Among the eight species of Devonshire bats is the very rare particoloured bat (Vesperugo discolor), of which the only example ever recorded in England was taken at Plymouth, having perhaps travelled there in the rigging of a ship. It is probably more than a hundred years since the last genuine wild-cat was seen in the county, but both the marten and the polecat still survive in secluded spots. Foxes are common, and there are still many badgers in some of the Dartmoor valleys, where the two species have been known to inhabit the same holt. Otters abound on all the principal streams, and are as regularly hunted as the red deer and the fox. Devonshire is, indeed, pre-eminent for its otter-hunting, and the Culmstock pack is believed to be the oldest in the island. Harvest mice and dormice, although widely distributed, are not numerous, and the original English black rat is now rare.
Among the many marine mammalia that have been recorded for the county are two kinds of seal, the sperm-whale, the common rorqual—of which specimens nearly 70 feet long have been brought into Plymouth—the rare bottle-nosed dolphin and the still rarer Risso's grampus. Bones of a whale called Balaenoptera robustus, which were once washed ashore in Torbay, are said to represent a species so rare that these and a few similar relics stranded in Sweden are the only remains of it that have ever been found.
Situated as Devonshire is, between the English and the Bristol Channels, and containing widely-different physical features, suited to the needs of species of very different habits, the list of its birds, including residents, migrants, occasional visitors, and stragglers from the Atlantic and even from America, is a very long one.
Among the larger land-birds which still hold their ground in the county are the raven and buzzard, both of which are to be seen on Exmoor and Dartmoor and on the coast, and the peregrine falcon, which has eyries on both the northern and southern seaboards. A few pairs of choughs still build in the northern cliffs; while such rare birds as Montagu's harrier—first identified as a British species in this county—the hoopoe, and the golden oriole still occasionally breed here, and might do so regularly were they left in peace. Several birds, such as the kite and the osprey, the latter of which now breeds nowhere in England, and the former only in one solitary spot, have long since left the county. Warblers as a family are less abundant than in some other parts of the British Isles. The nightingale is nowhere common, but it occurs every season near Ashburton and in the valley of the Teign. Owing to the mildness of the climate it is not at all an unusual thing for a few chiffchaffs and willow-warblers to spend the winter in sheltered valleys on the south coast, instead of migrating to Africa in the autumn. The ring-ouzel is a regular visitor to the open country of Dartmoor, while the dipper haunts many of its streams. Two birds which have greatly increased in numbers of late years are the jackdaw and the starling. It is thought that the former has done much towards exterminating the chough by destroying its eggs; and the latter, by taking possession of its holes, has in many places driven away the green woodpecker. Partridges and pheasants are numerous, but black-game, once abundant on Dartmoor, have become so scarce that they are at present protected the whole year round.
But by far the most abundant, and perhaps the most characteristic, of the birds of Devonshire are the sea-fowl, the water-fowl, and the waders, of which more than 140 different kinds have been recorded for the county. Not only are its sandy shores, its bays and estuaries and leys, haunted in autumn and winter by multitudes of northern immigrants—swans, geese, ducks and a great variety of wading-birds; but there are several spots along the south coast and a few on the north where sea-birds regularly breed; while the reed-beds of Slapton Ley provide sanctuary for great numbers of coots and for many wild-ducks and teal, together with some rarer species. Herons are common on the south coast and along the river estuaries, and there are heronries at Powderham and elsewhere. A great black-headed gull (Larus ichthyaetus) shot on the Exe in 1859, is the only one known to have been seen in the British Islands.
There is, however, nothing on the mainland of Devonshire to compare in ornithological interest with Lundy, which in the summer time is a bird-lover's paradise. Gannets, once very numerous, have now left the island, but cormorants, shags and gulls of various species here build their untidy nests. Here multitudes of guillemots and razorbills assemble in the spring and lay their great pear-shaped and boldly-marked eggs on the ledges of the cliffs; while even vaster hosts of puffins come back every year to take up their quarters in rabbit-burrows or in holes which they have dug for themselves in the turf. Here the raven, the buzzard, and the peregrine have fastnesses. Here, in chinks and crannies, storm-petrels breed; and here, when darkness falls, the startled listener may hear the weird, wailing cry of the night-wandering shearwaters.
The few reptiles and batrachians of Devonshire present no points of special interest. Vipers abound on Dartmoor, where they are commoner than grass-snakes. It is curious that, while the palmated newt is common throughout the county, the smooth newt and the triton are now comparatively rare.
The freshwater fish differ little from those found in the neighbouring counties; but there are fewer kinds in Devonshire than there are in the midlands or in the east of England. Trout abound in all the streams, and there are important salmon-fisheries on the Exe, the Dart, and other rivers. A sturgeon seven-and-a-half feet long was once taken in the Exe. Eels, which are hatched in the Atlantic, to the west and north of the British Islands, at a depth of 3000 feet or more, come up from the sea when they are two years old, and still very small, and ascend the rivers, especially Exe, in enormous numbers. When they are mature, which is not until they are several years old, they go down to the sea to spawn, and never return.
It is, however, in marine zoology, for which few other parts of England afford so rich a field, and for which its bays and inlets, its rock-pools and stretches of sand provide ideal hunting-ground for the naturalist, that Devonshire is most distinguished. Many famous zoologists, such as Leach, Montagu, Parfitt, Gosse, and Kingsley have won renown both for themselves and for the county by their researches; while the Marine Biological Laboratory at Plymouth is constantly adding to our knowledge of the multitudinous inhabitants of the sea. The subject is so vast that only a few chief points can here be touched upon.
The sea-fish differ in marked degree from those of the east coast of England. Plaice and cod, for example, are smaller here than those caught in the North Sea and the latter are scarce; and the haddock, one of the most important of east coast fish, is here almost unknown. Two characteristic fish of the south coast of Devon are the pollack, which reaches a great size, and the pilchard, confined to this county and to Cornwall. Many southern and even Mediterranean species find their way to these waters: notable examples are the gigantic tunny, one specimen of which weighed 700 pounds, the beautiful rainbow wrasse, one of the most brilliantly-coloured of all fish, and the boar-fish, which is sometimes quite common. A number of rare species, such as Montagu's sucker and the crystal goby, were first made known as British through being taken off the Devonshire coast. Stray examples of the tropical bonito, the flying-fish, the electric torpedo, and the sun-fish, one specimen of which weighed 500 pounds, and the splendidly-coloured opal or king-fish, have been recorded. Several kinds of sharks have been caught in these waters, including the blue shark, the spinous shark, covered all over with sharp prickles, the rare and formidable hammer-head, the huge thresher, and the still larger basking-shark. The latter is, indeed, the largest of British fish. Specimens have been caught measuring 30 feet in length, and weighing more than eight tons. Marketable marine-fish will be treated of in a later chapter.