The Common Objects of the Country

Once, though, a rather curious circumstance occurred.

In my possession was a pet pistol, which would throw a ball with great accuracy, and I considered myself sure of an apple at sixteen paces. One day, just as I was standing by a branch of the river Cherwell, I saw a water-rat sitting on the root of a tree at the opposite side of the river, and watching me closely. The river was not above twelve or fourteen yards wide; and the rat presented so good a mark that I fired at him, and, of course, expected to see him on his back.

But there sat the rat, quite still on the stump, and about two inches below him the round hole where the bullet had struck.

As the creature seemed determined to stay there, I reloaded, and took a good aim, determined to make sure of him. As the smoke cleared away, I had the satisfaction of seeing the rat in exactly the same position, and another bullet-hole close by the former. Four shots I made at that provoking animal, and four bullets did I deposit just under him. As I was reloading for a fifth shot, the rat walked calmly down the stump, slid into the water, and departed.

Now, whether he acted from sheer impertinence, or whether he was stunned by the violent blow beneath him, I cannot say. The latter may perhaps be the case, for squirrels are killed in North America by the shock of the bullet against the bough on which they sit, so that no hole is made in their skins, and the fur receives no damage. Perhaps the rat was actuated by a supreme contempt for me and my shooting powers; and, as the result showed, was quite justified in his opinion.

CHAPTER II

SHREW-MOUSE—DERIVATION OF ITS NAME—SHREW-ASH—THE SPIRIT AND THE LIFE—WATER-SHREW—ITS HABITS—THE MOLE—MOLE-HILL—A PET MOLE—THE WEASEL.

I have already mentioned that the water-rat has little claim to the title of rat; and there is another creature which has even less claim to the title of mouse. This is the Shrew, or Shrew-mouse as it is generally called. This creature bears a very close relationship to the hedgehog, and is a distant connection of the mole; but with the mouse it has nothing to do.

SHREW-MOUSE.

Numbers of the shrews may be found towards the end of the autumn lying dead on the ground, from some cause at present not perfectly ascertained. If one of these dead shrews be taken, and its little mouth opened, an array of sharply-pointed teeth will be seen, something like those of the mole, very like those of the hedgehog; but not at all resembling those of the mouse.

The shrew is an insect and worm-devouring creature, for which purpose its jaws, teeth, and whole structure are framed. A rather powerful scent is diffused from the shrew; and probably on that account cats will not eat a shrew, though they will kill it eagerly.

On examining Webster’s Dictionary for the meaning of the word “shrew,” we find three things.

Firstly, that it signifies “a peevish, brawling, turbulent, vexatious woman”.

Secondly, that it signifies “a shrew-mouse”.

Thirdly, that it is derived from a Saxon word, “screawa,” a combination of letters which defies any attempt at pronunciation, except perhaps by a Russian or a Welshman.

Now, it may be a matter of wonder that the same word should be used to represent the very unpleasant female above-mentioned, and also such a pretty, harmless little creature as the shrew. The reason is shortly as follows.

In days not long gone by, the shrew was considered a most poisonous creature, as may be seen in the works of many authors. In the time of Katherine—the shrew most celebrated of all shrews—any cow or horse that was attacked with cramp, or indeed with any sudden disease, was supposed to have suffered in consequence of a shrew running over the injured part. In those days homœopathic remedies were generally resorted to; and nothing but a shrew-infected plant could cure a shrew-infected animal. And the shrew-ash, as the remedial plant was called, was prepared in the following manner.

In the stem of an ash-tree a hole was bored; into the hole a poor shrew was thrust alive, and the orifice immediately closed with a wooden plug. The animal strength of the shrew passed by absorption into the substance of the tree, which ever after cured shrew-struck animals by the touch of a leafy branch.

The poor creature that was imprisoned, Ariel-like, in the tree, was, fortunately for itself, not gifted with Ariel’s powers of life; and the orifice of the hole being closed by the plug, we may hope that its sufferings were not long, and that it perished immediately for want of air. Still, our fathers were terribly and deliberately cruel; and if the shrew’s death was a merciful one, no credit is due to the authors of it.

