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Several times during his search for a mate, Brock struck the trail of a female badger, and followed its windings through the thickets and away across the open fields towards the the distant valley, only, however, to lose it near some swollen brook or on some well trodden sheep-path. The female had evidently come to a little copse on the crest of a rugged hill overlooking the river, and, after skirting a pond where wild duck sheltered among the flags, had retraced her steps. Brock's most frequented tracks led close to the spot where the stranger's return trail joined the other near an opening from an almost impenetrable gorse-cover into a marshy fallow. There, late one night, he found, as he crossed the opening, that thefemale badger had travelled forward, but had not yet returned. Revisiting the spot some minutes afterwards, he discovered that the backward “drag” was strong on the damp grass. He followed it quickly, and, in a stubble beyond the gorse, came up at last with the object of his oft-disappointed quest. She was a widow badger, older and more experienced than Brock, but smaller and of lighter build.
Perhaps because she wished to test the loyalty of her new lover, and to find whether he would fight for her possession with any intruder, she resisted his advances, and refused to go with him to his home. So he followed her far away to her own snug dwelling on the fringe of the moorlands. Thence, with the first streak of dawn in the south-eastern sky, he hurried back to his lair.
Early next evening, Brock went forth to meet his lady-love; and throughout the long night and for nights afterwards he wandered at her side, till, concluding that no other suitor was likely to appear, she accompanied him to his home, and entered on the season's house-keeping in the central chamber of the great “set” where he had been born. Therethey lived happily, and without the slightest annoyance from the old badgers; and, since the time of the spring “running” was over, they wandered no further afield than in the cold winter nights. Filled with the joy of the life-giving season, they often romped together in the twilight for half an hour at a time, chasing one another in and out of the entrances to the “set,” or kicking up the soil as if they suddenly recollected that their claws needed to be filed and sharpened, or standing on their hind-feet and rubbing their cheeks delightedly against a favourite tree—grunting loudly in their fun the while, and in general behaving like droll, ungainly little pigs just escaped from a stye. At last, their frolic being ended, they “bumped” away into the bushes, and, meeting on the trail beyond, proceeded soberly towards the outskirts of the wood.
As in the previous spring, the big burrow was soon the scene of family affairs other than those of the badgers. By the end of February, there were cubs in the vixen's den, and both the wood-mice and the rabbits were diligently preparing for important family events. Brock's companion, unlike himselfwas not accustomed to a house inhabited by other tenants. None but members of her own family had dwelt in the “earth” near the moor; and, being somewhat exclusive in her ideas, she strongly resented the presence of the vixen in any quarter of her new abode. A little spiteful in her disposition, she lurked about the passages, and by the mound outside the entrance, intending to give her neighbour “a bit of her mind” at the first opportunity. But since she did not for the present care to enter the vixen's den, that opportunity never came till her own family arrangements claimed her undivided attention, and effectually prevented her from following the course of action she had planned.
In the first week of April, the badger's spring-cleaning began in downright earnest. The old bedding of fern, and hay, and leaves was cleared entirely from the winter “oven,” and, after a few windy but rainless days and nights, when the refuse of Nature's woodland garden was dry, new materials for a cosy couch were carried to the lair, and arranged on the floor of the roomy chamber where Brock's mother had brought himinto the world. The badgers' methods of conveying the required litter were quaintly characteristic, for the animals possessed the power of moving backward almost as easily and quickly as forward. They collected a pile of leaves, and, grasping it between their fore-legs, made their way, tail first, to the mound, and thence, in the same manner, along their underground galleries, as far as the place intended for its reception, strewing everywhere in the path proofs of their presence, quite sufficient for any naturalist visiting their haunts.
On a dark, wet night rather less than a fortnight after they had completed their preparations, when Brock returned to his home for shelter from the driving storm, three little cubs were lying by their mother's side.
The training of the badger-cubs during the first two months was left wholly to their dam; but afterwards Brock shared the work with his mate, teaching the youngsters, by his example, how to procure food, and, at the same time, to detect and to avoid all kinds of danger. In so doing, he simply acted towards his cubsas his sire had acted towards him. Apart from family ties, however, his life—that of a strong, deliberate animal, self-possessed in peril and in conflict, yet shy and cautious to a fault—was of extreme interest to both naturalist and sportsman.
Five young foxes, as well as the vixen, now dwelt in the antechamber near the main entrance of the “set,” and the presence of this numerous family became, for several reasons, so objectionable to the she-badger, that, about the middle of May, the antipathy which, since her partnership with Brock, she had always felt towards the vixen, was united with a fixed determination to get rid of her neighbours. She was too discreet, however, to attempt to rout them during the day, when some dreaded human being might be attracted by the noise; so she endeavoured to surprise the vixen and her cubs together at night.
For a while, she was unsuccessful. She happened to frighten them by an impetuous, blustering attack in the rear, from which they easily escaped; thus her difficulties had been increased, since the objects of her aversion became loath to stay in the “earth” after nightfall. But at last, probably more through accident than set purpose, the badger out-manœuvred the wily foxes.
