Still more strange is it to hear of scorpions fascinating blue-bottle flies! "On my arrival" says Mr Robert Hunter, "at Nágpur, in Central India, in 1847, I requested that the first scorpion found in the house might be allowed to live for a few minutes, that I might have an opportunity of observing its form and movements. In that part of India one has rarely to wait long for such a visitant, and on an early evening my colleague, the Rev. Mr Hislop, announced that there was a scorpion on the wall. A lamp was set down on the floor, and we took convenient stations for noting what might pass. Just then a large fly, of the genus Musca, made its appearance, and soon became aware of the presence of the scorpion. A strong fury seemed to seize it, irresistibly impelling it to an insane attack on the terrible occupant of the wall: it flew at it with all the little force it could muster, the scorpion meanwhile stretching out its lobster-like claw to catch it as it came. At the first charge, the fly rebounded from the crustaceous integument of its adversary, having done no more damage than if a child were to apply its hand to the well-mailed body of a cuirassier. It seemed amazed at its own audacity; and in a state of great apparent agitation wheeled round, and taking precipitately to flight, soon put two or three yards of safe space between itself and its formidable but wingless foe. We now forcibly hoped 'the better part of valour' might be allowed to prevail. But no! the tiny creature stood—it ventured to look—there glared still in view the malignant form. What could the poor animal do but make a second brilliant onset, in which it again eluded the outstretched claw of its enemy, and, as before, was successful in effecting a retreat? 'Surely,' we mused, 'no further knight-errantry will be attempted: the most exacting would consider this enough.' But we were mistaken. Again and again did the fly return to the combat, till in an unguarded moment it flew exactly into the open claw, which closing, rendered escape impossible. The generosity of a Mouravieff was scarcely to be looked for in the scorpion, which, as will be readily believed, lost no time in devouring its gallant captive. Possibly the fly may have been partly dazzled by the glare of the lamp. But undoubtedly it was in the main fascination, induced by the sight of the dread figure on the wall, that impelled it to begin the unequal contest, which could terminate only in the loss of its life."[179]
After these cases, I fear my readers would see but little of the romantic in stories of stoats mesmerising hares and rabbits, or foxes paralysing pullets. The former are common enough,—the wretched hare creeping along with a bewildered look, as if its back were broken, or screaming in helpless immobility. I will confine myself to a single narrative furnished by Mr Henry Bond, to whom this chapter is already indebted for one case. As he was walking on the hillside above West Creech Farm, in Penbeck, Somerset, last August, where the down is scattered with very low furze-bushes, his attention was arrested by a cry of distress. It proceeded from a rabbit which was cantering round in a ring, with a halting gait. He watched it for some minutes; but, as the circle became smaller, and the rabbit more agitated, he perceived a stoat turning its head with the rabbit's motion, and fixing its gaze upon it. He struck a blow at the stoat, but missed it; its attention was thus withdrawn from its intended victim, which instantly ran away with great vigour in a straight direction.[180]
This is a remarkably good case; the circular movement of the rabbit; the ever-diminishing circle; the rotation of the stoat; the fixity of its gaze; the liberation of the rabbit the moment the stoat was disturbed; and the instant recovery of its faculties on the breaking of the spell;—all these are circumstances of the highest interest in a case avouched by so good a naturalist as Mr Bond.
Mr J. H. Gurney reports the account of a respectable gamekeeper, who, being much annoyed by the nightly visits of a fox to the poultry, could not imagine how Reynard managed to effect his purpose, as they roosted on a large spreading oak. One morning, however, just as day was dawning, he heard a great noise among the poultry, and, looking out of the window, saw a fox running round and round under the place where they sat, and soon observed that the fowls began to fall from the tree in great confusion. The fox immediately seized his victim, and the mystery was so far solved. A day or two afterwards the fox, a very large male, was killed in an adjoining paddock, and no further assaults were made upon the poultry.
In this case the result was possibly effected by vertigo; the birds, bewildered and amazed in the dim light, followed with their eyes the course of the sly depredator, as he ran swiftly in a circle beneath, until the frequent turning of their heads made them giddy and unable to keep their balance. But how did the fox know that such a result would follow?
The same gentleman gives, from his own observation, a case that is more to the point. Here a bird is the mesmeric practitioner. "I once saw a golden eagle which appeared entirely to fascinate a rabbit that was put into the large cage in which the eagle was kept. As soon as the rabbit was introduced, the eagle fixed his eye upon it, and the rabbit intently returned the gaze, and began going round the eagle in circles, approaching nearer each time, the eagle meanwhile turning on his axis (as it were) on the block of wood upon which he was seated, and keeping his eye fixed upon that of the rabbit.
"When the rabbit had approached very near to the bottom of the eagle's perch, it stood up on its hind legs, and looked the eagle in the face; the eagle then made his pounce, which appeared at once to break the charm, and the rabbit ran for its life, but it was too late for it to escape the clutch of the eagle, and the instant death which followed that tremendous squeeze."[181]
I am not sure how far a parallelism exists between this animal fascination by the eye, and that attraction which fire is well known to possess for many creatures. Shelley sings of
"The desire of the moth for the star,"
as if it were a romantic passion for that which is bright and beautiful. This is, of course, a poet's aspect; the insect-collector, who wants to fill his cabinet—"my friend the weaver," who nightly pursues his "untaxed and undisputed game"—well knows that the glare of his bull's-eye lamp will attract the moths by thousands on a damp night in June. The little flitting atoms pass and repass across the field of light, suddenly flashing into full radiance, and in an instant relapsing into the darkness, unless his gauze net is too rapid for them. I have often sat reading late at night with a candle in the window, and observed with interest how many insects of all orders will soon congregate on the outside; now and then some large moth coming up with a dull thud, or a great mailed beetle dashing against the glass with a crash that makes one look sharply up to see whether he has not cracked the pane. In Jamaica I have taken many valuable beetles and other insects around the candle-shades at an open window, which were not met with in any other way.