very firm hold. A spider-monkey never likes to take a single step without first twisting the tip of its tail round a branch, so that this member really serves as a sort of fifth hand. Sometimes, too, the animal will feed itself with its tail instead of with its paws. And it can even hang from a bough for some little time by means of its tail alone, in order to pluck fruit which would otherwise be out of its reach.

Owing partly, no doubt, to constant use, the last few inches of this wonderful tail are quite bare underneath—without any hair at all. It is worth while to remember, just here, that while in many American monkeys the tail has this prehensile grasp, no monkey of the Old World is provided with this convenience.

When a spider-monkey finds itself upon level ground, where its tail, of course, is of no use to it, it always seems very uncomfortable. But it manages to keep its balance as it walks along by holding the tail over its back, and just turning it first to one side and then to the other, as the need of the moment may require. It uses it, in fact, very much as an acrobat uses his pole when walking upon the tight rope.

It is rather curious to find that while other monkeys are very fond of nibbling the tips of their own tails, often making them quite raw, spider-monkeys never do so. They evidently know too well how useful those members are to injure them by giving way to such a silly habit—which is even worse than biting one's nails.

When a spider-monkey is shot as it sits in a tree, it always coils its tail round a branch at once. And even after it dies, the body will often hang for several days suspended by the tail alone.

These monkeys spend almost the whole of their lives in the trees, feeding upon fruit and leaves, and only coming down to the ground when they want to drink. As a general rule they are dreadfully lazy creatures, and will sit on a bough for hours together without moving a limb. But when they are playful, or excited, they swing themselves to and fro and dart from branch to branch, almost as actively as the gibbons.

Howlers

Very much like the spider-monkeys are the howlers, which are very common in the great forests of Central America. They owe their name to the horrible cries which they utter as they move about in the trees by night. You remember how the gibbons hold a kind of concert in the tree-tops every morning and every evening, as though to salute the rising and the setting sun. Well, the howlers behave in just the same way, except that their concert begins soon after dark and goes on all through the night. They have very powerful voices, and travelers who are not used to their noise say that it is quite impossible to sleep in the forest if there is a troop of howlers anywhere within two miles. And it is hard to believe that the outcry comes from the throats of monkeys at all. "You would suppose," says a famous traveler, "that half the wild beasts of the forest were collecting for the work of carnage. Now it is the tremendous roar of the jaguar, as he springs upon his prey; now it changes to his terrible and deep-toned growlings, as he is pressed on all sides by superior force; and now you hear his last dying groan beneath a mortal wound. One of them alone is capable of producing all these sounds; and if you advance cautiously, and get under the high and tufted trees where he is sitting, you may have a capital opportunity of witnessing his wonderful powders of producing these dreadful and discordant sounds."

If one monkey alone is capable of roaring as loudly as a jaguar, think what the noise must be when fifty or sixty howlers are all howling at the same time. No wonder travelers find it difficult to sleep in the forest.

Perhaps the best known of these monkeys is the red howler. Its color is reddish brown, with a broad band of golden yellow running along the spine, while its face is surrounded by bushy whiskers and beard.

The Ouakari

Another very curious American monkey is the red-faced ouakari. If you were to see it from a little distance you would most likely think that it was suffering from a bad attack of scarlet fever; for the face and upper part of the neck are bright red in color, as though they had been smeared with vermilion paint. And as its whiskers and beard are sandy yellow, it is a very odd-looking animal.

If a ouakari is unwell, strange to say, the bright color of its face begins to fade at once, and very soon after death it disappears altogether.

Ouakaris are generally caught in a very singular way. They are only found in a very small district on the southern bank of the Amazon River, and spend their whole lives in the topmost branches of the tallest trees, where it is quite impossible to follow them. And if they were shot with a gun, of course they would almost certainly be killed. So they are shot with a blowpipe instead. A slender arrow is dipped into a kind of poison called wourali, which has been diluted to about half its usual strength, and is then discharged at the animal from below. Only a very slight wound is caused, but the poison is still so strong that the ouakari soon faints, and falls from its perch in the branches. But the hunter, who is carefully watching, catches it in his arms as it falls, and puts a little salt into its mouth. This overcomes the effect of the poison, and very soon the little animal is as well as ever.

Ouakaris which are caught in this way, however, are generally very bad-tempered, and the gentle and playful little animals sometimes seen in zoos have been taken when very young. They are very delicate creatures and nearly always die after a few weeks of confinement.

The Couxia

If you were to see a couxia, or black saki, as it is often called, the first thing that you would say would most likely be, "What an extraordinary beard!" And your next remark would be, "Why, it looks as if it were wearing a wig!" For its projecting black beard is as big as that of the most heavily bearded man you ever saw, while on its head is a great mass of long black hair, neatly parted in the middle, and hanging down on either side, so that it looks just like a wig which has been rather clumsily made.

The couxia is extremely proud of its beard, and takes very great pains to prevent it from getting either dirty or wet. Do you remember how the diana monkey holds its beard with one hand while drinking, so as to keep it from touching the water? Well, the couxia is more careful still, for it will not put its lips to the water at all, but carries it to its mouth, a very little at a time, in the palm of its hand. But the odd thing is that it seems rather ashamed of thinking so much about its "personal appearance," and, if it knows that anybody is looking at it, will drink just like any other monkey, and pretend not to care at all about wetting its beard.

Like most of the sakis, the couxia is not at all a good-tempered animal, and is apt to give way to sudden fits of fury. So savagely will it bite when enraged, that it has been known to drive its teeth deeply into a thick board.

The Douroucoulis

Sometimes these odd little animals are called night-monkeys, because all day long they are fast asleep in a hollow tree, and soon after sunset they wake up, and all night long are prowling about the branches of the trees, searching for roosting birds, and for the other small creatures upon which they feed. They are very active, and will often strike at a moth or a beetle as it flies by, and catch it in their deft little paws. And their eyes are very much like those of cats, so that they can see as well on a dark night as other monkeys can during the day.