Lying one evening in the doorway, she heard the vixen, followed by the young foxes, creeping stealthily from the den. Retreating quickly, she barred their exit, thus compelling them to return to their lair; then she took up her position in the neck of the passage, and waited patiently till midnight before commencing her assault. At last, in the dense darkness, she crawled along the winding tunnel, and, directly, the den was the scene of wild confusion and uproar, as its inmates leaped and tumbled over each other in their frantic efforts to escape. For a few minutes, the advent of danger unnerved them; then, as if peculiarly fascinated by the grim, motionless enemy blocking their only outlet, they began an aimless, shuffling dance, baring their teeth and hissing as they lurched from side to side. Their suspense was soon ended. The badger, emerging partly from the passage, gripped one of the cubs by a hind-leg, and dragged it backwards along the passage to the thicket outside, where, after worrying her victim unmercifully, she ended its life bycrushing its skull, above the muzzle, into fragments between her teeth.
Once more, but this time furious with the taste of blood, she hurried to the den; and the scene of fear and violence was repeated. Her third visit was futile: the vixen with the other cubs had bolted into the main gallery, and escaped thence to the wood, through an old opening, almost choked with withered leaves, at the back of the “set.”
They never returned, but the following spring a strange vixen from the rocks across the valley came to the burrow, gave birth to her young, and, in due course, without loss, was evicted by Brock's relentless mate.
“HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS, WITH UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH OF SCENT.”“HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS, WITH UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH OF SCENT.”To List
On the night after the death of the fox-cubs, when Brock was led by the she-badger to the spot where her victims lay, he noticed that man's foot-scent was strong on the grass around, and also that his hand-scent lingered on the fur of the slain animal. Often, during the succeeding two months, he was awakened in the day by quick, irregular footsteps overhead; and later, when he climbed from his doorway, and stood motionless, with uplifted nostrils, inhaling each breath of scent, he found that the dreaded signs of man werenumerous on the trail, on the near beech-trunk, and even on the mound before the “set.” Once, on returning home with his family, he was greatly alarmed to discover that in the night the man had visited his haunts, and that a dog had passed down the galleries and disturbed the bed on which he slept. Henceforward, he used the main opening as an exit only, and invariably entered the “set” by the opening through which the vixen had escaped from his mate, passing, on his way, the mouth of a side-gallery connected with the apartments occupied by his old sire and dam, together with their present family. Eventually, through these precautions, he saved his principal earthworks from destruction.
Had Brock been able to ascertain the meaning of man's frequent visits to the neighbourhood of his dwelling, he would have sorely lamented the killing of the young foxes by the female badger. In the eyes of the Hunt, vulpicide was an unpardonable crime, whether committed by man or beast; and, when the dead fox-cubs were shown to the huntsman, he vowed vengeance on the slayer. Because of a recent exchange, between thetwo local Hunts, of certain outlying farms, it happened that this huntsman was not he who in past seasons had tethered his horse near the “set” while he “drew” the cover on foot. The new-comer soon discovered the “earth”; but after a brief examination, from which he concluded, because of the strong taint still lingering, that it was tenanted by a fox, he walked away towards the farm. Fearing a reprimand from the Master if the mysterious slaughter of the foxes could not be explained, he made careful enquiries of the farmers, by whom he was told of the badger and the sheep, as well as of the poacher who had seen Brock's sire in the upland fields two years ago; but he laughed at the first tale, and for want of adequate information paid no heed to the second. Nevertheless, when he again visited the “earth,” and, stooping, saw the withered leaves and fern, and detected, not now the scent of a fox, but the scent of half a dozen badgers, his sluggish brain began to move in the right direction. Stories he had heard by the lodge fireside when he was a lad, casual remarks dropped by followers of the Hunt, questions asked him by an inquisitiveboy-naturalist—he slowly remembered them all; and then the revealing light dawned on his mind, that no animal but a badger could with ease have broken the limbs of a fox-cub, and cracked the skull as though it were a hazel-nut. Filled with a sense of self-importance, befitting the bearer of a momentous message, the huntsman rode away in the breathless summer twilight to the country house where the Master lived, and presently was shown into the gun-room to wait till dinner was over.
The Master prided himself on his love of every kind of sport; and before the huntsman had finished a long, rambling story of the woodland tragedy he had formed his plans for the punishment of the offender and was writing a brief, urgent letter to a distant friend. As the result, a few days afterwards three little terriers, specially trained for “drawing” a badger, arrived at the Master's house, and were accommodated in a vacant “loose-box” in the stables. Late at night, one of these was introduced to the “set,” and from the experiment the Master was led to believe that, though the place, as he surmised, was empty of its usualtenants at the time, it held sure promise of sport for an “off” day, as soon as the otter-hounds, now about to hunt in the rivers of the west, had departed from the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, according to his strictest orders, the little terriers were well fed, regularly exercised, and kept from quarrelling, and their coats were carefully brushed and oiled that they might be as fit as fiddles for the eventful “draw.”
