It is no wonder, then, that these lakes should periodically swarm with birds; and it is likewise plain that such great wealth of booty must also attract all sorts of enemies. The smaller birds are followed by the falcons and owls, the larger birds by the eagle and horned owl, the mammals by the fox and jackal, the leopard and the lion. Sometimes, too, an army of voracious locusts coming in from the steppe falls upon the fresh green girdle around such a lake and ravages it in a few days, devouring all the leaves. Or one should rather say threatening to devour, for at such a time the assemblage of birds becomes even larger than before. From far and near they come flocking—falcons and owls, ravens and rollers, francolins and guinea-fowl, storks and ibises, coots and ducks. Every bird that ever eats insects now confines itself exclusively to the pertinacious visitors. Hundreds of kestrels and lesser kestrels, which are then in these winter-quarters, sweep over the invaded forest, and swoop down upon the locusts, seizing and devouring them, with scarce an interruption in their flight. Ravens, rollers, hornbills, ibises, and storks pick them off the branches of the trees and shake down hundreds which fall victims to the guinea-fowl, ducks, and other birds waiting underneath. Harriers and chanting hawks circle around the trees on which the “defoliating” insects soon take the place of the leaves that were. Even the sedate marabous and saddle-billed storks do not disdain to avail themselves of booty whose abundance compensates for the paltry size of the individual victims. All this bustle greatly enhances the liveliness of a scene which is at no time dull, and makes the lake more than ever a rendezvous of the most diverse forms of life.
At one of these rain-lakes—very treasure-house of the forest’s riches—we spent several days, hunting, observing, and collecting, almost wild with delight in, and admiration of the splendid flora and fauna. We amused ourselves with hunting hippopotamus, and executed justice on the crocodile; we enjoyed to the full the pleasures of exploration and of the chase, forgetful of everything else, even of the time we spent. But when the sun went down and tinged with gold the varied greens of the forest; when the chattering of the parrots was hushed and only the ecstatic song of a thrush floated down to us; when, over there on the opposite bank, the sea-eagle, which a moment ago had seemed like some wonderful blossom on the top of his green perch, drowsily drew his white head between his shoulders; when silence fell even on the guttural gossip of a band of long-tailed monkeys, who had gone to rest on the nearest lofty mimosa; when the night came on with its clear pleasant twilight, cool and mild, melodious and fragrant, as it always is at this season: then would all the wealth of colour, all the splendour and glamour of to-day’s and yesterday’s pictures fade away. Our thoughts flew homewards, and irresistible home-sickness filled our hearts, for in the Fatherland they were celebrating Christmas. We had prepared our punch and filled our pipes with the most precious of tobaccos; our Albanian companion sang his soft melancholy song; the beauty of the night soothed our hearts and senses; but the glasses remained unemptied, “the clouds of smoke did not bear the clouds of melancholy with them”; the songs awoke no responsive echo, and the night brought no solace. But it must bring us a Christmas gift, and it did!
Night in the primeval forest is always grand: the sky above may be illumined with flaming lightning, the thunder may roll, and the wind may rage through the trees; or it may be that the dark starless heaven is relieved only by the slender rays of far-distant suns, while no leaf or blade of grass is stirred. A few minutes after sunset, night descends upon the forest. What was clearly seen by day is now veiled by darkness, what was seen in its true proportions in the sunlight now becomes gigantic. Familiar trees become phantasms, the hedge-like bushes thicken to dark walls. The noise of a thousand voices is stilled, and for a few minutes a deep silence prevails. Then life begins to stir again, the river and the forest are again alive. Hundreds of cicadas raise their chirping, like the jingle of many badly-tuned little bells heard from a distance; thousands of restless beetles, some very large, whirr about the flowering trees with a deep humming, fit accompaniment to the cicadas’ chirping. Frogs add their single note, surprisingly loud for their size, and their voices ring through the forest, like the sound of a slowly-beaten Chinese gong. A great owl greets the night with its dull hooting; a little screech-owl responds with shrill laughter; a goat-sucker spins off the single strophe of his rattling song. From the river come the plaintive cries of a nocturnal member of the gull family, the skimmer or shearwater, which begins to plough the waves, skimming along the surface of the water; from the islands and banks sound the somewhat screeching cries of the thickknee or stone-curlew, and the rich, melodious, song-like trills of the redshank or the plover; among the reeds and sedges of a neighbouring pool croaks a night-heron. Hundreds of glowworms sparkle among the bushes and the tree-tops; a gigantic crocodile, which had left its sand-bank before sundown to bathe its heated coat of mail in the tepid water, is swimming half beneath and half above the surface of the water, and making long streaks of silver which shine in the moonlight, or at least glitter in the flickering light of the stars. Above the tallest trees float noiseless companies of horned and other owls; long-tailed night-jars fly with graceful curves along the river bank; bats describe their tortuous course among the trees; fox-bats and fruit-eating bats cross from bank to bank, sometimes in flocks. This is the time of activity among the other mammals too. A jackal utters its varied call, now plaintive, now merry, and continues with equal expressiveness and persistence; a dozen others join in at once, and strive in eager rivalry for the victor’s crown; some hyænas who seem just to have been waiting for these unrivalled leaders to begin, join the chorus. They howl and laugh, moan piteously, and shout triumphantly; a panther grunts, a lion roars; even a hippopotamus in the river lifts up his paltry voice and grunts.
