CHAPTER XXIVHUNTING RUSES AMONGST THE HIGHER ANIMALS—WOLVES, FOXES, AND JACKALS—UNTEMPERED JUSTICE—GESTURE-LANGUAGE IN MEN AND DOGS—THE CAPE HUNTING-DOG AND HIS PREY.
HUNTING RUSES AMONGST THE HIGHER ANIMALS—WOLVES, FOXES, AND JACKALS—UNTEMPERED JUSTICE—GESTURE-LANGUAGE IN MEN AND DOGS—THE CAPE HUNTING-DOG AND HIS PREY.
In several of the preceding chapters we have seen something of the stratagems and contrivances made use of by various creatures—fish, insects, birds, or crustaceans—in order to secure their prey. Similar devices, as might be expected, are not unknown amongst the mammalia also. The list, however, is not so long as one might expect, considering the superior intelligence of this class of animals, but we must remember that it is not so easy to study the habits of wild quadrupeds as it is those of insects and various small creatures. It is principally with wolves, foxes, and jackals that the observations in question have been made, no doubt because such animals, owing to their abundance, or through other reasons, have come more into contact with mankind.
All these three species, either habitually or occasionally, hunt together in concert—that is to say, either two or more carry out a certain plan, in which each helps the other. Thus, in India, Mr. Elliott observed, one morning, two wolves standing side by side as though in consultation,whilst far off, upon the plain, grazed a small herd of nylgaus—the typical Indian antelope—on which their eyes were, from time to time, fixed with a greedy longing. At length the plan of campaign was decided upon. One of the wolves trotted quietly off to a small nullah or ravine, where it lay down amidst the bushes with which its sides were dotted, whilst the other, with a stealthier pace, made a wide circle which brought him, at length, unobserved, on the farther side of the antelopes, and at no great distance from them. Further concealment was now unnecessary, and suddenly flinging off the mask, the wolf rushed down upon the startled creatures, and began to drive them towards the nullah. This it did by continually rushing round, either on one side or the other, according as the herd showed a disposition to break away to right or left of the line along which they were required to go, exactly as a sheep-dog drives the sheep to the fold. At length, when the nullah was reached, the wolf that lay behind a bush on the very edge of it, leapt suddenly out, and selecting a doe, sprang upon it, and being joined by its fellow strategist, the two soon pulled it down, and feasted on it at their leisure.
What would have happened had the wolf behind the bush failed in securing an antelope, and had the herd in consequence got away? We may surmise from the following anecdote, as told by Jesse in his well-knownGleanings from Natural History. “A sportsman—I think it was in Scotland—had walked out one evening with his attendant, hoping to shoot a hare. They proceeded together to some rocky ground, part of whichformed the side of a very high hill, which was not accessible for a sportsman, and from which both hares and foxes took their way in the evening to the plain below. There were two channels or gullies made by the rains, leading from these rocks to the lower ground. Near one of these channels the two men stationed themselves. They had not been there long when they observed a fox coming down the gully, and followed by another. After playing together for a little time, one of the foxes concealed himself under a large stone or rock which was at the bottom of the channel, and the other returned to the rocks. He soon, however, came back chasing a hare before him. As the hare was passing the stone where the first fox had concealed himself, he tried to seize her by a sudden spring, but missed his aim. The chasing fox then came up, and finding that his expected prey had escaped, through the want of skill in his associate, he fell upon him, and they both fought with so much animosity that the parties who had been watching their proceedings came up and destroyed them both,” thus making incomplete a most interesting observation.
In all probability, therefore, the two wolves, had the one that lay in ambush missed his spring, would have fought too, and this makes me the more inclined to believe a story which was told me—not, however, by an eye-witness—of wolves in America: from which it would appear that when the stratagem is carried out by more than a pair of associates, the duty of seizing the prey, if it devolves upon a single member of the band, may be a very dangerous one indeed. In the case alluded to, thewolf that had to do this lay down by a small stream, at a place where it was fordable, and a wapiti was driven down upon it, through woods that fringed the bank, by the rest of the pack, amounting to a dozen or more. Knowing the ford, the wapiti made straight for it, and the wolf, springing up at the critical moment, either missed his mark or was shaken off by the powerful quarry. He was foiled, at any rate, and the wapiti, dashing into the water, gained the opposite bank and got clean away. Hardly had he disappeared when the pack, headed by a wolf of great size and strength—evidently the leader—came up, and now a most remarkable and, withal, tragic scene was enacted. The wolf that had failed flung itself on its back, and whining in the most pitiful way, appeared to bespeak the mercy of its incensed fellows, and especially of the grim-looking leader, whose action in the matter all seemed to await expectantly. For a moment or two—during which the whines and cries of the wretched criminal rose to an agony—the latter seemed to waver, but ferocity, or long-established custom, carried the day. He sprang forward to execute justice, and his example being instantly followed by the rest of the pack, the poor penitent was quickly torn to pieces and devoured on the spot. I cannot, as I say, vouch for this story, as I have not read or heard the original account of the person who is supposed to have witnessed the incident, but it tallies very curiously with the other two, both of which are authentic.
