Part 18

One cat belonging to me had a curious manner of shewing her disappointment or anger, whichever it might be; for the instant she was affronted, she walked away and seated herself with her back to the offending parties. A child of hers was an instance of the effect of judicious education, for fair and gentle treatment transformed her, from a violent, outrageous kitten, to a well behaved cat, and it was curious to see the instantaneous effect which the voice of his preceptress produced. Cats will learn all sorts of antics, and form all sorts of contradictory attachments; young birds, puppies, rats and mice frequently being the objects. My mother-in-law had both a favourite canary and an equally beloved cat; the former lived in her bed room; and when alone, she suffered him to fly about the room, for she could there exclude the latter. Chance, however, discovered that puss was as fond of the canary as she was; and, to her surprise, on raising her head from her work one morning, she saw the bird perched upon the cat's body, without fear, and the cat evidently delighted. After that there was no further restraint, and the two pets were daily companions. Their mistress, however, received another fright; for Puss gave a slight growl, and seizing the bird in her mouth, leaped on to the bed; her tail swelled out, her hair erect, and her eyes as big as four. The bird was of course given up for lost: but the door being accidentally left open, a strange cat had come in; and it was for the preservation of the bird, that the cat had seized him, and as soon as the intruder was driven away, she set the prisoner at liberty. Cats have often been trained to act as game-finders, without offering the slightest damage to their capture; they have given the alarm when thieves have been breaking in; and manifested great proofs of reflection and thought, which may be called reason, without degrading this act of the intellect. One belonging to my sister invariably goes to her room when she rings her bell; but does not offer to stir when any other bell in the house is sounded. Another, in the service of a friend, was in the habit of going into the garden, catching a bird, and bringing it to the cook, appearing to ask her to dress it; and yet it was perfectly her own suggestion.

A brother of mine had a favourite tortoise-shell cat, named Monkey, who always sat on his shoulder when he was shaving, and evinced every sign of deep attachment. He left her under the care of some friends when he went abroad; and, two years after, these ladies were surprised the evening he was expected home, at the extreme restlessness of the animal. She heard the arrival of the carriage at the garden gate before they did; and ere the bell was rung, she was furious to be let out to meet him. Her joy was indescribable; and the next morning she took her place on his shoulder as usual, when she saw him prepare his razor. Such attachments have been known to continue after death; and cats have died of grief on their master's grave.

I have already noticed a great friendship between a pug dog and a cat; and the following proof of a similar strength of love is taken from the pages of M. Wenzel, in his "Observations on the Language of Brutes." "I had a cat and a dog, which became so attached to each other, that they would never willingly be asunder. Whenever the dog got any choice morsel of food, he was sure to divide it with his whiskered friend. They always ate socially out of one plate, slept in the same bed, and daily walked out together. Wishing to put this apparently sincere friendship to the proof, I one day, took the cat by herself into my room, while I had the dog kept in another apartment. I entertained the cat in a most sumptuous manner; being desirous to see what sort of meal she would make without her friend, who had been hitherto her constant table companion. The cat enjoyed the treat, and seemed entirely to have forgotten the dog. I had had a partridge for dinner, half of which I intended to keep for supper. My wife covered it with a plate, and put it into a cupboard, the door of which she did not lock. The cat left the room, and I walked out on business; my wife meanwhile sat at work in an adjoining apartment. When I returned home, she related to me the following circumstances:—The cat having hastily left the dining-room, went to the dog, and mewed unusually loudly, and in different tones; which the dog, from time to time, answered with a short bark. They went together to the door of the room where the cat had dined, and waited till it was opened. The two friends then immediately entered the apartment. My wife rose from her seat, went softly to the door which stood ajar, to observe what was going on. The cat led the dog to the cupboard which contained the partridge, pushed off the plate which covered it, and taking out my intended supper, laid it before her canine friend, who devoured it quickly."