The eyes, too, are very large. If you were to look at the skull of a douroucouli, you would notice that the eye-sockets almost meet in the middle, only a very narrow strip of bone dividing them. And the hair that surrounds them is set in a circle, just like the feathers that surround the eyes of an owl.

But perhaps the most curious fact about these animals is that sometimes they roar like jaguars, and sometimes they bark like dogs, and sometimes they mew like cats.

There are several different kinds of these little monkeys, the most numerous, perhaps, being the three-banded douroucouli, which has three upright black stripes on its forehead. They are all natives of Brazil and other parts of tropical America.

Marmosets

One of the prettiest—perhaps the very prettiest—of all monkeys is the marmoset, which is found in the same part of the world. It is quite a small animal, being no bigger in body than a common squirrel, with a tail about a foot long. This tail, which is very thick and bushy, is white in color, encircled with a number of black rings, while the body is blackish with gray markings, and the face is black with a white nose. But what one notices more than anything else is the long tufts of snow-white hair upon the ears, which make the little animal look something like a white-haired negro.

Marmosets are very easily tamed, and they are so gentle in their ways, and so engaging in their habits, that if only they were a little more hardy we should most likely see them in this country as often as we see pet cats. But they are delicate little creatures, and cannot bear cold. What they like to eat most of all is the so-called black beetle of our kitchens. If only we could keep pet marmosets, they would very soon clear our houses of cockroaches, as these troublesome creatures are correctly called. They will spend hours in hunting for the insects, and whenever they catch one they pull off its legs and wings, and then proceed to devour its body.

When a marmoset is suddenly alarmed, it utters an odd little whistling cry. Owing to this habit it is sometimes known as the ouistiti, or tee-tee.

Lemurs

Relatives of the monkeys, and yet in many respects very different from them, are those very strange animals, the lemurs, which are sometimes called half-apes. The reason why that name has been given to them is this: Lemurs by the ancients were supposed to be ghosts which wandered about by night. Now most of the lemurs are never seen abroad by day. Their eyes cannot bear the bright sunlight; so all day long they sleep in hollow trees. But when it is quite dark they come out, prowling about the branches so silently and so stealthily that they really seem more like specters than living animals.

When you see them close, they do not look very much like monkeys. Their faces are much more like those of foxes, and they have enormous staring eyes without any expression.

The true lemurs are only found in Madagascar, where they are so numerous that two or three at least may be found in every little copse throughout the island. More than thirty different kinds are known, of which, however, we cannot mention more than two.

The first of these is the ring-tailed lemur, which may be recognized at once by the fact that its tail is marked just like that of the marmoset. The head and body are shaped like those of a very small fox, and the color of the fur is ashy gray, rather darker on the back, and rather lighter underneath. It lives in troops in Central Madagascar, and every morning and every night each troop joins in a little concert, just like the gibbons and the howlers.

But, oddly enough, this lemur is seldom seen in the trees. It lives on the ground, in rough and rocky places, and its hands and feet are made in such a way, as to enable it to cling firmly to the wet and slippery boulders. In fact, they are not at all unlike the feet of a house-fly. The body is clothed with long fur, and when a mother lemur carries her little one about on her back it burrows down so deep into her thick coat that one can scarcely see it at all.

The ruffed lemur is the largest of these curious animals, being about as big as a good-sized cat. The oddest thing about it is that it varies so very much in color. Sometimes it is white all over, sometimes it is partly white and partly black, and sometimes it is reddish brown. Generally, however, the shoulders and front legs, the middle of the back, and the tail are black, or very dark brown, while the rest of the body is white. And there is a great thick ruff of white hairs all round the face.

The eyes of this lemur are very singular. You know, of course, how the pupil of a cat's eye becomes narrower and narrower in a strong light, until at last it looks merely like an upright slit in the eyeball. Well, that of the lemur is made in very much the same way, except that the pupil closes up from above and below instead of from the sides, so that the slit runs across the eyeball, and not up and down.

The slender loris may be described as a lemur without a tail, It is found in the forests of Southern India and Ceylon. It is quite small, the head and body being only about eight inches long, and in general appearance it gives one rather the idea of a bat without any wings. In color it is dark gray, with a narrow white stripe between the eyes.

This animal has a very queer way of going to sleep. It sits on a bough and rolls itself up into a ball with its head tucked away between its thighs, while its hands are tightly folded round a branch springing up from the one on which it is seated. In this attitude it spends the whole of the day. At night it hunts for sleeping birds, moving so slowly and silently among the branches as never to give the alarm, and always plucking off their feathers before it proceeds to eat them. Strange to say, while many monkeys have no thumbs, the slender loris has no forefingers, while the great toes on its feet are very long, and are directed backward instead of forward.

Lemuroids

There are two lemur-like animals which are so extraordinary that each of them has been put into a family all by itself.

The first of these is the tarsier, which is found in several of the larger islands in the Malay Archipelago. Imagine an animal about as big as a small rat, with a long tail covered thickly with hair at the root and the tip, the middle part being smooth and bare. The eyes are perfectly round, and are so big that they seem to occupy almost the whole of the face—great staring eyes with very small pupils. The ears are very long and pointed, and stand almost straight up from the head. Then the hind legs are so long that they remind one of those of a kangaroo, while all the fingers and all the toes have large round pads under the tips, which seem to be used as suckers, and to have a wonderful power of grasp. Altogether, the tarsier scarcely looks like an animal at all. It looks like a goblin.

This singular creature seldom seems to walk. It hops along the branches instead, just as a kangaroo hops on the ground. And when it wants to feed it sits upright on its hind quarters, and uses its fore paws just as a squirrel does.