Awaiting Judgment.The great leader of the wolf pack stood over the wretched delinquent, hesitating whether to be merciful or to give the signal for him to be torn in pieces.
Awaiting Judgment.The great leader of the wolf pack stood over the wretched delinquent, hesitating whether to be merciful or to give the signal for him to be torn in pieces.
Awaiting Judgment.
The great leader of the wolf pack stood over the wretched delinquent, hesitating whether to be merciful or to give the signal for him to be torn in pieces.
Everybody is familiar with the way in which a dog, when it wishes to propitiate its master and to deprecatepunishment when scolded, throws itself on its back with its tail turned up between its legs. Now this is a habit which every dog has brought with it from its wild ancestry, and one may be often seen to employ it towards another when it is afraid to fight, knowing that it would be well beaten. It is the converse, as it were, of the bristled back and elevated tail, with which dogs approach each other when they really mean to fight, and with neither of these twoexpressions, as one may call them, can man have had anything to do. We now see to what use the first of them is put by wild, canine species, and if it was not on this occasion effective, we may be sure that on many others it both has been and will be.
There is another very curious and interesting thing in connection with this habit amongst domesticated dogs. If man has not taught it to them, they possibly may have taught it to him. Somewhere in theOdysseyof Homer—I cannot give the place, but I have often read references to it—it is told how when travellers come to a village, and a lot of fierce dogs belonging to the inhabitants rush out upon them, they immediately squat down on the ground, and that then the dogs cease to molest them. Now Dr. Schliemann, when he travelled in the Ionian Islands, found that this was the regular habit with the peasants on coming to strange villages, or when they visited shepherds living, with their sheep, in the open country. The same expedient is resorted to by the peasantry of Hungary and Macedonia and other countries of Europe, where the conditions of life are more or less primitive; also, I believe, in the East, orparts of it, and—most interesting of all, as showing the habit to be almost universal—the Kaffirs of South Africa, under similar circumstances, act in the same way. The chief Lo Bengula, before he learnt, too late, the real ends and aims of the Aryan, had some large, fierce dogs, which used to rush out to attack any native that came to see him, at his primitive palace. To offer any resistance to their onset would have been death to anyone, and the resource employed, just as in the other cases, was to crouch on the ground, in which lowly and defenceless position—though sometimes one of the men would get a bite—they were generally let alone.
The dog, therefore, seems to understand this attitude in a man, just as he does the still more prostrate one employed by himself, for, in truth, it is very similar. A man who meditates attack, or intends to defend himself, stands firm and erect, with chest expanded and head thrown back. When he sinks to the ground, with his head hung, his arms resting passively, and his chest drawn in—as follows naturally from the position—all this is reversed, and the one posture as strongly expresses submission, or, at least, a peaceable intent, as the other does war and defiance. I do not imagine, however, that man has really studied the dog’s method and made use of it himself in order to disarm him, but rather that his own mode of expression is governed by the same principle, and that having been accustomed to deprecate the wrath of a superior by crouching before him, he puts the same plan in practice to mitigate canine fury.
The jackals of Ceylon—as no doubt of India and othercountries—employ the same kind of stratagem for the securing of prey, as do wolves and foxes. A pack of them will surround any covert having a limited area, into which they have seen a hare or one of the smaller kinds of deer enter, and some always take care to station themselves about the path where the game entered, and by which they know it will most likely come out again. Possibly their places may be assigned to the various members of the pack by the leader, for it is he, we are told, who gives the signal for the attack to commence, by first raising his voice in the loud and peculiar cry which all who live in lands where jackals roam know so well. “Okkay! okkay! okkay!” he repeats in howl upon howl; “Okkay! okkay! okkay!” come the answering cries of the rest, and into the jungle they all dash, and out of it, shortly afterwards, at the expected place, dashes, if all goes well, the terrified animal, to be pulled down on the outskirts.