Thus does night reveal itself in the primeval forest; thus did it claim ear and eye on that never-to-be-forgotten day. Beetles and cicadas, owls and goat-suckers had begun: then a loud, rumbling noise, as of trumpets blown by unskilful mouths, resounded through the forest. At once the songs of our Albanian, and the chattering of our servants and sailors were hushed; all listened as we did. Once more came the trumpeting and rumbling from the opposite bank. “El fiuhl, el fiuhl!” called the natives; “Elephants, elephants!” we, too, exclaimed triumphantly. It was the first time that we had seen and heard the giant pachyderms, though we had constantly trodden their paths and followed their traces. From the opposite bank the great forms, which could be plainly enough seen in the twilight, descended leisurely and confidently to the water, to drink and bathe. One after another dipped his supple trunk in the water, to fill it, and discharge it into his wide mouth, or over his back and shoulders; one after another descended into the river to refresh himself in the cooling flood. Then the noises became so great that it seemed as if the elephants’ trumpeting had acted as an awakening call. Earlier than ever before, the king of the wilderness raised his thundering voice; a second and a third lion responded to the kingly greeting. The sleep-drunken monkeys and the timid antelopes cried out in terror. A hippopotamus reared his uncouth head quite close to our boat, and growled as if he would emulate the lion’s roar; a leopard also made himself heard; jackals gave vent to the most varied song we had ever heard from them, the striped hyænas howled, the spotted ones uttered their hellish, blood-curdling laughter, and, careless of the uproar which the heralds and the king of the forest had conjured up, the frogs continued to utter their monotonous call, and the cicadas their bell-like chirping.
Thus was the “Hosanna in the Highest” sung in our ears by the primeval forest.
THE MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.
The love of travel, as we understand it, is not found among animals, not even among the birds, whose sublime powers of flight over land and sea so much excite our envy. For no animals wander, careless and free, like the travellers who go forth to study the manners and customs of other lands; they cling to the soil even more closely than we do, and they are bound to the place of their birth, by habit or indolence, more closely than we are by our love of home. When it does happen that they forsake their birthplace, it is in obedience to stern necessity,—to escape impending starvation. But want and misery are too often their lot in the joyless lands to which they migrate, and so they experience little but the pain and toil of travel.
This holds true of wandering fishes and of migrating birds, but more particularly of those mammals which undertake periodic migrations. Few of them do this with the same regularity, but all do it for the same reasons, as fishes and birds. They migrate to escape from scarcity of food, already felt or at least threatening, and their journeying is therefore rather a flight from destruction than a striving to reach happier fields.
By the migrations of mammals I mean neither the excursions which result in an extension of their range of distribution, nor the ordinary expeditions in search of food, but those journeys which lead certain mammals, at regular or irregular intervals, far beyond the boundaries of their home, into countries where they are compelled to adopt a mode of life which is foreign to them, and which they will abandon as soon as it is possible, or seems possible to do so. Such journeys correspond closely to the regular migrations of fishes and birds, and a knowledge of the former helps us to an understanding of the latter.
Excursions beyond their actual place of sojourn are made by all mammals for various reasons. Males, particularly old males, are more inclined to roam about than the females and the young of their species, and forsake one district for another without apparent reason; the younger males among gregarious species are often driven out and forced to wander by the old leaders of the herd; mothers with their young are fond of rambling about the neighbourhood where the latter were born; and the two sexes wander about in search of one another. During such expeditions the animal chances to light on what seems to him a promising dwelling-place, a district rich in food, a sheltering thicket, or a safe hiding-hole. He stays there for some time, and, finally, it may be, settles down in this new Canaan. Experienced sportsmen know that a preserve in which all the game has been shot will sooner or later receive reinforcements from without, and, under favourable circumstances, will be peopled anew; and all must have noticed that a fox or badger burrow is not easily destroyed, for it finds new occupants again and again, however ruthless the persecution to which they may be subjected. As it is with game, whose coming and going, appearing and disappearing are noted by thousands, so is it with other mammals which are less eagerly watched. A constant emigration and immigration cannot be denied. In consequence of this, the range of distribution of any species is constantly being extended, unless hindered by physical conditions, or by human and other enemies.