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, n.o.body 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 b.a.l.l.s of quicksilver, because their soft, silky fur entangles thousands of little air-bubbles, which reflect back the light just as a looking-gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sages, 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 h.o.r.n.y 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 appet.i.te 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s-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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sages. In the middle of the mound, and about half-way between the two galleries, it scoops out a large round hole, from which three pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sing through its fortress. It goes up one pa.s.sage, 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 quant.i.ty of dry gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.ser-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