The following anecdote almost places the cat on a level with the dog:—"A physician of Lyons was requested to inquire into a murder that had been committed on a woman of that city. In consequence of this request, he went to the habitation of the deceased, where he found her extended lifeless on the floor, weltering in her blood. A large white cat was mounted on the cornice of a cupboard, at the far end of the apartment, where he seemed to have taken refuge. He sat motionless with his eyes fixed on the corpse, and his attitude and looks expressing horror and affright. The following morning he was found in the same station and attitude, and when the room was filled with officers of justice, neither the clattering of the soldier's arms, nor the loud conversation of the company, could in the least degree divert his attention. As soon, however, as the suspected persons were brought in, his eyes glared with increased fury, his hair bristled, he darted into the middle of the apartment, where he stopped for a moment to gaze at them, and then precipitately retreated under the bed. The countenances of the assassins were disconcerted, and they were now, for the first time, abandoned by their audacious atrocity."

There are several instances on record of cats finding their way back to their former abodes under circumstances of great difficulty, and the following appears to me to be one of the most striking of them, and quoted from a letter:—"When living at Four Paths, Clarendon, Jamaica, I wanted a cat, and had one given to me, which was nearly full grown; it was brought from Morgan's Valley Estate, where it was bred, and had never been removed from that place before. The distance was five miles. It was put into a canvass bag, and carried by a man on horseback. Between the two places there are two rivers, one of them about eighty feet broad and two feet and a half deep, running strong; the other is wider and more rapid, but less deep; over these rivers are no bridges. The cat was shut up at Four Paths for some days, and when considered to be reconciled to her new dwelling, she was allowed to go about the house. The day after obtaining her liberty, she was missing; and, upon my next visiting the estate she was brought from, I was quite amazed to learn that the cat had come back again. Did she swim over the rivers at the fords where the horse came through with her, or did she ascend the banks for a considerable distance, in search of a more shallow place, and where the stream was less powerful? At all events she must have crossed the rivers, in opposition to her natural habits."

A singular malformation in the cat has been perpetuated, till a race of tailless cats is now in existence, and which is certainly no improvement on the original stock; for nothing can be more graceful than the attitudes of the cat's tail, or more expressive of its feelings of joy or anger.

SQUIRRELS.

A peculiar formation of the incisors, or front teeth, groups a number of smaller animals together under the name of Rodentia, from the Latin word rodens, which signifies gnawing. These teeth act as files, so that the food on which their owners principally live is reduced by friction to a state which fits it for digestion. As the edges of these teeth become worn by constant use, they incessantly grow from the root. If one be broken, that opposite to it, in the other jaw, being deprived of its habitual wear and tear, grows so fast that it not only annoys its owner, but has caused his destruction by effectually closing the mouth. Their lower jaws can only move backwards and forwards; some exclusively eat vegetables, others eat all things, and others again prefer flesh. Some carry their food to their mouths with their paws, and climb trees; and, in many, the hinder limbs are so much longer than those in front, that they leap instead of walk. They are widely and numerously spread on the surface of the earth, and therefore bear strongly on its history; but it is not among them that we find the high intellectual development with which many other animals are gifted.

Squirrels are some of the most beautiful of the Rodentia, and chiefly live in trees. The fur of some of the species is extremely beautiful and valuable; they are very active, elegant little creatures, and easily tamed, when they become very playful and affectionate. A friend of mine was deprived of her only daughter, and the lost one's pet squirrel was of course cherished and loved; the little creature used to run up the lady's arm, and seat itself on her shoulder, caress her with its head, nestle itself into her neck, and drink her tears. As long as it lived, it was never caressed by the mother without first looking in her face for the drops, which it had been accustomed to remove.