Even more curious still is the aye-aye, of Madagascar, which has puzzled naturalists very much. For its incisor teeth—the sharp cutting teeth, that is, in the middle of each jaw—are formed just like those of the rat and the rabbit. They are made not for cutting but for gnawing; and as fast as they are worn away from above they grow from beneath. All of its fingers are long and slender; but the middle one is longer than all the rest, and is so thin that it looks like nothing but skin and bone. Most likely this finger, which has a sharp little claw at the tip, is used in hooking out insects from their burrows in the bark of trees. But the aye-aye does not feed only upon insects, for it often does some damage in the sugar plantations, ripping up the canes with its sharp front teeth in order to get at the sweet juices. It is said at times to catch small birds, either for the purpose of eating them or else to drink their blood. And it seems also to eat fruit, while in captivity it thrives on boiled rice.

The aye-aye is about as big as a rather small cat, and its great bushy tail is longer than its head and body put together. It is not a common animal, even in Madagascar, and its name of aye-aye is said to have been given to it on account of the exclamations of surprise uttered by the natives when it was shown to them for the first time by a European traveler. But it is more likely that the name comes from the cry of the animal, which is a sort of sharp little bark twice repeated.

Strange to say, the natives of Madagascar are much afraid of the aye-aye. Of course it cannot do much mischief with its teeth or claws; but they seem to think that it possesses some magic power by means of which it can injure those who try to catch it, or even cause them to die. So that they cannot be bribed to capture it even by the offer of a large reward. Sometimes, however, they catch it by mistake, finding an aye-aye in a trap which has been set for lemurs. In that case they smear it all over with fat, which they think will please it very much, and then allow it to go free.

The aye-aye is seldom seen in captivity, and when in that state it sleeps all day long.

CHAPTER IV
THE BATS

Next in order to the monkeys come the bats, the only mammals which are able to fly. It is quite true that there are animals known as flying squirrels, which are sometimes thought to have the power of flight. But all that these can do, as we shall see by and by, is to take very long leaps through the air, aided by the curious manner in which the loose skin of the body is fastened to the inner surface of the legs.

How Bats Fly

Bats, however, really can fly, and the way in which their wings are made is very curious. If you were to look at a bat's skeleton, you would notice, first of all, that the front limbs were very much larger than the hinder ones. The upper arm-bone is very long indeed, the lower arm-bone is longer still, and the bones of the fingers are longest of all. The middle finger of a bat, indeed, is often longer than the whole of its body! Now these bones form the framework of the wing. You know how the silk or satin of a lady's fan is stretched upon the ribs. Well, a very thin and delicate skin is stretched upon the bones of a bat's arm and hand in just the same way. And when the little animal wants to fly, it stretches its fingers apart, and so spreads the wing. When it wants to rest it closes them, and so folds it against its body.

Then you would notice that a high bony ridge runs down the bat's breast-bone. Now such a ridge as this always signifies great strength, because muscles must be fastened at each end to bones; and when the muscles are very large and powerful, the bones must be very strong in order to carry them. So, when an animal needs very strong breast-muscles, so that it may be able to fly well, we always find a high bony ridge running down its breast-bone; and to this ridge the great muscles which work the wings are fastened.

Something more is necessary, however, if the animal is to fly properly. It must be able to steer itself in the air just as a boat has to be steered in the water. Otherwise it would never be able to fly in the right direction. So nature has given it a kind of air-rudder; for the skin which is stretched upon the wings is carried on round the end of the body, and is supported there, partly by the hind legs, and partly by the bones of the tail. And by turning this curious rudder to one side or the other, or tilting it just a little up or a little down, the bat is able to alter its course at will.

The Useful Claw

But you would notice something else on looking at a bat's skeleton. You would notice that the bones of the thumb are not long and slender, like those of the fingers, but that they are quite short and stout, with a sharp hooked claw at the tip. The bat uses this claw when it finds itself on the ground. It cannot walk, of course, as it has no front feet; so it hitches itself along by means of its thumbs, hooking first one claw into the ground and then the other, and so managing to drag itself slowly and awkwardly forward.

It is not at all fond of shuffling along in this way, however, and always takes to flight as soon as it possibly can. But as it cannot well rise from the ground it has to climb to a little height and let itself drop, so that as it falls it may spread its wings and fly away. And it always climbs in a very curious manner, with its tail upward and its head toward the ground, using first the claws of one little foot and then those of the other.

When a bat goes to sleep it always hangs itself up by the claws of its hind feet. In an old church tower, or a stable loft, you may often find bats suspended in this singular way. And there is a reason for it. The bat wants to be able, at the first sign of danger, to fly away. Now if it lay flat upon the ground to sleep, as most animals do, it would not be able to fly quickly; for it would have to clamber up a wall or a post to some little height before it could spread its wings. And this would take time. But if it should be alarmed while it is hanging by its hind feet, all that it has to do is to drop into the air and fly off at once.

Bats in the Dark

There is something else, too, that we must tell you about bats. They have the most wonderful power of flying about on the darkest night, without ever knocking up against the branches of trees, or any other obstacles which they may meet on their way. It used to be thought that this was because they had very keen eyes. But it has been found out that even a blind bat has this power, which seems really to be due to very sensitive nerves in the wings. You can feel a branch by touching it. But a bat is able to feel a branch without touching it, while it is eight or ten inches away, and so has time to swerve to one side without striking against it.

The Winter Sleep

Bats, like hedgehogs and squirrels, pass through the winter in a kind of deep sleep, which we call hibernation. It is more than ordinary sleep, for they do not require any food for months together, while they scarcely breathe once in twenty-four hours, and their hearts almost cease to beat. If the winter is cold throughout, they do not wake at all until the spring. But two or three hours' warm sunshine arouses them from their slumber. They wake up, feel hungry, go out to look for a little food, and then return to their retreats and pass into the same strange sleep again.