This is a good ruse, but a still more cunning one is sometimes employed by the jackals of India—that is to say, they have been seen to employ it, for no doubt other jackals might act in the same way, under similar circumstances. In this instance a considerable number ranged themselves at intervals along a patch of jungle skirting the shores of a lake, and just within it, so as to be concealed. Here they quietly waited till, about midnight, by the light of the moon, a fine axis deer was seen to leave the jungle and advance over the narrow strip of foreshore which separated it from the water. Just beforecommencing to drink it turned and snuffed towards the jungle, but either the wind must have been in the right direction or its thirst overcame its caution, for turning again and stooping to the cool stream that lay white and still in the moonlight, it took a draught so deep and so long that it seemed as though it would never be ended. At last, however, it was satisfied, and walking back, swollen now and distended through the inordinate amount that it had swallowed, it was about to re-enter the jungle, when a jackal, springing with a yelp from its outer fringe, barred its further advance. The startled deer wheeled suddenly round, ran for some distance along the open space, and then again tried to enter the jungle, only to be again driven back by the same sharp yelp and spring, striking terror to its heart. A fresh attempt was frustrated in the same way, and being followed by a longer run, the deer now passed out of sight, but for a long time yelp succeeded yelp at irregular intervals, growing fainter and fainter till they were lost in the distance. The result of the ruse was not, therefore, in this instance witnessed, but in all probability it justified the sagacity of the jackals. Forced to keep running whilst its stomach was swollen with the water it had drunk, the deer must soon have become exhausted, and as little able to fight as to escape through speed—in which condition the pack would have closed upon it and pulled it down.
But why were the jackals so anxious that the deer should not enter the jungle? Any obstacles which the thickness of the undergrowth might have offered to theirown pursuit would, one would think, have been still more effective in checking the flight of their victim, in which case they ought to have been able to tire it out, and then pull it down all the sooner. Possibly, however, the axis, being an animal many times larger and stronger than themselves, might be able to plunge through covert which they would be unable to penetrate, or, again, it might have turned to bay under more favourable circumstances.
The witness of this very interesting scene was no other than the “last man” of the ill-fated Afghan expedition of 1841-2, who appears to have been an intelligent observer and trustworthy recorder of the ways and habits of animals. He was unable, as he thought, to estimate the number of jackals engaged in the hunt, on account of the possibility of each one having turned back the deer many times, by running past it and posting itself again. This does not appear to me likely, for if the jackals were able so easily to outrun the deer, they might have pulled it down then and there, if in large numbers, and if there were only a few of them, it does not seem likely that they could ever have overpowered so strong an animal. I think it much more probable that there was a jackal to each yelp, and that, seeing where the deer was about to turn in, it was able to shift its position in time to meet it, if not exactly posted, before. Indeed, all these ruses seem based upon the superior speed of the animal against which they are employed, for if two or more wolves or jackals can run down a deer or an antelope, why should they not do so together, instead of one hiding and the other driving the prey? For this reason, though it is stated that theone wolf drove the herd of nylgaus to the place where it wished them to go, as a shepherd-dog drives a flock of sheep, I must suppose either that it could not have overtaken them, or that there is some flaw in the reasoning of the animal when it lays the trap. No doubt a short chase is better than a long one, but the idea which one receives when one reads of a wolf running on this or that side of an animal, so as to drive it just where it wants it to go, is that it could overtake it if it pleased. With the foxes, however, everything is plain and straightforward, since, except by stratagem, they could not possibly catch a hare.
All animals, however, like to take their prey by surprise, if they can, and of this I have myself seen an interesting instance in South Africa, where I lived for nearly three years. I was once riding along the waggon-road—a sandy trail winding amidst thick thorn-bush—somewhere in Bechuanaland, when all at once there jumped out, upon either side, a pair of Cape hunting-dogs in act to spring. They were bending, indeed, and all elastic, on the very point of making the leap, when, taking in the situation both at the same time, they each stood a little up on their hind legs, and with a curious look of having made an awkward mistake, they turned and disappeared into the bush again, the whole in silence—they did not utter one sound. No doubt the dogs had heard the beat of the horse’s hoofs along the road, and thinking it was wild game, had hidden, one on each side, prepared to leap together, as it passed, and pull it down. From the total change of their whole demeanour, and their expression—verylike a dog’s when it has made some foolish mistake—I feel quite sure that they had not expected a man to be mixed up in the affair, nor is any instance of their attacking one, even when in numbers, on record, so far as I know. It seems evident, therefore, that they could not have seen me before, as I came riding along, since one glimpse would have shown them that a man was on the horse.