The Master was a rigid disciplinarian in all matters concerned with sport. His servants, one and all, from the old, white-haired family butler down to the little stable-boy, idolised him, but never presumed to disobey his slightest command. For many years before he came to live at the mansion, the Hunt had fallen into a state of extreme neglect; the pack was one of the worst in the kingdom, the subscriptions were irregular, the kennel servants were ill-paid, the poor cottagers never received payment for losses when Reynard visited their hen-coops, and even the farmers began to grumble at needless damage to their hedges, and to refuse to “walk” the puppies. But the new Master had changed all this. He bore his share,but no more, of the expense caused by the reforms he at once introduced, and he reminded his proud yet stingy neighbours that the pack existed for their sport as much as for his own, that arrears were shown in his secretary's subscription-books, and that, unless the funds were augmented, he would reconsider the step he had taken in accepting the Mastership. Useless servants, useless hounds, and merely ornamental members of the Hunt, alike disappeared; and with system and discipline came season after season of prosperity, contentment, and justice, till it seemed that the best old traditions of British sport were revived in a community of hard-working, rough-riding fox-hunters, among the isolated valleys of the west.
As might be inferred from the personality of the Squire, everything was in apple-pie order on the glorious summer morning when he and his huntsmen made their way down river to the wood inhabited by Brock. A complete collection of tools—crowbar, earth-drill, shovels, picks, a woodman's axe, and a badger-tongs that had been used many years ago to unearth a badger in a distant county, and ever since had occupied a corner inthe Squire's harness-room—had already been conveyed to the scene of operations, together with a big basket of provisions and a cask of beer, it being one of the Squire's axioms that hard work deserved good hire. Four brawny labourers were also there; and, near by, each in leash, the three little terriers lay among the bilberries. Punctually at the time appointed, the work of the day began. A terrier was led to the main entrance of the “set,” but, to the dismay of the huntsman, he refused to enter. When, however, he was brought to the entrance that artful Brock had lately used, he at once became keenly excited, dragged at his leash, and, on being freed, disappeared in the darkness of the burrow. The Master knelt to listen; and presently, as the sound of furious growls and barks came from the depths, he arose, saying: “Now, my men, we may begin with picks and shovels; our badger is at home.”
What followed, from that early summer morning till twilight shadows fell over the woods, and men and dogs, completely beaten, wended their way homewards along the river-path, may best be told, perhaps, in a bare, simple narrative of events as they occurred.
When the terrier went “to ground,” he crawled down a steep, winding passage into a hollow, from twelve to fifteen feet below the entrance. Thence, guided by the scent of a badger, he climbed an equally steep passage, to a gallery about six feet below the surface. Following the gallery for a yard or so, he came to a spot where it was joined by a side passage, and here, as well as in the gallery beyond, the scent was strong. He chose the side passage, crept down a slight declivity, and came where Brock's sire had, a few minutes before, been lying asleep, while his mate and cubs occupied the centre of the chamber. Awakened by the approach of the terrier, the she-badger and her offspring had hurried to another chamber of the “set,” and the male had retreated to a blind alley recently excavated back towards the main gallery. The terrier, keeping to the line he had struck at the sleeping place, found the male badger at work there, throwing up a barrier between himself and his pursuing enemy, and at once diverted his attention by feinting an attack in the rear. For two hours, the game little dog, avoiding each clumsy charge and yet not giving the badgera moment's peace, remained close by, while the men cut further and further into the “set,” till they stood in the first deep chamber through which the terrier had passed. Then the terrier came out to quench his thirst, and was led away by the huntsman to the river, while the second dog was speedily despatched to earth, that the badger might be allowed no breathing space during which he could bury himself beyond the reach of further attack. The second dog, on coming to the junction of the passage and the gallery, chose the alternative line of scent in the gallery, and wandered far away into the chamber where Brock, whose family had descended some time before to the winter “oven,” awaited his coming. When the faint barking of the second terrier told that the badger had seemingly shifted his quarters to an almost incredible distance from the trench, the faces of the Squire and his assistants evinced no little surprise. For a moment, the men were inclined to believe that the dog was “marking false,” but, presently, their doubts were dispelled, and their hopes revived, as the sounds indicated that the terrier, contesting hotly every inch of theway, was retreating towards them before his enraged enemy. The labourers resumed work, though not with the confidence of the early morning, when their task seemed lighter than the experienced Master would admit. Hour after hour they toiled; the dogs were often changed; and at last the trench was long enough to be within a yard or so of the spot where the dog was engaged. Then, to the mortification of the sportsmen, the sounds of the conflict suggested another change: Brock was retiring leisurely to his chamber. The earth-drill was soon put into play, and the badger's position discovered, but directly afterwards the animal again moved, this time to the deep “oven” below.
Night was now rapidly closing over the woods, and the weary, disappointed men and dogs reluctantly gave up their task. The Squire admitted that on this occasion, at any rate, he was fairly and squarely beaten. Brock and his mate are still in possession of the old burrow beyond the farm; and Brock's sire, a patriarch among badgers, lives, as the comrade of another old male, among the boulders of a rugged hillside a mile from the “set.”
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At the lower end of our village, the valley is joined by a deep ravine through which a sequestered road—hidden by hawthorn hedges, and crossed by numerous water-courses where the hillside streams, dropping from rocks of shale, ripple towards a trout-brook feeding the main river—winds into the quiet country. The rugged sides of the ravine are thickly clothed with gorse and brambles, and dotted with hazels, willows, and oaks. This dense cover is inhabited by large numbers of rabbits; in a sheltered hollow half-way up the slope a badger has dug his “set”; and in the pastures above the thickets a fox may be seen prowling on almost any moonlit night. Past the gorge, the glen opens out in rich, level pastures and meadows bounded on eitherside by the hills. The nearest farmsteads are built high among the sunny dingles overlooking the glen, and the corn and the root-crops are grown on the slope beyond the broad belts of gorse and bramble.
