IV.—CURIOUS CUPBOARDS.
The inborn wisdom which Providence gives animals for their good is clearly shown by something very like forethought about food supplies, an instinct which tells creatures to lay by 'for a rainy day.' It is less strongly marked among the winged races, because they prefer to fly in search of fresh supplies when the old fail, and seldom provide cupboards or larders at home. Yet there are birds that make stores. After a full meal many of the crow tribe, including the raven, rook, and jackdaw, will put away and hoard what is left. A magpie once paid me a visit, perching on an ash-tree, the boughs of which almost brushed against my bedroom window. Very early one morning he awoke me by calling out his own name, together with a lot of chattering, the meaning of which appeared to be that 'Maggie' was both hungry and thirsty. He was tame and talkative, and had clearly escaped from somewhere. I placed a saucer of milk and bread, with a dish of meat, cut up, and another of fresh water, on the sill of the open window, and soon had the pleasure of seeing my guest making a hearty meal. After eating till he could eat no more, he took a splendid bath out of the water-dish, muttering hoarsely all the while, and strutting up and down as he eyed the remaining meat, which he felt unable to swallow. From time to time he cast a cunning look my way, as if to hint politely that he wished to be alone. 'Go about your business, do,' I thought the look said; so I went out, shut the door, and watched him through the keyhole. With much chuckling Maggie then laid his plans, and carried them out.
That night, on going to bed, I found several lumps of meat hidden under my pillow; a further search revealed a second layer beneath the bolster. A few bits were crammed into chinks round the window-sashes, and the rest was concealed in various convenient spots. There Maggie had placed them to await the time when they should be wanted. He himself roosted on one leg in the ash-tree, looking like a feather mop, and was spared the grief of seeing his hoards discovered. But, in spite of the hidden store, he roused me at dawn the next morning by shrill screams for breakfast.
"His playful habit of pulling out the pegs."
I knew Maggie would be claimed by somebody, and sure enough a woman, who had tracked him by his voice, soon came and asked leave to 'call him back.' But Maggie refused to come, and as the idea of a cage for any living creature is distasteful to me, I was glad to arrange for his free board and lodging in the tree near my window. I found that at his old quarters, one of a row of cottages hard by, he had kept things lively by his playful habit of watching the neighbours hang out their clean linen in the back yards, getting loose from his cage, pouncing down on the clothes-lines, pulling out the pegs, and chuckling with glee when all the 'wash' fell down in the dirt, and had to be done over again.
Dogs and cats, as descendants of wild races, still keep a trace of the old customs of their ancestors. Who does not know the anxious look with which a well-fed pet dog will dig a hole and bury a bone that he does not happen to want, as if he had an old age in the workhouse to dread? I have seen a little Yorkshire terrier go the round of the dinner-table, sit up and beg piteously, pretending that 'the smallest trifle is most thankfully received,' look carefully round, and, thinking that no one saw him, bury those trifles under the hearthrug, and return for more. The habit is not so common in cats, but I have known more than one puss do the same thing. One little tabby, found in the snow on my doorstep, would play with a piece of meat as if it were a mouse, make believe to kill it, and then hide it away under the edge of the carpet, with a great show of sniffing and scraping, as if to make sure that no other cat could scent it out. She had once been nearly starved, and so had learnt prudence.
A few small animals, the squirrel, field mouse, and dormouse, are store-keepers by nature. The larder is placed at a convenient distance from the nest in which these little animals sleep, and if forgotten, or accidentally left unused, the nuts, seeds, &c., often taken root and grow. Many a spreading chestnut, sturdy oak, and shady beech, to say nothing of hazel copse, owes life to these thrifty little folk, and thus the tiny woodlanders give back to nature a thousandfold more than they take. More than a bushel of raw potatoes was once found laid up by a water-rat in his winter cupboard, underground.
It is not every squirrel, however, that lays up a winter store. It seems that if that prudent little animal sees his way to a fair supply of food, or lives where human beings will provide victuals, he takes no such trouble. He is, at any rate, a good judge of nuts. A gardener who liked ripe filberts, and was looking forward to a fine crop in his plantation, found out that a squirrel in the neighbourhood liked them too, and knew how to 'sample' them better than himself. One day the master of the filbert-trees came to his wife with a happy air. 'I have done the squirrel this time, at all events,' said he; 'for I found a heap of filberts he had put together, all ready to carry off, little by little, and now when he returns he will find them gone.' Not a bit of it! Every nut was a bad one, which the knowing little rascal had tossed away in disgust, while he picked out all the good ones to eat or take home!
Edith Carrington.