An Interesting Specimen

"I once kept a long-eared bat as a pet," says a writer, "and a most interesting little creature he was. One of his wings had been injured by the person who caught him, so that he could not fly, and was obliged to live on the floor of his cage. Yet, although he could take no exercise, he used to eat no less than seventy large bluebottle flies every evening. As long as the daylight lasted, he would take no notice of the flies at all. They might crawl about all over him, but still he would never move. But soon after sunset, when the flies began to get sleepy, the bat would wake up. Fixing his eyes on the nearest fly, he would begin to creep toward it so slowly that it was almost impossible to see that he was moving. By degrees he would get within a few inches. Then, quite suddenly, he would leap upon it, and cover it with his wings, pressing them down on either side of his body so as to form a kind of tent. Next he would tuck down his head, catch the fly in his mouth, and crunch it up. And finally he would creep on toward another victim, always leaving the legs and the wings behind him, which in some strange way he had managed to strip off, just as we strip the legs from shrimps.

"I often watched him, too, when he was drinking. As he was so crippled, I used to pour a few drops of water on the floor of his cage, and when he felt thirsty he would scoop up a little in his lower jaw, and then throw his head back in order to let it run down his throat. But in a state of freedom bats drink by just dipping the lower jaw into the water as they skim along close to the surface of a pond or a stream, and you may often see them doing so on a warm summer's evening."

The Pipistrelle

The pipistrelle, a common European bat, is said to feed chiefly upon gnats, of which it must devour a very large number, and as it much prefers to live near human habitations, there can be no doubt that it helps to keep houses free from these disagreeable insects. In captivity it will feed freely upon raw meat chopped very small. It appears earlier in the spring than the other bats, and remains later in the autumn.

Horseshoe Bats

These bats of the Old World have a most curious leaf-like membrane upon the face, which gives them a very odd appearance. In the great horseshoe bat this membrane is double, like one leaf placed above another. The lower one springs from just below the nostrils, and spreads outward and upward on either side, so that it is shaped very much like a horseshoe, while the upper one is pointed and stands upright, so as partly to cover the forehead. The ears, too, are very large, and are ribbed crosswise from the base to the tips; so that altogether this bat is a strange-looking creature.

Perhaps none of the bats is more seldom seen than this, for it cannot bear the light at all, and never comes out from its retreat until darkness has quite set in. And one very seldom finds it asleep during the day, for it almost always hides in dark and gloomy caverns, which are hardly ever entered by any human being. In France, however, there are certain caves in which great numbers of these bats congregate together for their long winter sleep. As many as a hundred and eighty of them have been counted in a single colony. And it is a very strange fact that all the male bats seem to assemble in one colony, and all the female bats in another.

Vampires

In Central and South America, and also in the West Indian Islands, a number of bats are found which are known as vampires. Some of these eat insects, just like the bats of other countries, and one of them—known as the long-tongued vampire—has a most singular tongue, both very long and very slender, with a brush-like tip, so that it can be used for licking out insects from the flowers in which they are hiding. Then there are other vampires which eat fruit, like the flying foxes, about which we shall have something to tell you soon. But the best known of these bats, and certainly the strangest, are those which feed upon the blood of living animals.

If you were to tether a horse in those parts of the forest where these vampires live, and to pay it a visit just as the evening twilight was fading into darkness, you would be likely to see a shadowy form hovering over its shoulders, or perhaps even clinging to its body. This would be a vampire bat; and when you came to examine the horse, you would find that, just where you had seen the bat, its skin would be stained with blood. For this bat has the singular power of making a wound in the skin of an animal, and sucking its blood, without either alarming it or appearing to cause it any pain. And if a traveler in the forest happens to lie asleep in his hammock with his feet uncovered, he is very likely to find in the morning that his great toe has been bitten by one of these bats, and that he has lost a considerable quantity of blood. Yet the bat never wakes him as it scrapes away the skin with its sharp-edged front teeth.

Strangely enough, however, there are many persons whom vampires will never bite. They may sleep night after night in the open, and leave their feet entirely uncovered, and yet the bats will always pass them by. Charles Waterton, a famous English traveler, was most anxious to be bitten by a vampire, so that he might learn by his own experience whether the infliction of the wound caused any pain. But though he slept for eleven months in an open loft, through which the bats were constantly passing, they never attempted to touch him, while an Indian lad who slept in the same loft was bitten again and again.

But as these bats cannot always obtain blood, it is most likely that they do not really live upon it, but only drink it when they have the chance, and that as a rule their food consists of insects.

Flying Foxes

Of course these are not really foxes. They are just big bats which feed on fruit, instead of on insects or on blood. They are called also fruit-bats. But their long, narrow faces are so curiously fox-like that we cannot feel surprised that the name of flying foxes should have been given to them.

Flying foxes are found in many parts of Asia, as well as in Madagascar and in Australia, and in some places they are very common. In India, long strings of these bats may be seen regularly every evening, as they fly off from their sleeping-places to the orchards in search of fruit. In some parts of India, early in the morning, and again in the evening, the sky is often black with them as far as the eye can reach, and they continue to pass overhead in an unbroken stream for nearly three-quarters of an hour. And as they roost in great numbers on the branches of tall trees, every bat being suspended by its hinder feet, with its wings wrapped round his body, they look from a little distance just like bunches of fruit.

It is rather curious to find that when they are returning to the trees in which they roost, early in the morning, these bats quarrel and fight for the best places, just as birds do.

In districts where they are at all plentiful, flying foxes do a great deal of mischief, for it is almost impossible to protect the orchards from their attacks. Even if the trees are covered all over with netting they will creep underneath it, and pick out all the best and ripest of the fruit; while, as they only pay their visits of destruction under cover of darkness, it is impossible to lie in wait for them and shoot them as they come.