In winter, the low-lying lands are seldom visited by the peasantry, except when the dairymaid drives the cattle to and fro, or the hedger trims the undergrowth along the ditches. Though the sportsman with gun and spaniels and the huntsman with horse and hounds are frequently heard in the thickets, they never visit the “bottom,” unless the partridges fly down from the stubble, or the hare, pursued by the beagles, takes a straight line from the far side of the glen to a sheep-path leading up the gorge. And in summer, except when the fisherman wanders by the brook, and the haymakers are busy in the grass, the glen is an undisturbed sanctuary, given over to Nature's wildlings, where, in safety, as far as man is concerned, they tend their hidden young.
In this quiet, windless place, on the day when first the haymakers came to the meadows, five little hedgehogs were born in a nest among the roots of a tree, deepin the undergrowth of a tangled hedgerow. The nest was made of dry grass and leaves, and with an entrance so arranged amid the “trash,” that, when the parent hedgehogs went to or from their home, they pushed their way through a heap of dead herbage, which, falling behind them, hid the passage from inquisitive eyes.
It may be asked why such a warm retreat was necessary, inasmuch as the hedgehog sucklings came into the world in the hottest time of the year. Nature's reasons were, however, all-sufficient; the little creatures, feeble and blind, needed a secure hiding place, screened from the changeful wind of night and from every roving enemy. The haymakers, moving to and fro amid the swathes, knew nothing of the hedgehogs' whereabouts; but when the dews of night lay thick on the strewn wild flowers, the parent “urchins,” leaving their helpless charges asleep within their nest, wondered greatly, while they hunted for snails and slugs in the ditch, at the quick change that had passed over the silent field.
For a week or more, the spines sprouting from round projections on the bodies of theyoung hedgehogs were colourless and blunt, and so flexible that they could have offered no defence against the teeth or the claws of an enemy; while every muscle was so soft and feeble that not one of the little animals was as yet able to roll itself into the shape of a ball. The spines, however, served a useful purpose: they kept the tender skin beneath from being irritated by the chance touch of the mother hedgehog's obtrusive quills.
Soon the baby hedgehogs' eyes opened wide to the pale light filtering between the leaves at the entrance to the chamber, and their spines, gradually stiffening, assumed a dull grey colour. Then, one still, dark night, the little creatures, with great misgiving, followed their parents from the nest, and wandered for a short distance beside the tangled hedge. Presently, made tired and sleepy and hungry by exercise and fresh air, they were led back to their secret retreat, where, after being tended for a few moments by their careful mother, they fell asleep, while their parents searched diligently for food in the dense grass-clumps left by the harvesters amid the briars and the furze.
Henceforth, every night, they ventured,under their mother's care, to roam afield, their journeys becoming longer and still longer as their strength increased, till, familiar with the hedgerow paths, they were ready and eager to learn the rudiments of such field-craft as concerned their unpretending lives.
A glorious summer, far brighter than is usual among the rainy hills of the west, brooded over the countryside. The days were calm and sunny, but with the coming of evening occasional mists drifted along the dingles and scattered pearl-drops on the after-math; and the nights were warm and starlit, filled with the silence of the wilderness, which only Nature's children break. The “calling season” for the hare had long since passed, and for the fox it had not yet arrived; so the voices of the two greatest wanderers on the countryside were not at this time heard.
A doe hare had made her “form” hardly twenty yards from the hedgehogs' nest, and night after night, just when the “urchins” moved down the hedge from the old tree-root, she ambled by on her way to the clover-field above the heath.
Once, a little before dawn, a fox, coming to drink at the brook, detected the scent of the hedgehogs near a molehill, followed it to the litter of leaves by the tree, and caused considerable alarm by making a vigorous attempt to dig out the nest; but, probably because of the dampness of the loamy soil, he failed to determine the exact whereabouts of the hedgehog family; and, after breaking a tooth in his vain efforts to cut through a tough, close-fibred root, he made his way along the hedge, and soon disappeared over the crest of the moonlit hill. But the next night, when the wind blew strong, and the rain pattered loudly on the leafy trees, he came again to the “urchins'” haunt. The doe hare had long since rustled by, and the hedgehogs were busy munching a cluster of earthworms discovered in a heap of refuse not far from the gate, when Reynard stole over the fence-bank, and sniffed at the nest. Not finding the family at home, he followed their scent through the ditch, and soon surprised them. To kill one of the tiny “urchins” was the work of a moment; then, made eager by the taste of blood, thefox turned on the mother hedgehog and tried to fix his fangs in the soft flesh beneath the armour of her spines. But, feeling at once his warm breath, she, with a quick contraction of the muscles, rolled herself into a prickly ball, and remained proof against his every artifice. He was a young fox, not yet learned in the wiles of Nature's feebler folk, and so, when he had recovered from his astonishment, he pounced on the rigid creature, and, thoughtlessly exerting all his strength, endeavoured to rend her in pieces with his powerful jaws. He paid dearly for his temerity. The prickly ball rolled over, under the pressure of his fore-paws, the sharp points of the spines entered the bare flesh behind his pads, and as, almost falling to the ground, he bit savagely to right and left in the fit of anger which now possessed him, his mouth and nostrils dripped blood from a dozen irritating wounds. Thoroughly discomfited, he leaped back into the field, where, sick with pain, he endeavoured to gain relief by rubbing his muzzle vigorously in the grass and against his aching limbs. Then, sneezing violently, and with his mouth encrustedwith froth and loam, he bolted from the scene of his unpleasant adventure, never pausing till he reached his “earth” on the hillside, in which, hidden from the mocking gaze of other prowlers of the night, he could leisurely salve his wounds with the moisture of his soft, warm tongue, and ponder over the lessons of his recent experience.
