Poachers and Poaching

by F.L.S. John Watson

The liability of so defenceless a bird as the pigeon to attack has led to experiments being undertaken from time to time with young ravens, which make fairly quick and reliable messengers up to a distance of about fifty miles. As the raven is very teachable (it can be made to "retrieve" most creditably), and as it manifests a strong attachment to its birth-place, there seems no reason why its training should not be further extended in the new direction, for which its great spirit and endurance appear eminently to fit it.

Here I have only touched upon the speed and power of flight, but the whole subject is one of the most fascinating branches of natural history. No reference has been made to the marvellous movements of birds in the air, which constitute the very poetry of motion—the stationary balancing, hovering, circling, and gliding, all of which may be observed, especially among our own birds of prey.

Although much is known of the speed of birds and animals, there are but few ascertained facts concerning that of insects and fishes. The comparatively low intelligence of these two classes of animals makes it difficult to direct them. They rarely fly or swim in anything approaching to a straight line, and experiments give only approximate results. Pike in pursuit of their prey seem to flash through the water; and salmon and trout move almost as quickly. The Spanish mackerel, with its smooth, cone-shaped body, is among the swiftest of fishes, and for speed only finds a parallel in the dolphin. There is a great similarity in shape between these two, and both cut the water like a yacht. The first follows the fastest steamers with the greatest ease, in its dashes swimming at five times their speed. The bonito is also a fast swimmer; and all those fishes "trimmed" in like fashion with him.

There is one insect to which attention may be drawn, as affording a most striking example of speed among lowly-winged creatures. That is the dragon-fly. I have frequently had an opportunity of dropping into company with the largest species (Libellula grandis), in its aerial excursions in autumn by a particular roadside, along which there was a rushy-margined pool. At such times the writer has been occasionally on foot,—more frequently driving. On foot one has scarcely any means of judging of its speed, for in a moment it is past and gone out of sight. But what is the experience when you are driving, say at ten or twelve miles an hour? This rapid voyager passes over, proceeds beyond you almost out of sight, then turns, swerving widely from right to left, repasses again in both directions, traversing repeatedly the ground, while you are travelling, or rather dragging, over the same space of about a mile only once. We are apt to exaggerate in these matters, but with every allowance, having compared the flight of a dragon-fly with that of a passing hawk, swallow, or cuckoo, I have computed that this large species is capable of flying at a speed of from eighty to one hundred miles an hour—an enormous draw upon the creature's nerves and muscular powers, as manifested by occasional rests of a few minutes upon a bush or a piece of sedge, its habits not requiring uninterrupted flight at such a pace. Perhaps the need of these occasional rests is an erroneous opinion founded upon too limited an area of observation. For Cuvier has stated that M. Poey, who had particularly studied the insects of Cuba, informed him that at certain seasons of the year the northerly winds bring to the city of Havannah and its neighbourhood an innumerable quantity of specimens of one of the species of Libellulæ. Other instances of the periodical flights or migrations of dragon-flies have been noted by observers. And even butterflies have been seen to migrate to distant points of land, making flights of fifty or sixty miles across water. These long journeys may be relieved by occasional rests, as Mr. Newman and others have ascertained that lepidopterous insects are able to alight upon the water, rest awhile, and then rise with apparent ease—a fact readily credited by fishermen, who so frequently see the green-and-grey drake and other ephemeræ float down stream, and, if not taken by the trout, suddenly spring up again, and resume their aerial dances. But this power of rapid movement in the dragonfly, be the rate more or less, is in just keeping with its structure. The insect's body is slender, the chest strongly developed, though firm; the wings, four in number, are narrow, of great length, and consist of fine, thin, dry membrane, stretched upon a series of lightly made costæ, or rafters. No wonder, then, that with such a mechanism the creature pursues its prey of smaller insects with such rapidity.

There are many insects which one would little suspect being furnished with apparatus suited to swift and more or less continuous flight. House flies frequent the insides of our windows, buzzing sluggishly in and out of the room. But what different creatures are they when they accompany your horse on a hot summer's day. A swarm of these little pests keep pertinaciously on wing about the horse's ears; quicken the pace up to ten or twelve miles an hour, still they are there; let a gust of wind arise and carry them backwards and behind, the breeze having dropped, their speed is redoubled, and they return to their post of annoyance to the poor horse, even when urged to its fastest pace. But this example gives only a partial proof of the fly's power of flight, as the following will show. The writer was travelling one day in autumn by rail at about twenty-five miles an hour, when a company of flies put in an appearance at the carriage window. They never settled, but easily kept pace with the train; so much so, indeed, that their flight seemed to be almost mechanical, and a thought struck the writer that they had probably been drawn into a kind of vortex, whereby they were carried onward with little exertion on the part of themselves. But this notion was quickly dispelled. They sallied forth at right-angles from the carriage, flew to a distance of thirty or forty feet, still keeping pace, and then returned with increased speed and buoyancy to the window. To account for this look at the wings of a fly. Each is composed of an upper and lower membrane, between which the blood-vessels and respiratory organs ramify so as to form a delicate network for the extended wings. These are used with great quickness, and probably six hundred strokes are made per second. This would carry the fly about twenty-five feet, but a seven-fold velocity can easily be attained, making one hundred and seventy-five feet per second, so that under certain circumstances it can outstrip the fleetest racehorse. If a small insect like a fly can outstrip a racehorse, an insect as large as a horse would travel very much faster than a cannon-ball.