The flight of the fruit-bats is not at all like that of the bats with which we are familiar, for as they do not feed upon insects there is no need for them to be constantly changing their course, and darting first to one side and then to the other in search of victims. So they fly slowly and steadily on, following one another just as crows do, and never turning from their course until they reach their feeding-ground.

The largest of these fruit-bats is the kalong, which is found in the islands of the Malay Archipelago. It measures over five feet from tip to tip of the extended wings. The Malays often use it for food, and its flesh is said to be delicate and well flavored.

CHAPTER V
THE INSECT-EATERS

Next to the bats comes the important tribe of the insect-eaters, containing a number of animals which are so called because most of them feed chiefly upon insects.

The Colugo

One of the strangest of these is the colugo, which lives in Siam, Java, and the Islands of the Malay Archipelago. It is remarkable for its wonderful power of leaping, for it will climb a tall tree, spring through the air, and alight on the trunk of another tree seventy or eighty yards away. For this reason it has sometimes been called the "flying colugo"; but it does not really fly. It merely skims from tree to tree. And if you could examine its body you would be able to see at once how it does so.

First of all, you would notice that the skin of the lower surface is very loose. You know how loose the skin of a dog's neck is, and how you can pull it up ever so far from the flesh. Well, the skin of the colugo is quite as loose as that on the sides and lower parts of its body.

Then you would notice that this loose skin is fastened along the inner side of each leg, so that the limbs are connected by membrane just like the toes of a duck's foot. And you would also see that when the legs are stretched out at right angles to the body, this membrane must be stretched out with them.

Now when a colugo wishes to take a long leap, it springs from the tree on which it is resting, spreads out its limbs, and skims through the air just as an oyster-shell does if you throw it sideways from the hand. The air buoys it up, you see, and enables it to travel ten times as far as it could without this loose skin. But of course this is not flight. The animal does not beat the air with the membrane between the legs, as bats and birds do with their wings. It cannot alter its course in the air; and it is always obliged to alight at a lower level than that from which it sprang.

The colugo is about as big as a good-sized cat, and its fur is olive or brown in color, mottled with whitish blotches and spots. When it clings closely to the trunk of a tree, and remains perfectly motionless, it may easily be overlooked, for it looks just like a patch of bark covered with lichens and mosses. It is said to sleep suspended from a branch with its head downward, like the bats; and whether this is the case or not, its tail is certainly prehensile, like that of a spider-monkey. And strangest of all, perhaps, is the fact that, although it belongs to the group of the insect-eaters, it feeds upon leaves.

The Hedgehog

In European countries, where it is common, one can scarcely walk through the meadows on a summer's evening without seeing this curious animal as it moves clumsily about in search of prey. There everybody is familiar with its spiky coat, which affords such an excellent protection against almost all its enemies.

But it is not everybody who knows how the animal raises and lowers its spines. It has them perfectly under control; we all know that. If you pick a hedgehog up it raises its spines at once, even if it does not roll itself up into a ball and so cause them to project straight out from its body in all directions. But if you keep the creature as a pet, and treat it kindly, it will very soon allow you to handle it freely without raising its spines at all.

The fact is this. The spines are shaped just like slightly bent pins, each having a sort of rounded head at the base. And they are pinned, as it were, through the skin, the heads lying underneath it. Besides this, the whole body is wrapped up in a kind of muscular cloak, and in this the heads of the spines are buried. So if the muscle is pulled in one direction, the spines must stand up, because the heads are carried along with it. If it is pulled in the other direction they must lie down, for the same reason. And it is just by pulling this muscle in one direction or the other that the animal raises and lowers its spines.

Hedgehog Habits

The hedgehog is not often seen wandering about by day, because it is then fast asleep, snugly rolled up in a ball under the spreading roots of a tree, or among the dead leaves at the bottom of a hedge. But soon after sunset it comes out from its retreat, and begins to hunt about for food. Sometimes it will eat bird's eggs, being very fond of those of the partridge; for which reason it is not at all a favorite with the gamekeeper. It will devour small birds, too, if it can get them, also lizards, snails, slugs, and insects. It has often been known to kill snakes and to feed upon their bodies afterward. It is a cannibal, too, at times, and will kill and eat one of its own kind. But best of all it likes earthworms.

The number of these which it will crunch up one after another is astonishing. "I once kept a tame hedgehog," says a naturalist, "and fed him almost entirely upon worms; and he used to eat, on an average, something like an ordinary jampotful every night of his life. He never took the slightest notice of the worms as long as the daylight lasted; but when it began to grow dark he would wake up, go sniffing about his cage till he came to the jampot, and then stand up on his hind feet, put his fore paws on the edge, and tip it over. And after about an hour and a half of steady crunching, every worm had disappeared."

In many places farmers persecute the hedgehog, and kill it whenever they have a chance of doing so. And if you ask the reason the answer is generally to the effect that hedgehogs steal milk from sleeping cows at night. Now it does not seem very likely that a cow would allow such a spiky creature as a hedgehog to come and nestle up against her body. But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that hedgehogs are often to be seen close by cows as they rest upon the ground. But they have not gone there in search of milk. Don't you know what happens if you lay a heavy weight, such as a big paving-stone, on the ground? The worms buried under it feel the pressure, and come up to the surface in alarm. Now a cow is a very heavy weight; so that when she lies down a number of worms are sure to come up all round her. And the hedgehog visits the spot in search, not of milk, but of worms!

The young of the hedgehog, which are usually four in number, do not look in the least like their parents, and you might easily mistake them for young birds; for their spikes are very soft and white, so that they look much more like growing feathers. The little creatures are not only blind, but also deaf, for several days after birth, and they cannot roll themselves up till they have grown somewhat. The mother animal always makes a kind of warm nest to serve as a nursery, and thatches it so carefully that even a heavy shower of rain never seems to soak its way through.