By far the most intelligent and powerful enemy of the young hedgehogs was the farmer's dog; but, as he slept in the barn at night, and generally accompanied the labourers to the upland fields by day, they escaped, for a while, his unwelcome attentions. Foes hardly less dreaded, because of their insatiable thirst for blood, were two polecats living in a hole half-way up the wall of a ruined cottage not far from the hillside farm-house. The polecats, however, were so occupied with the care of a family, that, finding young rabbits plentiful in the burrows on the heath, they seldom wandered into the open fields, till the little “urchins,” ready, at the first sign of danger, to curl themselves within the proof-armour of their growing spines, were well able to resist attack.
The hedgehogs were about three months old, and summer, brief and beautiful, was passing away, when an incident occurred that might have proved disastrous, though, fortunately, it resulted only in a practical joke, such as Nature often plays on the children of the wilds. One calm, dark night, while they were busy in the grass, a brown owl, hunting for mice, sailed slowly by. Now, the brown owl, in spite of proverbial wisdom gained during a long life in the dim seclusion of the woods, is occasionally apt to blunder. Her character, indeed, seems full of quaint contradictions. As she floats through the moonlight and the shadows of the beech-aisles of Dollan, she appears to be a large bird, with a philosophic contentment of mind—an ancient creature that, shunning the fellow-ships of the garish modern day and loving the leisure and the solitude of night, dreams of the past. But, beneath its loose feathery garments, her body, hardly larger than that of a ringdove, is altogether out of proportion to her long, narrow head and wide-spreading talons. Visions of the past may come to her, as, blinking at the lightof day, she sits in the hollow of the tree, but at night she is far too wide-awake to dream. And so great are the owl's powers of sight and hearing, and so swift is her “stoop” from the sky to the ground, that the bank-vole has little chance of escape should a single grass-stalk rustle underfoot when she is hovering near his haunt. Far from being shy and retiring in her disposition, the brown owl, directly night steals over the woodlands, is so fearless that probably no animal smaller than the hare can in safety roam abroad.
As the owl flew slowly past the fence, she heard the faint sound of a crackling shell—the hedgehogs were feeding on snails. She could barely distinguish a moving form in a tangle of briars, but its position discouraged attack; so she flew away and continued to hunt for mice. Presently, returning to the spot, the owl was once more attracted by the sound of some creature feeding in the grass; and, detecting a slight movement beside the briars, she swooped towards the ditch, grasped one of the “urchins” in her claws, and rose into the air. Her quarry, feeling the sudden grip of the sharp talons, made a desperate, convulsivemovement, and the owl found, to her astonishment, that her grasp had shifted, and that she was holding, apparently, a hard bunch of thorns. Nevertheless, she tightened her grasp; but an unendurable twitch of pain, as the spines entered her flesh immediately above the scales of her talons, caused her to drop the hedgehog into the leaf-mould of the ditch. Immediately afterwards, she herself, eager to find out the cause of her discomfiture, dropped also to the earth, and, standing beside the hedgehog, clawed savagely at the motionless creature, seeking some defenceless point among the bristling spines. At last, her patience exhausted, the owl gave up the ineffectual assault, and glided away into the gloomy night. Unhurt, but for a slight wound inflicted when first the bird descended, the hedgehog crawled back to the brambles, where the rest of her family were still busy with the snails, and joined them in their feast.
Autumn's sere leaves had fallen from the trees, and the hedgehogs had found such a plentiful supply of all kinds of food that they were ready for their winter sleep, when a gipsy boy, the proud possessor of aterrier trained for hunting hedgehogs, set forth in haste one evening from his tent by the wayside above the farm. The boy was smarting from cruel blows inflicted by his drunken parents, who, after unusual success in disposing of baskets and clothes-pegs, had spent much of the day's profit in a carouse at the village inn. Having escaped a continuance of his parents' brutalities, and eluded their ill-conducted pursuit, the young gipsy, in the company of his only friend, soon forgot his miseries as his thoughts turned to a vagabond's rough sport in the stillness of the harvest night. Thrusting a long stick here and there into the briars, he strolled along by the fence, till his dog, diligently beating in line amid the undergrowth, gave a quick yelp of delight, and, an instant later, a curled-up hedgehog rolled down into the ditch. The boy placed the animal in his ragged handkerchief, the corners of which he was proceeding to tie together when the terrier again attracted attention with unmistakable signs of a “find.” For a few brief minutes sport was keenly exciting, but at last all the “urchin” family, with the exception of one member, were captured, and the boy, now thoroughly happy,his pockets and handkerchief heavy with spoil, turned homewards through the darkness. Next morning, the slain hedgehogs, baked in clay among the hot ashes of a fire of rotten twigs, formed the principal item in the gipsies' bill of fare, and the terrier enjoyed the remnants of the meal.
