His sleep this time was of very short duration, for the tug-tugging again commenced. He now raised his hand, at the same time that he opened his eyes, and seized hold, not of a weasel, but of a rat. He threw him away, thinking that that would be enough. Being assured that there were no weasels there—for rats and weasels never associate—he now thought he should be able to get a little sleep. He had no idea that the rat would return.
But in this he was disappointed. He was just beginning to sleep when he heard the rat again. He looked up, and found that two rats were approaching him. So long as there were only two, he knew he could manage them. He allowed them to climb up the stones and smell all about him. One of them mounted his face, and sat upon it. They next proceeded to his wallet, and endeavoured to pull it from under his head. They had almost succeeded in doing so, when he laid hold of his wallet and drove them off.
Being now in a sort of fossilised state from wet and cold, Edward did not attempt to sleep again, but rose up from his bed of stones, secured all his things, and marched away to recover his animal heat and resume his explorations.
THE OTTER.
Speaking of the Otter as a night-roamer, Edward observes:—“I am not aware who first burlesqued the Otter as an amphibious animal. He must have known very little of the animal’s true habits, and nothing at all of its anatomical structure. The error thus promulgated seems to have taken deep root. That the Otter is aquatic in habits is well known. He goes into the water to fish, but he is forced to come up again to breathe. In fact, a very small portion of the Otter’s life is spent in the water. There are many birds that are far more aquatic than the Otter. There are some, indeed, that never leave the water night nor day; yet no one calls them amphibious birds. I have seen the Otter, in his free, unfettered, and unmolested condition, both in the sea and the river, go into the water, and disappear many a time, and I have often watched for his reappearance. The longest time that he remained under water was from three to four minutes; the usual time was from two to three minutes. I have also watched numbers of water birds, who have also to descend for their food, and I must say that the greater number of them exceed the Otter in the time that they remain below water. Some of them remain double the time. I once saw a Great Northern Diver remain below water more than nine minutes. A porpoise that I once watched, remained down about ten minutes; and so on with other sea-birds and animals.”
Many of these night-roaming animals—such as the weasel, rat, badger, otter, and polecat—are seen during the day; but these may only be regarded as stray individuals, their principal feeding time being at night. The rat may forage in the daytime, and the weasel is sometimes to be seen hunting when the sun is high. But there was one circumstance in connection with the manners and habits of these creatures which surprised Edward not a little, which was,—that although he very seldom saw any of them in the evening, or until after it was dark,—he never missed seeing them in the morning, and sometimes after it had become daylight. The same remark is, in a measure, applicable to many of the night insects, to land crustaceans, beetles, many of the larger moths, sandhoppers, and slaters.
THE CASTLE OF THE BOYNE.
THE FUMART.
One of the most severe encounters that Edward ever had with a nocturnal roamer was with a Polecat or Fumart[26] in the ruined castle of the Boyne. The polecat is of the same family as the weasel, but it is longer, bigger, and stronger. It is called Fumart because of the fœtid odour which it emits when irritated or attacked. It is an extremely destructive brute, especially in the poultry-yard, where it kills far more than it eats. Its principal luxury seems to be to drink the blood and suck the brains of the animals it kills. It destroys everything that the gamekeeper wishes to preserve. Hence the destructive war that is so constantly waged against the polecat.