Strange to say, the hedgehog appears to be quite unaffected by many kinds of poison. It will eat substances which would cause speedy death to almost any other animal. And over and over again it has been bitten by a viper without appearing to suffer any ill results.

In England, about the middle of October, the hedgehog retires to some snug and well-hidden retreat, and there makes a warm nest of moss and dry leaves. In this it hibernates, just as bats do in hollow trees, only waking up now and then for an hour or two on very mild days, and often passing three or four months without taking food.

Shrews

During the earlier part of the autumn, you may very often find a curious mouse-like little animal lying dead upon the ground. But if you look at it carefully, you will see at once that in several respects it is quite different from the true mice.

In the first place you will notice that its mouth is produced into a long snout, which projects far in front of the lower jaw. Now no mouse ever has a snout like that. Then you will find that all its teeth are sharply pointed, while the front teeth of a mouse have broad, flat edges specially meant for nibbling at hard substances. And, thirdly, you will see that its tail, instead of gradually tapering to a pointed tip, is comparatively short, and is squared in a very curious manner. The fact is that the little animal is not a mouse at all, but a kind of shrew, of which there are many American species. One is large, and pushes through the top-soil like a mole. Another, smaller, is blackish, and has a short tail. The commonest one is mouse-gray and only two inches long plus a very long tail. It is fond of water, but has no such interesting habits as those of the European shrew next described.

These creatures are very common almost everywhere. But we very seldom see them alive, because they are so timid that the first sound of an approaching footstep sends them away into hiding. Yet they are not at all timid among themselves. On the contrary, they are most quarrelsome little creatures, and are constantly fighting. If two shrews meet, they are almost sure to have a battle, and if you were to try to keep two of them in the same cage, one would be quite certain to kill and eat the other before very long. They are not cannibals as a rule, however, for they feed upon worms and insects, and just now and then upon snails and slugs. And no doubt they do a great deal of good by devouring mischievous grubs.

Why these little animals die in such numbers just at the beginning of the autumn, nobody quite seems to know. It used to be thought that they were killed by cats, or hawks, or owls, which refused to eat them because of some unpleasant flavor in their flesh. But then one never finds any mark of violence on their bodies. A much more absurd idea was that they always die if they run across a path which has been trodden by the foot of man! Perhaps the real reason may be that just at that season of the year they perish from starvation.

The Water-Shrew

The best way to see this pretty little creature is to go and lie down on the bank of a stream, and to keep perfectly still for five or ten minutes. If you do this—not moving even a finger—you will very likely see half a dozen or more of the little animals at play. They go rushing about in the wildest excitement, chasing one another, tumbling over one another, and uttering curious little sharp, short squeaks, just like a party of boys let out from school after a long morning's work. Suddenly one will dash into the water and dive, quickly followed by another and then by a third. As they swim away beneath the surface they look just like balls of quicksilver, because their soft, silky fur entangles thousands of little air-bubbles, which reflect back the light just as a looking-glass does. And you will notice that they do not swim straight. First they turn to one side, and then to the other side, exactly like some one who has just learned to ride a bicycle, but does not yet know how to keep the front wheel straight. And the reason is this. The shrew swims by means of its hind feet, which are fringed with long hairs, so as to make them more useful as paddles; and it uses them by striking out first with one and then with the other. The consequence is that when it strikes with the right foot its head turns to the left, while when it strikes with the left foot its head turns to the right.

But it would not be able to swim even as straight as it does if it were not for its tail, which is fringed with long hairs just like the hind feet. And as the little animal paddles its way through the water it keeps its tail stretched out behind it, and uses it as a rudder, turning it a little bit to one side or the other, so as to help it in keeping its course.

After chasing one another under water for a minute or two, the little animals give up their game. And now, if you watch them carefully, you can see them hunting for food. First they go to one stone down at the bottom of the stream, and then to another, poking their long snouts underneath in search of fresh-water shrimps, or the grubs of water-insects. But a minute or two later they are all back on the bank again, dashing about and chasing one another and squeaking as merrily as ever.

Sometimes you may see a water-shrew which is very much darker in color than the others, the fur on the upper part of its body being almost black. It used to be thought that such animals as this belonged to a different species, to which the name of oared shrew was given. But we know now that they are only dark varieties of the common water-shrew.

Jumping Shrews

These are all found in Africa. They are curious little creatures with extremely long hind feet, by means of which they leap along just as if they were tiny kangaroos. So swift are they, that it is very difficult for the eye to follow their movements. And as they disappear into their burrows at the slightest alarm and do not come out again for some little time, few people ever have a chance of watching their habits.

The snouts of these shrews are so very long that the little animals are often known as elephant-shrews.

Tree-Shrews

This is a group so called because they spend almost the whole of their lives in the trees. In some ways they are not unlike tiny squirrels, being nearly as active in their movements, and sitting up on their hind quarters to feed, while the food is held in their fore paws. They are found in various parts of Southern Asia. They soon become very tame, actually entering houses, and climbing up on the table while the occupants are sitting at meals. They will even drink tea and coffee out of the cups! And if they are encouraged they make themselves quite at home, and will drive away any other tree-shrews which may venture into the house.

The largest animal of this group is the tupaia, which lives in Borneo and Sumatra. But the most curious is the pen-tailed tree-shrew, which has a double fringe of long hairs at the end of its tail, arranged just like the barbs of a feather, so that its tail looks very much like a quill pen. The rest of the tail, which is very long, is covered with square scales; and while the tail itself is black, the fringe of hairs is white, so that the appearance of the animal is very odd. It is found in Sarawak, and also in some of the smaller islands of the Malay Archipelago.