The hedgehog surviving the gipsy's raid was a young female, that, while the terrier beat the fence, remained quietly munching a large lob-worm at the foot of a mound a dozen yards away, and so knew nothing of the fate of her kindred.
The last weeks of the year passed uneventfully, as far as her little life was concerned; then, as the nights grew longer and the cold increased, she set about preparing in earnest for her long, deep sleep.
In a sheltered spot close to the woodlands, where, a month before, a badger had unearthed a wild bee's nest, she collected a heap of withered oak-leaves, hay, and moss, and with these simple materials made a large, snug nest, a winter house so constructed that the rain might trickle down to the absorbent soil beneath. Fora little while, however, she did not enter into her unbroken rest. Still, nightly, she roamed abroad, moving in and out of the dried herbage everywhere strewn in her paths among the tree-roots, till the sapless leaves impaled on the sharp points of her spines formed such a cluster that she lost all semblance of a living creature. Insects were becoming rarer and still rarer as the year drew to its close, and those surviving the frosts retired to countless secret chambers at the roots of the moss and under the tough bark of the trees. The lizards sought shelter in warm hollows deep below the piles of stones left here and there by the labourers, when, every spring, they cleared the freshening fields. And the big round snails, the luscious tit-bits of the hedgehog's provender, crept into the holes of the red mice and into the chinks of walls and banks, where, protected by their shells, each being fastened to its resting place by a neat rim of hardened glue, they lived unconscious of decay and gloom. Then the hedgehog, having become drowsier and still drowsier with privation and cold, ceased to wander fromher nest at dark, and began that slumber which was to last till the sweet, warm breath of spring awoke her, and other wildlings of the night, to a life among the early primroses and violets.
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The many changes of winter passed over the countryside; tempests raged, rain beat down in slanting sheets or enveloped the fields in mist, snow fell heavily and then vanished before the breath of a westerly breeze, black frost held the fields for days in an iron clutch, and sometimes, from late dawn to early dusk, the sun shone clearly in the southern sky. The sportsman with his spaniels wandered by the hedge, the huntsman with his beagles chased the hare across the sodden meadows, and the report of a gun or the note of a horn echoed among the surrounding hills. But in spite of changing weather and dangers from unresting foes, the hedgehog slept peacefully within her nest of witheredleaves till awakened by the whisper of the warm south-western wind.
It was a calm day towards the end of March when the hedgehog awoke. Gradually, since the winter solstice, the shadows of noon, cast from the wooded slope across the meadows in the glen, had become shorter; and now, when the sun reached its meridian, its beams fell directly on the spot where the hedgehog rested among the littered leaves. She felt the strange and subtle influence of spring, and crawled feebly from her retreat. The light above her nest was far too brilliant for her eyes, which had been closed for three long months, and were at best only accustomed to the gloom of night, so she sought the shadow of a tree-trunk near, and there, for a while, remained quite motionless. With the leaves of last autumn still clinging thickly to her spines, she seemed an oddly fashioned creature belonging to a distant age, a little Rip Van Winkle of the woods, with a new, quick world of unfamiliar joys and sorrows claiming her half-conscious life. Extremely feeble from cold and privation,and knowing, as all Nature's wildlings seem to know, that sunlight brings with it health and strength, she presently left the shadow of the tree-trunk, and, closing her eyes, basked in complete enjoyment of the balmy day. The heat and the gentle wind soon dried her armour of spines and surcoat of leaves. Stealing in through the tunnel left open when the hedgehog came forth from her sleep, the wind cleansed and ventilated the nest, and soon all traces of winter's mustiness had vanished from both herself and her home. By sundown, the “urchin” had gained strength that enabled her to wander slowly into the meadow, where she found sufficient food to stay her growing hunger.
During the first few nights, her appetite, though keen, was easily satisfied, for the digestive organs, unaccustomed to their work, could not retain much nutriment, and hours of slumber seemed necessary after every trifling meal. But gradually her powers were restored, till almost any kind of fresh animal matter that came in her way was greedily devoured. A spider sleeping in a folded leaf, a fly hiding beneath a stone, a snail, a slug,a worm, a frog, a weakling bird fallen from an early nest, a lizard, or a snake—all alike were welcome as she thrust her damp, blunt snout, that looked like a little fold of black rubber, here and there amid the herbage.
Her eyesight was faulty—she had no great need of it; her enemies were few, and she did not live the life of the hunted that fear each footfall on the grass; but, as if to balance all deficiencies, her sense of smell was singularly acute, so that she could follow with ease the trail of a beetle or of an earthworm in its windings over the soil. The eggs and young of the lark, the corncrake, the partridge, or of any other bird that built on the ground, were never safe once the hedgehog had crossed the lines of scent left by the parents around their nest. Even the robin and the wren, nesting in holes along the hedge, and the field-mouse in its chamber sheltered by the moss, were at any time likely to have their family affairs most cruelly upset. The wild-bee's sting could not save her honeyed cells and helpless grubs, and the sharp-fanged adder, writhing from the hedgehog's suddenbite, would hurl itself in vain against the prickly ball that instantly confronted each counter attack.