Bees and wasps are even swifter than flies. Here is another actual incident. The present writer has sprinkled individual wasps and bees with rose-coloured powder, and has found that thus handicapped they could with ease keep up with the fastest trains when speeding down "Shap Summit," one of the steepest gradients in the country. Nor were these carried along in the rush of air caused by the train. They would come in and out of the window, sometimes disappearing for a minute or more, but frequently returning again and again. At distances of from five to ten miles they dropped behind, when others took their places. All of us have seen the flagging, lazy butterfly, flitting from flower to flower in our gardens—not quite so lazy, however, if goaded on by some urgent motive. For when this little flutterer, touched by some strange and mysterious feeling which we cannot read, mounts on sportive wings, "through fields of air prepared to sail," she hurries onwards and onwards to some new haven of real or fancied delight and happiness. Such were the thoughts which occurred when one of these wanderers accompanied the writer by the roadside for a couple of miles, never flagging a yard behind, nay, sometimes being before a horse that was travelling at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour. What could all this speed and earnestness of the little creature mean? It is not easy to explain how the butterfly, with its broad, soft, feathery wings, should be able to accomplish the feat of speed just recorded.[1]

In the tropics countless swarms of locusts sometimes suddenly make their appearance, and as suddenly vanish. They cover every leaf-bearing thing, and occasionally completely denude whole districts of greenery. So great are their powers of flight that they have been seen at sea nearly four hundred miles from nearest land. In Natal the farmers, rightly or wrongly, believe that the locusts introduce injurious seeds upon their grass-lands, and the following would seem to show that their belief is well founded. A Mr. Weale, who was of their way of thinking, collected a packet of dried pellets and sent them to England. When closely examined under the microscope they revealed a number of tiny seeds, from which plants of seven kinds of grasses were ultimately raised.

Among animals, those which have been longest under the care of man have attained to the greatest degree of perfection in all those qualities it has been deemed wise to develop. With his mind bent on utility, man has striven to improve the staying and flying power of pigeons; the strength and swiftness of horses; and has himself proved to be a marvellous instance of speed and endurance. To observe the differences of locomotion, both as regards structural contrivance and speed among animals—the term "animal" being extended to every member, high or low, within the province of the animal kingdom—is one of the most fascinating of out-door studies. It is not an easy matter, however, to compute the speed or mileage of quick-moving animals. Among quadrupeds, the horse perhaps may be considered the fleetest. "Hambletonian" covered a space of four miles in eight minutes, which is but thirty miles an hour, if it could be continued. "Firetail" ran a mile in one minute and four seconds; and the famous "Eclipse" is said to have gone at the rate of a mile in a minute for a short distance. But it is difficult to form any exact estimate of his speed, as he never met with an opponent to put him to the test. During one of his trials, an old woman, according to Youatt, was asked if she had seen a race. Her reply was that "she could not tell whether it was a race or not, but she had seen a horse with a white leg running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, a great way behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he would never catch the white-legged horse, even if he ran to the world's end." The above records refer of course to horses galloping; but trotting, which is more or less an artificial mode of horse progression, has, with regard to speed, almost been reduced to an art. For facts concerning it we must look mainly to America, and perhaps no records are more interesting than those of the famous trotting mare "Maud S." On September 1st, 1884, Maud ran a mile over the Hartford track in two minutes twenty-eight seconds; and every fourth day she trotted over the same distance, the first being the slowest, and the fourth the fastest—two minutes twenty seconds. At the end of eight days her training consisted of trotting over two or three mile journeys, with the result that the time was brought down to two minutes thirteen seconds; and three days later to two minutes eleven and three-quarter seconds. Resting some days, Maud was again tried, and among other times succeeded in trotting the mile in a fraction of a second over the above, but went marvellously in the last half-mile. Subsequently to this she was shipped to Lexington, Kentucky, and when she had covered the mile distance in two minutes sixteen and a half seconds, it was decided that three days hence she should endeavour to beat her own great record. This she succeeded in doing by trotting a mile in two minutes nine and a half seconds; and a year later Maud made the world's record—two minutes eight and three-quarter seconds. This is what no other horse ever accomplished, and the interesting phase of the situation is that the mare is even now in training to beat her own splendid record given above.

As compared to the rate of speed in animals, those attained by man are interesting. A hundred yards has been run in ten seconds; two hundred yards in twenty and two-fifths; three hundred yards in thirty-one and a half; and a quarter of a mile in forty-eight and four-fifths seconds, by Messrs. A. Wharton, J. Shearman, C. G. Wood, and L. E. Myers respectively. Mr. W. G. George holds the championship for one mile and up to ten miles; his time for the former distance being four minutes eighteen and two-fifths seconds, and for the latter fifty-one minutes twenty seconds. For fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five miles Mr. G. A. Dunning holds the record; the first distance being covered in one hour twenty-four minutes and twenty-four seconds; the last in two hours thirty-three minutes forty seconds. The same gentleman is champion at forty miles. Mr. J. A. Squires has run thirty miles in three hours seventeen minutes thirty-six and a-half seconds; and Mr. J. E. Dixon is fifty-mile champion with six hours eighteen minutes and twenty-six and one-fifth seconds—all truly marvellous performances.