The Desman

This animal may be described as a kind of mixture of the elephant-shrew and the water-shrew; for it has an extremely long and flexible snout, and it spends almost its whole life in the water. Its feet are very well adapted for swimming, the toes being joined together by a web-like membrane like those of the duck and the swan, so that they form most exquisite paddles. And the animal is so fond of the water that, although it lives in a burrow in the bank of a stream, it always makes the entrance below the surface.

This is a very good plan in one way, for if the little animal is chased by one of its enemies, it can easily take refuge in its long, winding tunnel, which twists about so curiously, and has so many side passages, that the pursuer is almost sure to be baffled. But in another way it is a bad plan, for as the burrow has no entrance except the one under water, it never gets properly ventilated, the only connection with the outer air being some chance cranny in the ground. And in winter-time, when deep snow has covered up this cranny, while the surface of the stream is frozen to a depth of several inches, the poor little desman can get no fresh air at all, and often dies in its own burrow from suffocation.

This animal has a curious musky odor, which is due to certain glands near the root of the tail. So strong is this odor, that if a pike happens to have swallowed a desman a few days before it is caught, its flesh cannot be eaten, for its whole body both smells and tastes strongly of musk. Two kinds of desman are known. One is the Russian desman, which is found in the steppes, and the other is the Pyrenean desman, which lives in the range of mountains from which it takes its name.

The Common Mole

This is perhaps the most interesting of all the insect-eaters. Have you ever noticed how wonderfully it is suited for a life which is almost entirely spent under the ground?

Notice, first of all, the shape of its body. It is a pointed cylinder. Now that is the very best shape for a burrowing animal, because it offers so little resistance to the ground as the creature forces its way along. And nowadays we make all our boring tools and weapons of that shape. The gimlet, which has to bore through wood; the bullet, which has to bore through air; the torpedo and the submarine boat, which have to bore through water—they are all made in the form of pointed cylinders. And the mole is a pointed cylinder too. Its body is the cylinder, and its head is the point; and so the animal is able to work its way through the soil with as little difficulty as possible.

Then notice the character of its fur. It has no "set" in it. You can stroke it backward or forward with equal ease. And this is most important in an animal which lives in a burrow. If a mole had fur like that of a cat, it would be able to travel head foremost through its tunnel quite easily; but it could not move backward. And this would never do, for sometimes the mole is attacked by an enemy in front, while it has no room to turn round in order to retreat. So nature has made its fur in such a way that it "gives" in either direction, and enables the little animal to move either forward or backward with equal ease.

A Wondrous Digger

See what wonderful front paws the mole has—so broad, so very strong, and armed with such great, stout claws. They are partly pickaxes, and partly spades, which can tear away the earth and fling it up into molehills with the most wonderful speed. The rapidity with which a mole can dig is really marvelous. "Three times," a writer tells us, "I have seen moles walking about on the ground. Each time I was within ten yards of the animal; each time I ran to the spot. And yet each time the little creature had disappeared into the ground before I could get there! It did not seem to be digging. It simply seemed to sink into the soil, just as though it were sinking into water."

Then just see how hard and horny the skin of the paws is. If it were not for this, the mole would be always cutting itself with sharp flints as it dug its way through the ground. Notice, too, how both the eyes and ears are hidden away under the fur, so that fragments of earth may not fall into them. Nature has been very careful to suit the mole to the strange life which she calls upon it to lead.

Perhaps no animal is so strong for its size as the mole. Its muscles and sinews are so hard that they will turn the edge of a knife. If a mole could be magnified to the size of a lion or a tiger, and its strength could be increased in corresponding degree, it would be by far the more powerful animal of the two.

The Mole and its Food

The reason why the mole is so strong, and so well suited for a life underground, is that it is meant to feed partly upon worms, and partly upon such grubs as wireworms, which live on the roots of plants. And the appetite of the animal is astonishing. It is ever eating, and yet never appears to be satisfied. Don't think of keeping a mole as a pet; because if you do, you will have to spend almost the whole of your time in digging up worms for it to eat! Mole-catchers say, indeed, that if a mole goes without eating for three hours it is in danger of starvation. So that the animal must spend the greater part of the day, and of the night too, in searching for food.

How does it find the worms and grubs? Well, of course it cannot see underground; so sometimes, we may think, it smells them, for its scent is certainly very keen. But oftener, most likely, it hears them moving about; for its ears are even keener still. Haven't you noticed that, although you may often walk through fields which are almost covered with molehills, you never see the earth being thrown up? That is because the mole hears you coming. It hears your footsteps when you are a hundred yards distant, or even more, and immediately stops work until you have gone away again. In "The Tempest," Caliban tells his companions to "tread softly, that the blind mole may not hear a footfall." Although Shakespeare was wrong in thinking that moles are blind, he was quite right in reminding us that they have very sharp ears.

Friend or Foe?

The gardener, of course, looks upon the mole as a foe; and so it is when it drives its tunnels under our lawns, and throws up great heaps of earth on the surface of the grass. And the farmer regards it as a foe too, and kills it whenever he has an opportunity. But perhaps the farmer may not know what a busy little animal the mole is, and what thousands and thousands of mischievous grubs it devours. There are wireworms, which nibble away at the roots of plants till they kill them, and then move on to destroy other plants in the same way. There are "leather-jackets," or daddy-long-legs grubs, which feed upon the roots of grass, and sometimes ruin all the turf in a meadow. There are also the great fat white grubs of beetles, which are worse, perhaps, than either; and many others as well. Now the mole is always preying upon these. It eats them in hundreds every day of its life. And just think of all the mischief that they would have done if they had been allowed to live! No doubt it is annoying to the farmer to have molehills among his hay, which blunt the knives of the reaping-machines, and prevent them from cutting properly. But even that is better than having no hay to cut; and there would be none if all these mischievous grubs were allowed to live.