The hedgehog's first experience of snake-killing occurred late one evening, when she discovered a viper, some distance from its hole, coiled asleep on a bare patch of soil where the sunlight had lingered at the close of day. Her manner instantly changed; she became eager and alert. Pausing only a second to make sure of her attack, she bit the snake sharply near the neck, then, withdrawing her head and limbs into the shelter of her spines, rolled over, an inanimate ball. The viper, mad with pain, thrust back its head from its sinuous coils, rose, and struck with open jaws at its assailant. Its fangs closed strongly, but failed to get a grip, and the smooth underside of its throat glanced past the hedgehog's slanting prickles with such force that the whole body of the snake was lifted from the ground, and fell, like a bent arrow, about a yard behind its foe. Again the snake rose, and struck with no effect; but this time the stroke, coming from the rear, was met by the sharp points of the spines, and the adder's mouth dropped bloodfrom a clean-cut wound on the upper edge of the palate. Repeatedly, the snake, hissing loudly and fighting for its life, attacked its armoured enemy—at first dashing itself senselessly against the sharp points of the hedgehog's spines, then, with caution, swaying to and fro its bleeding head and snapping harmlessly at an apparently unguarded spot, till, from sheer exhaustion and pain, and with its store of poison almost exhausted, it retired from the unequal combat and slowly wriggled into the grass. Presently, the “urchin” uncoiled, and, as soon as the inquisitive little snout discovered the whereabouts of the snake, started in pursuit. With a hard, firm bite, she luckily managed to break the backbone of the viper; then, at once, she again assumed the shape of a ball. Desperate now, the snake expended all its remaining strength in wild attacks, till, limp and helpless, and utterly at the mercy of the hedgehog, it lay outstretched. Then the relentless hedgehog, assured that her prey was quite defenceless, severed almost every bone in its body, tore the scales from the flesh, and fed to repletion.
Such a struggle often happens in thefields and the woodlands. During the first few weeks of life, the hedgehog, if its parents are absent, may be at the adder's mercy; but, later, the tables are completely turned, the once helpless creature becomes the strong aggressor, and is revenged by removing, not only an enemy, but a rival subsisting on food often similar to that which is its own.
For a while after her awakening, the hedgehog fed chiefly on the big earthworms which, induced by the increasing warmth, forsook the deep recesses of their burrows, and tunnelled immediately beneath the grass-roots, coming forth at night to lie outstretched amid the undergrowth. She had, of necessity, to match their fear by her excessive cunning. They frequently detected her presence by the slight vibrations of the soil beneath her soft, slow-moving feet, and hurriedly withdrew from her path, but more often she surprised and captured them by the simple artifice of waiting and watching beside the burrows where scent was fresh, and where, notwithstanding the noises reaching her from above, she could readily distinguish the sounds of stretching, glidingbodies moving to the surface through the tortuous passages below.
She soon became a wanderer, deserting her winter nest, and roaming nightly further and yet further from the valley meadows, till she reached a rough pasture at the end of the glen. In a thick hedgerow skirting a secluded pond among alders and willows, she found food unexpectedly varied and plentiful. Luscious snails, with striped yellow and brown shells, were so common in the ditch beyond a certain cattle-path, that, even after a whole day's fast, her hunger was quickly appeased.
April drew near, the leaves of the trees expanded, and the voice of the night wind in the branches changed from a moan to a whisper. At noon, flies came forth to bask on the stones; the furze, decked with yellow flowers, was visited by countless bees; and bronze-winged beetles crept among the thorny branches of the hawthorn and the sloe. The hedgehog knew little of the pulsing life of mid-day, but at dusk she sometimes found a tired fly, or bee, or beetle, hiding in the matted grassbeneath the gorse, and so was made aware of summer's near approach.
Among the flags and the rushes of the pond, a pair of fussy moorhens built their nest on an islet of decayed vegetation clustered round a stone. At all hours of the day, the birds sailed gaily hither and thither, or wandered, happy and impulsive, along the margin of the pool. No care had they, and the solitude of their retreat seemed likely never to be disturbed, till, one moonlit night, the fox, that last year had killed the baby hedgehog in the glen, stole through the shadows of the alders, caught the scent of the moorhens, and approached the nest where the female was brooding over her eggs. The bird had watched the fox's movements since first he appeared on the bank beyond the trees. Quietly she dropped into the pond beside the nest, dived, came up on the far side of the islet, and stayed there, with only her head above the surface of the water. She saw, with fear, the fox approach her nest, and recognised that it was hardly possible for her treasures to be saved, when, suddenly, her mate, having doubtlesswatched the marauder as closely as she herself had done, walked out of a reed-clump two or three yards from her hiding place, and, in full view of the fox, swam slowly to and fro, beating his wings as if in mortal pain. Without the slightest hesitation, Reynard, thinking to obtain an easy prize, plunged into the pond, but the bird just managed to elude him, and to flutter into another reed-clump a short distance away. Completely deceived by the ruse, the fox was drawn further and further from the nest, till he reached a distant corner of the pond, when, to his astonishment, the moorhen vanished, leaving him to a vain search which at last so much annoyed him that, instead of returning along the bank towards the nest, he crossed the glen, trotted up the cattle-path, and entered the dense thicket on the slope.