These animals have a large bushy tail, the hair of which spreads out on each side like a feather; and by it they are guided and supported when they leap. The flying squirrels, as they are called, have an expansion of the skin of the sides, which extends between the hind and fore legs, by which they are suspended in the air when passing from tree to tree, and by it are enabled to go to greater distances without being actually able to fly, as their name would imply. The general colour of the English squirrel is red in summer; but in winter they often assume a grayish tint, at which time they have long pencils of hair at the top of their ears. This grey becomes more decided in more northern climates; and occasionally they are black. They always live in pairs, and sometimes are gregarious, inhabiting burrows. They lay up stores of provisions in different places; but they sleep the greater part of the cold months, their tail turned over them to keep them warm, having beforehand made a very elaborate nest of moss, leaves, and interlacing fibres in the hole of a tree, or the fork of two branches. They exclusively eat vegetable food, and are occasionally themselves eaten by the larger birds of prey.

Sir Francis Head gives us the following account of his meeting with a squirrel in Canada. "I was waiting the approach of a large flock of wild fowl; but a little villain of a squirrel on the bough of a tree close to me, seemed to have determined that even now I should not rest in quiet; for he sputtered and chattered with so much vehemence, that he attracted the attention of my dog. This was truly mortifying; for he kept his eyes fixed on the squirrel. With my hand I threatened the little beast; but he actually set up his back and defied me, becoming even more passionate than before; till, all of a sudden, as if purposely to alarm the game, he dropped plump within a couple of yards of Rover's nose. This was too much for the latter to bear, so he gave a bounce and sprang upon the impertinent squirrel; who, in a second, was out of his reach, cocking his tail and shewing his teeth, on the identical bough where he had sat before. Away flew all the wild fowl, and my sport was completely marred. My gun went involuntarily to my shoulder to shoot the squirrel; but I felt I was about to commit an act of sheer revenge on a courageous little animal, which deserved a better fate. As if aware of my hesitation, he nodded his head with rage, and stamped his fore paws on the tree; while in his chirruping, there was an intonation of sound, which seemed like contempt. What business had I there trespassing on his domain, and frightening his wife and little family, for whom he was ready to lay down his life? There he would sit in spite of me, and make my ears ring with the sound of his woo-whoop, till the spring of life should cease to bubble in his little heart."

It is from Captain Brown's pages that I extract the following. "A gentleman procured a squirrel from a nest, found at Woodhouse, near Edinburgh, which he reared and rendered extremely docile. It was kept in a box below an aperture, where was suspended a rope, by which the animal ascended and descended. The little creature used to watch very narrowly all its master's movements; and, whenever he was preparing to go out, it ran up his legs, and entered his pocket, from whence it would peep out at passengers as he walked along the streets, never venturing however to go out.

"But no sooner would he reach the outskirts of the city, than the squirrel leaped on the ground, ran along the road, ascended to the tops of trees and hedges with the quickness of lightning, and nibbled at the leaves and bark; and, if the gentleman walked on, it would descend, scamper after him, and again enter his pocket. Whenever it heard a carriage or cart, it became much alarmed, and always hid itself till they had passed by. This gentleman had a dog, between which and the squirrel, a certain enmity existed. Whenever the dog lay asleep, the squirrel showed its teasing disposition by rapidly descending from its box, scampering over the dog's body, and then quickly mounting its rope."

RATS.

Some persons profess to think that the Rodents called Rats are beautiful animals; and I presume that, prejudice apart, the sleek skin, the sharp head, the long, slender tail, and the keen look of their bright black eyes, ought to be attractions; but those who have been annoyed with these animals as I have been, can scarcely regard them with anything but dislike. Overspreading the whole world as they do, it is no wonder, where they are not vigorously checked, and where food is abundant, their numbers should amount to something frightful. On a visit to Sierra Leone, I was all day at the Government House, and going to an upper room to make my toilette, I heard a pattering of little feet close to me, and turning my head I saw between the floor and the shrunken door of the next apartment, a whole army of rats on a peregrination, and giving such an idea of number, that, uninitiated as I then was (it being on my first journey to Africa), I was perfectly appalled, and most thankful that I returned that night to sleep in my safer cabin on board ship. This, however, was but the beginning; and, in the next vessel which I entered, they were so numerous, that the next time she returned to port, she was sunk for a time, as the only means of getting rid of them. Between these creatures and the cockroaches, I thought my poor child and myself must be devoured.