For on looking through a curious work on natural history, of the date of 1658, where each animal is treated of medicinally, I find recipes of such terrible cruelty that I refrain from giving them, simply out of tenderness for the feelings of my reader. Torture seems to be a necessary medium of healing; and if a man suffers from “the black and melancholy cholic,” or “any pain and grief in the winde-pipe or throat,” he can only be eased therefrom by medicines prepared from some wretched animal in modes too horrid to narrate, or even to think of.

We are not quite so bad at the present day; but still no one with moderate feelings of compassion can pass through our streets without being greatly shocked at the wanton cruelties practised by human beings on those creatures that were intended for their use, but not as mere machines. Charitably, we may hope that such persons act from thoughtlessness, and not from deliberate cruelty; for it does really seem a new idea to many people that the inferior animals have any feelings at all.

When a horse does not go fast enough to please the driver, he flogs it on the same principle that he would turn on steam to a locomotive engine, thinking about as much of the feelings of one as of the other.

Much of the present heedlessness respecting animals is caused by the popular idea that they have no souls, and that when they die they entirely perish. Whence came that most preposterous idea? Surely not from the only source where we might expect to learn about souls—not from the Bible; for there we distinctly read of “the spirit of the sons of man”; and immediately afterwards of “the spirit of the beast,” one aspiring, and the other not so. And the necessary consequence of the spirit is a life after the death of the body. Let any one wait in a frequented thoroughfare for only one short hour, and watch the sufferings of the poor brutes that pass by. Then, unless he denies the Divine Providence, he will see clearly that unless these poor creatures were compensated in another life, there is no such quality as justice.

It is owing to sayings such as these, that men come to deny an all-ruling Providence, and so become infidels. They don’t examine the Scriptures for themselves, but take for granted the assertions of those who assume to have done so, and seeing the falsity of the assertion, naturally deduce therefrom the falsity of its source. If a man brings me a cup of putrid water, I naturally conclude that the source is putrid too. And when a man hears horrible and cruel doctrines, which are asserted by theologians to be the religion of the Scriptures, it is no wonder that he turns with disgust from such a religion, and tries to find rest in infidelity. In such a case, where is the fault?

All created things in which there is life, must live for ever. There is only one life, and all living things only live as being recipients; so that as that life is immortality, all its recipients are immortal.

If people only knew how much better an animal will work when kindly treated, they would act kindly towards it, even from so low a motive. And it is so easy to lead these animals by kindness, which will often induce an obstinate creature to obey where the whip would only confirm it in its obstinacy. All cruelty is simply diabolical, and can in no way be justified.

Supposing that the two cases could be reversed for just one hour, what a wonderful change there would be in the opinion of men; for it may be assumed that the person most given to inflicting pain and suffering is the least tolerant of it himself.

There is, perhaps, hardly one of my readers who does not know some one person who finds an exquisite delight in hurting the feelings of others by various means, such as ridicule, practical jokes, ill-natured sayings, and so on. If so, he will be tolerably certain to find that the same person is especially thin-skinned himself, and resents the least approach to a joke of which he is the subject.

So, if the shrew were to be the afflicted individual, and the human the victim, there would be found no one so averse to the medicinal process as he who had formerly resorted to it under different circumstances.

This principle is finely carried out, in the terrible scene of Dennis, the executioner’s, last hours in Barnaby Rudge.

These are not pleasant subjects; and we will pass on to another shrew that is generally found in the water, and called from thence the Water-shrew. It is a creature that may be found in many running streams, if the eyes are sharp enough to observe it, and is well worth examination. As it dives and runs along the bottom of the stream, it appears to be studded with tiny silver beads, or glittering pearls, on account of the air-bubbles that adhere to its fur. I have seen a whole colony of them disporting themselves in a little brooklet not two feet wide, and so had a good opportunity of inspecting them.

WATER-SHREW.