With most wild creatures, fear seems to be a feeling that quickly comes and quickly goes. But over some of Nature's weaklings, fear seems to throw a spell that remains long after the danger has passed; as, for instance, in the case of a rabbit hunted by a stoat, or of a vole pursued bya weasel. The animal trembles with fright, cries as if in pain, and limps, half-paralysed, towards its home, some time after its pursuer may have turned aside to follow a line of scent leading in a quite opposite direction. Now and then, a young rabbit is so overcome by fright, that the sly, watchful carrion crow obtains, with little trouble, an unexpected meal. The birds of the hedgerow—finches, robins, and the like—are also subject to the distressing influence of fear, directly they catch sight of a hungry weasel “performing” in the ditch. When the weasel sets itself to lure any such creatures, its movements are remarkably similar to the contortions of a snake; and the birds, fascinated as their enemy's strange actions are rapidly repeated, flutter helplessly from spray to spray, till one or other becomes a victim and the weasel ambles off with its prey. Then, released from the spell, the birds proceed to mob the bloodthirsty tyrant, and, at times, with such effect that he is compelled, before making good his escape, to resort to stratagems similar to those that previously held the birds enthralled. Reynard seems to have learned from theweasel's manœuvres, for he, too, is wont to entice the rabbits towards him by extraordinary methods, twirling round, like a cat, in pursuit of his tail, and affording such a spectacle to any onlookers that they must needs, from sheer curiosity, find out the meaning of a woodland farce, which, alas! is often followed by a tragedy. It is not known that the fox ever succeeds in fascinating the moorhen; the bird, directly she caught sight of his circling form, would probably dive, and in the cool refuge of the water, her sharp eyes peeping from between the flags, would wisely conclude that such an unaccountable display meant danger. It is, however, tolerably certain that the influence of fear seldom causes a nesting bird, or a breeding mammal, to become helpless in the presence of an enemy, though when family cares are over the conditions might be entirely reversed. Even such timid creatures as rabbits and hares sometimes strenuously defend their young from the attacks of weasels and stoats.
As the fox trotted up the hillside path, the moorhen joined her mate in the tangle of the reeds, and, without fear, wanderedover the marshy ground in the neighbourhood of her nest. Then she swam out across the narrow channel, and settled down, in fancied security, to brood once more over her speckled eggs. She had just taken her accustomed position, when the hedgehog, pushing the reeds aside, became aware of the strong scent on the margin of the pond. The hungry “urchin's” intelligence, though limited, at once suggested that the scent of a mothering bird might lead to a clutch of delicious eggs, or to a brood of plump and juicy nestlings. Following the trail, the hedgehog came to the marshy ground at the margin of the narrow passage where the bird had crossed, and, with head erect, sniffed the tainted wind blowing gently shorewards from the brooding moorhen. In her eagerness, she lifted herself slightly at the edge of the bank, missed her footing, and fell into the pond, not more than two or three feet from the moorhen. The bird, hearing the splash, dived instantly; her mate again came quickly to the scene and tried to lead the enemy away, but the hedgehog, heedless of every artifice, paddled slowly to the platform of dry flags, and helped herself to a repast more appetising than any she hadrecently enjoyed, while the birds, flapping their wings, circled angrily about the pond, and pecked vigorously, but vainly, at the marauder's prickly coat.
Late the next evening, the hedgehog discovered a fledgling thrush hidden in the grass beyond the alders. In response to the cry of the young bird, the mother thrush flew straight to the spot, and, with a lucky blow struck full at the hedgehog's snout, so intimidated her enemy that she curled up immediately and allowed the fledgling to escape unharmed.
The tender grass was reaching up to seed, the may blossom was burdening the air with rich perfume, and summer had almost come, when, late one night, the hedgehog, hunting among the shadows of the trees, chanced to hear a low, bleating sound, like the voice of a leveret calling to the mother hare out feeding in the clover. She had never heard that sound before, but its meaning, nevertheless, was plain, and without hesitation she replied. Again the sound broke the stillness, as a dim form lifted itself clumsily from the ditch and came towards her.Presently she felt an inquiring touch, and, turning, found herself face to face with a male hedgehog that had followed her path through the undergrowth. Nature had not been lavish in his adornment; like the female, he was a plain little creature, brown and grey, fitted to sleep unnoticed among the wind-blown leaves and twigs beside a sheltering mound.
Theirs was an odd and awkward courtship—its language a medley of unmusical squeals and grunts; and if a difference arose it was settled by one curling up into a ball till the other had forgotten the quarrel. But soon they became good friends, hunted together all night and slept together all day, while the year drew on to summer and then, almost imperceptibly, declined. Devoting much of their attention to domestic affairs, they built a large, dry nest among the foxgloves near the stream; where, towards the end of hay harvest, three naked little “urchins” came into the world, to be reared, just as the mother hedgehog herself had been reared, till autumn merged into winter, and winter's cold induced each to go in loneliness and build a snuggery for sleep.