But now a puzzle arises. It is not usual for game to come trotting along the waggon-road, nor does the Cape hunting-dog ever attack the oxen or horses of white men in the interior—at least I have not heard of its doing so. Why, then, did these two take up their position on either side of the path as though to wait till something passed along it, a thing which would only happen at very long intervals, and then would be more likely to be a mounted man, or a waggon, or oxen, than anything else? Unless some antelopes are accustomed to use the waggon-roads in South Africa, which I have never heard of their doing, judgment here, on the part of the two dogs, must have been at fault. For this reason, though nothing seemed clearer than that this had been their plan at the time, I do not now think that it was. I believe they were governed entirely by their sense of hearing, which was either so acute as to bring them both to just the right place, and at just the right time for the joint attack, or else that they judged, by the regularity of the hoof-beats and the direction in which they were proceeding, that the animal, whatever it was, was coming along the road. The last, I think, is the most likely, andthis, again, would show that one of the wild indigenous animals of South Africa has, by this time, learnt the use and meaning of the waggon-roads that cross the country.
All the above stratagems are of a collective nature—two or more animals, that is to say, take part in them—and these are more interesting than where merely one is concerned, since the capacity to combine of itself shows a high degree of intelligence. A simpler sort of ruse or wile may be displayed in the manner in which a beast of prey assaults and overpowers its victim, and this is especially the case where it hunts alone, and the quarry is much more powerful than itself. These two wild dogs were prepared, evidently, to attack a large animal jointly, but either of them, probably, would have been able to run down and kill one of equal size, in the open. A sable antelope is a larger animal, I should say, than the Basuto pony I was riding—it stands higher, at any rate, and has a very formidable pair of horns, which it can use most adroitly, and with deadly effect. The Cape hunting-dog knows this well, and when it overtakes its dangerous quarry, which it can do with ease, instead of holding on to it, in which case it would be immediately transfixed, it springs up and inflicts just one bite in the flank, letting go instantly and then pursuing it again. In its next spring it gives another bite in just the same place, and in this way it, at last, succeeds in tearing open the poor beast’s flank, from which the entrails then protrude and can be cruelly torn out and devoured. Of course, under these circumstances, the poor antelope soondies, and is eaten by the dog—a process, however, which, in all probability, is commenced by the latter some time before life is extinct. Such is Nature, and as there is no appeal from her ways, it is no use quarrelling with them. The best plan is to be an optimist, and then everything seems right in a trice.
As far as I know, there is only one published account of a sable antelope being pursued by a single Cape hunting-dog, in this way, nor was the incident, in this case, witnessed to its natural conclusion. It has not been absolutely proved, therefore, that such a chase may be brought by the dog to a successful conclusion; but I myself have no doubt whatever that it both can be and sometimes is, for I do not believe that wild animals ever attempt what it is not within their power to achieve, though, of course, they may sometimes fail in the attempt. They are guided by their experience, and though there are exceptions to every rule, it is safe to assume that, in the important concerns of their life, we never see a grown wild animal either making a first experiment or doing a foolish thing.
The End of the Chase.Sable antelope attacked by Cape hunting dogs.
The End of the Chase.Sable antelope attacked by Cape hunting dogs.
The End of the Chase.
Sable antelope attacked by Cape hunting dogs.
The account above alluded to is by my brother, and as it is very interesting, I will conclude this chapter with it. “We this day witnessed a very pretty sight, as we were riding across a wide, open down, between the Zweswe and Umfule rivers. We had a short time previously noticed a solitary old sable antelope bull feeding on the edge of a small strip of bush that intersected the plain. Suddenly this antelope, which was six or seven hundred yards distant, came running into the flat straighttowards us, on perceiving which we reined in our horses and looked around for the cause of its alarm. This was soon apparent, for before long we saw that an animal was running on its tracks and, though still distant, overhauling it fast, for the sable antelope, not being pressed, was not yet doing its best, so that when it was about two hundred yards from us, its pursuer, which we now saw was a wild dog, was not more than fifty yards behind it. The noble-looking antelope must just then have seen us, for it halted, looked towards us, and then turning its head, glanced at its insignificant pursuer. That glance, however, at the open-mouthed dog, thirsting for its life-blood, must have called up unpleasant reminiscences, for instead of showing fight, as I should have expected it to have done, it threw out its limbs convulsively and came dashing past us at its utmost speed. It was, however, to no purpose, for the wild dog, lying flat to the ground, as a greyhound, its bushy tail stretched straight behind it, covered two yards to its one, and came up with it in no time. It just gave it one bite in the flank, and letting go its hold instantly, fell a few yards behind; at the bite the sable antelope swerved towards us, and upon receiving a second in exactly the same place, turned still more, so that, taking the point on which we stood for a centre, both pursuer and pursued had described about a half-circle around us, always within two hundred yards, since the sable antelope had first halted. As the wild dog was just going up the third time, it got our wind, and instead of again inflicting a bite, stopped dead and looked towards us, whilst about a hundred yards from itthe sable antelope also came to a stand. The baffled hound then turned round and made off one way, whilst the sable antelope, delivered from its tormentor, cantered off in another.”[15]