I may mention here, as has been done in one or two other works, that nothing is easier than to watch animals or birds in their state of liberty. All that is required is perfect quiet. If an observer just sits down at the foot of a tree, and does not move, the most timid creatures will come within a few yards as freely as if no human being were within a mile. If he can shroud himself in branches or grass or fern, so much the better; but quiet is the chief essential.

It is impossible to form an idea of the real beauty of animal life, without seeing it displayed in a free and unconstrained state; and more real knowledge of natural history will be gained in a single summer spent in personal examination, than by years of book study.

The characters of creatures come out so strongly; they have such quaint, comical, little ways with them; such assumptions of dignity and sudden lowering of the same; such clever little cheateries; such funny flirtations and coquetries, that I have many a time forgotten myself, and burst into a laugh that scattered my little friends for the next half-hour. It is far better than a play, and one gets the fresh air besides.

These little water-shrews are most active in their sports and their work, for which latter purpose they make regular paths along the banks. And as to their sport, they chase one another in and out of the water, making as great a splash as possible, whisk round roots, dodge behind stones, and act altogether just like a set of boys let loose from the school-room. And then—what a revulsion of feeling to see a stuffed water-shrew in a glass-case!

Now for a few words respecting the distant relation of the shrews, namely, the mole. Of its near relation, the hedgehog, there will not be time to speak.

Every one is familiar with the little heaps of earth thrown up by the mole, and called mole-hills. But as the animal itself lives almost entirely underground, comparatively little is known of it; at all events, to the generality of those who see the hills. The mole is not often seen alive; and few who see it suspended among the branches by the professional killer would form any conception of the real character of this subterranean animal.

Meek and quiet as the mole looks, it is one of the fiercest, if not the very fiercest of animals; it labours, eats, fights, and loves as if animated by one of the furies, or rather by all of them together.

MOLE.

Intervals of profound rest alternate with savage action; and according to the accounts of country folks near Oxford, it works and rests at regular intervals of three hours each.

Useful as these creatures are as subsoil drain-makers, they sometimes increase to an inconvenient extent, and then the professed mole-catcher comes into practice, and destroys the moles with an apparatus apparently inadequate to such a purpose. But the mole is easily killed, and pressure he cannot survive; so the traps are formed for the purpose of squeezing the mole, not of smashing or strangling him.

The mole-catchers are in the habit of suspending their victims on branches, mostly of the willow or similar trees; but their object I could never make out, nor could they give me any reason, except that it was the custom.

When a mole is taken out of the ground, very little earth clings to it. There is always some on its great digging claws; but very little indeed on its fur, which is beautifully formed to prevent such accumulation. The fur of most animals “sets” in some definite direction, according to its position on the body; but that of the mole has no particular set, and is fixed almost perpendicularly on the creature’s skin, much like the pile of velvet. Indeed the mole’s fur has much the feel of silk-velvet; and so the title of the “Little gentleman in the velvet coat” is justly applied.

Those small heaps of earth that are so common in the fields, and called mole-hills, are merely the result of the mole’s travelling in search of the earth-worms, on which it principally feeds; and in their structure there is nothing remarkable.

But the great mole-hill, or mole-palace, in which the animal makes its residence, is a very different affair, and complicated in its structure. In it is found a central chamber in which the mole resides; and round this chamber there run galleries or corridors in a regular series, so as to form a kind of labyrinth, by means of which the creature may make its escape, if threatened with danger.

The accompanying cut shows a section of the mole-palace.

MOLE-HILL.

This palace is formed, if possible, under the protection of large stones, roots of trees, thick bushes, or some such situation; and is located as far as possible from paths or roads.

The food of the mole mostly consists of earth-worms, in search of which it drives these tunnels with such assiduity. The depth of the tunnel is necessarily regulated by the position of the worms; so that in warm pleasant days or evenings the run, as it is called, is within a few inches of the surface; but in winter the worms retire deeply into the unfrozen soil, and thither the mole must follow them. For this purpose it sinks perpendicular shafts, and from thence drives horizontal tunnels. It may be seen how useful this provision is when one thinks of the work that is done by the mole when providing for its own sustenance.