But there is another way as well in which the mole is useful; for the earth which it digs up from down below, and throws up in heaps on the surface of the ground, serves for what the farmer calls a top-dressing. After a time, you see, the nourishment in the soil at the surface is sucked out of it by the roots of the grass. If it were in a garden, the farmer could dig it. If it were in a corn-field, or a turnip-field, he could plow it. But in a meadow, he can do neither, without destroying the pasture. So he applies a top-dressing. He gets some good, rich earth from elsewhere, and spreads it over the surface; and this earth works down to the grass-roots, and gives them just the nourishment they require.

Now this is exactly what the mole is always doing. The earth which it throws up is fresh, rich earth from down below, which the roots have not reached. It is just what the failing grass requires. And if the farmer rakes the molehills down, so as to spread this earth evenly over the surface of the field, he finds that it forms a top-dressing quite as good as any he could apply himself. So instead of looking upon the mole as one of his enemies, he ought to include it in the list of his laborers.

The Little Well-Digger

Another thing that we must tell you about the mole is the way in which it obtains water. It is a very thirsty animal, and constantly requires to drink. At the same time, it cannot leave its burrow half a dozen times a day, in order to visit a stream or a pond, for it would almost certainly be killed by one of its many enemies. So it actually digs little wells of its own, always doing so in the dampest parts of its tunnels, where they fill up almost immediately. And when it wants to drink it just goes off to the nearest of these wells and satisfies its thirst.

The Mole's Fortress

But the most wonderful thing that the mole does is to make what we call a fortress, surrounding the chamber in which it sleeps. This fortress is situated either in a natural mound of earth, or else beneath the spreading roots of a tree or a large bush; and it is made in this way: First the mole digs a short circular gallery. A little way under this it digs another, rather larger in diameter, and connects the two by means of five short passages. In the middle of the mound, and about half-way between the two galleries, it scoops out a large round hole, from which three passages run to the lower gallery. This is the mole's bedroom, and it communicates with the main burrow by a tunnel which dips under the lower gallery. Finally, a number of runs branch out from the lower gallery in all directions.

So, you see, if a mole is chased by an enemy, it can nearly always escape by passing through its fortress. It goes up one passage, down another, up again by a third, down again by a fourth, and then off by one of the side runs; so that its pursuer is almost sure to be bewildered. And if the little animal should be surprised while asleep, it can escape in any direction without losing even a moment.

As the mole always likes to make itself comfortable, it collects together a quantity of dry grass, moss, and leaves, and piles them up in the central chamber, so as to make a warm and cosy bed! And the female mole makes a nursery for her little ones in much the same way.

Fierce Fighters

Sad to say, moles are very quarrelsome little animals, and frequently fight when they meet. Here is an account of one of their battles, written by a passer-by who happened to witness it.

"Walking along a quiet lane, I heard some very funny little squeaks proceeding from the other side of the hedge. I am perfectly used to all sorts of animal and bird sounds, but had never heard the like of these before. On getting cautiously over the hedge, I found two moles fighting in the ditch. I went to within two yards of them, but they took not the slightest notice of me, so intent were both on their business. I at once looked at my watch. They kept on, up and down, scratch and bite, for seven minutes, when one turned the other completely over on his back, and seized him by the throat, which he cut as cleanly as if done by a knife, thus finishing the fight. The way in which they used their formidable front feet was surprising."

The Star-nosed Mole

This mole is found in the United States and Canada. It is a very odd-looking animal, for its muzzle is shaped into a long snout, at the tip of which is a circle of fleshy rays of a rosy red color, which look like the petals of a red daisy, or the spreading arms of a sea-anemone. These rays can be opened wide or closed up at pleasure, and seem to serve as very delicate organs of touch, helping the animal in finding and catching its prey.

This mole is also remarkable for having a very long tail, which is more than half the length of the head and body. The total length is about seven inches.

CHAPTER VI
THE LARGER CATS

Now we come to the beasts of prey, foremost among which stand the members of the great cat tribe. All these animals have their bodies formed in a very wonderful way.

First of all, their eyes are intended for use chiefly by night. If you look at a cat's eyes during broad daylight, when the sun is shining, you will notice that the pupils, through which she sees, are nothing more than mere narrow slits in the middle. Look at them again toward evening, when the twilight is just beginning to creep on, and you will see that the pupils are a good deal bigger, occupying nearly half the eyeball. Look at them once again, when it is almost dark, and you will find that they are bigger still, having widened out over nearly the whole of the eye.

Now the eyes of a lion and a tiger are made in just the same way. The darker the night, the more the pupils expand, so that they may be able to take in the few rays of light that there are. We sometimes say that these animals can see in the dark. That, of course, is a mistake, for in perfect darkness no animal can see at all. But even on the darkest night there is always some light, and no matter how little there is it is enough to allow lions and tigers to see perfectly well, because of the wonderful way in which their eyes are made.

The Stealthy Tread

But these creatures do not only want to be able to see their victims on a dark night; they also want to be able to creep up to them without making the slightest sound. It would be quite useless, for instance, for a lion to chase a deer, because the deer is by far the swifter animal of the two. If the lion is to catch the deer at all he must spring upon it unawares, and strike it down before it knows its danger. And this is not at all easy, for the ears of a deer are very sharp, and if the lion were to make the least noise while creeping up, it would take the alarm directly. But under his great broad paws the lion has soft, fleshy cushions, which enable him to walk along without making any noise at all. Haven't you noticed how silent a cat's tread is? You simply cannot hear her place her foot upon the ground. Well, lions and tigers walk in just the same noiseless manner, so that the deer never hears them creeping up, and is struck down and killed before it has time to realize its danger.