There is a facility given to the human mind to accommodate itself to all circumstances, for which perhaps we are not sufficiently thankful; and it never was more strongly manifested than in my own case, for both fear and apprehension vanished with habit, and I became fearless of those animated creatures which at first seemed to be the bane of my existence. When living in Cape Coast Castle, I used to see the rats come in troops past my door, walking over my black boys as they lay there, and who only turned themselves over to present the other sides of their faces and bodies, when the rats returned—and thought it a good joke. The fiercest encounter which I ever had with them was during one of those terrific storms, which are more furious between the tropics than elsewhere. I was then, however, under the Equator, in a native hut, and heard an exceeding rustling and movement all around me. To my terror, I perceived that these proceeded from a number of rats running up and down the sides of the room in which I was to pass the night, and who shortly began to run over me; they being disturbed by the torrents of rain which were then falling. The only weapon I could find was a shoe, and curling myself into a large armchair, taken out of a French vessel, and covered with blue satin damask, I sat prepared for my enemies, whom I dreaded much more than the lightning, which was flashing across the iron bars laid upon the floor. I felt that the silk of my place of refuge was some sort of protection against this; but my own arm could alone save me from my four-footed foes. Presently my husband came in, and saluted me with a shout of laughter, which, however, abated when he saw my antagonists. The storm lulled for a while, and the rats retreated: we then crept within the curtains of bamboo cloth, which encircled a rude imitation of a four-post bedstead, but I kept possession of my shoe. Weary with watching, I closed my eyes, but was awakened by a tremendous flash of lightning, immediately followed by awful thunder and a tumultuous rush of rats. Some of them scrambled up the outside of the curtains; but arms in hand I sat up, and directed by the noise, I hurled the invaders to the ground, till at length resistance, and the passing away of the storm allowed me to sleep in peace.

These were the brown rats which infest every part of the world, but very much increased in size by their residence in a hot climate.

Besides these brown rats, a bush rat, as it is called, infests the forests, and is about as large as a young pig. When I first saw this, and felt myself surrounded as it were, by familiar animals increased to such magnitude, by multitudes previously unknown to me, and others of which I had only heard, and yet none of us were devoured, I could not but feel with tenfold depth the Creator's command, that man should have the dominion over them all. His own strength alone could never enable him to walk among them unharmed.

The principal characters which distinguish the rat remain in all countries, but there are several species. The black rat is that which first inhabited this island; but it has been nearly driven out by the brown, which is, without any foundation, termed the Norway rat. It came from India, Persia, etc., and is said to have appeared in Europe after a great earthquake in 1727. All are so eminently carnivorous, that they do not make the least ceremony of devouring each other in times of scarcity; so that on one occasion, already spoken of, when I and my companions stood a chance of being starved ourselves, we felt sure that the violent screams and struggles we heard going on among the rats behind the planks, arose from the meals which the strong were making upon their more feeble brethren.

Rats are nocturnal in their habits, and like to live in subterranean, or mysterious abodes. They are found in islands lying in the midst of the ocean, till the moment of their discovery to us, supposed not to have been visited by man, and yet the question still remains unsettled, whether the differences which exist in rats were caused by locality, or whether they were so from the beginning. There is now no known spot free from the Norway rat, and the greater the number, of course the more impudent they become. In Ceylon, I am told, where they are innumerable, they perch on the top of a chair, or screen, and sit there till something is thrown at them, at which they slowly retreat. A noise is heard in the verandah close by you, and you see a party of rats, disputing with a dog for the possession of some object. A traveller in Ceylon saw his dogs set upon a rat, and making them relinquish it, he took it up by the tail, the dogs leaping after it the whole time; he carried it into his dining-room, to examine it there by the light of the lamp, during the whole of which period it remained as if it were dead; limbs hanging, and not a muscle moving. After five minutes he threw it among the dogs, who were still in a state of great excitement; and to the astonishment of all present, it suddenly jumped upon its legs, and ran away so fast that it baffled all its pursuers.