Part 25

Quite famous in their day were the chameleons of Mlle. de Saudéry, a seventeenth century novelist. One of the kindest-hearted women in France, she was continually giving to the poor, or appealing for the distressed; so that her fame to-day rests rather upon her charities than her writings. Her chameleons excited much curiosity, and strangers went to see them, as one of the sights of the city. The last glimpse we get of them in history is a post-mortem one, in 1698, when Dr. Martin Lister visited Paris, and called upon the venerable novelist--then in her ninety-first year. She made herself very agreeable, and finally, he says, took him to her closet and showed him “the skeletons of two chameleons which she had kept near four years alive. In winter she lodged them in cotton, and in the fiercest weather kept them under a ball of copper filled with hot water.”

The good lady would have sympathized with Antonia, Mark Antony’s beautiful daughter, who petted the murenæ in her fish-ponds, and of one in particular became so fond that she fastened gold ear-rings to its head--a favor the poor fish could well have spared.

Washington Irving upheld the right of harmless snakes to live in peace; and a pretty story is told of his preventing a guest from killing a little striped adder--pointing the lesson of tolerance by gently stroking his protégé.

The great Goethe was in full accord with this feeling. He kept a snake for some months, feeding it himself, and caring for it, until his interest, scientific at first, became personal and affectionate. The creature became quite friendly, and would uprear its head in recognition, whenever the master approached.

The poet’s mother once alluded to his favorite--rather femininely--as “a nasty thing.” “Oh,” said her son, “if the snake would but spin himself a house, and turn into a butterfly to oblige her, we should hear no more about ‘nasty things.’ But we can’t all be butterflies.... Poor snake! they should treat you better. How he looks at me! how he rears his head! Is it not as if he knew that I was taking his part?”

Perhaps, however, even Irving and Goethe, despite their theories, would have shrunk from the extraordinary pet which Sir Joseph Banks kept in his library, much to the horror of unsuspecting guests. It was, in fact, a boa-constrictor!

People of contemplative habits, who enjoy a quiet life among their books, and hate mortally the intrusion of broom or duster, are very apt to be interested in spiders. These insects have the same meditative disposition, and an equal aversion to housemaids. The wise Spinoza spent his odd moments in training them to recognize signals, and to have little combats with each other. Magliabecchi, the old Florentine librarian, had a similar fancy. From morning till night, from night till morning, year in, year out, he might be found reclining in a sort of wooden cradle, immovably fixed among piles of books and manuscripts; and which, in course of time, was further anchored to the surrounding objects by strands of cobweb. Here he lived, reading volume after volume with insatiable zeal, eating quantities of hard-boiled eggs, and cautioning whoever called upon him not to trouble his dear spiders!

Such intimacy would never have suited Fourier, who was horribly frightened one morning as he lay in bed, by seeing a small spider on the ceiling above him. Up he sprang; but instead of dressing, or dislodging the intruder with a broom, he ran from room to room, screaming for help. “Quick! hurry!” cried the poor reformer; “do somebody take it away quick!”

The most famous, and undoubtedly the best-known patrons of spiders, are Mahomet and Robert Bruce. Of the former it is told that he once fled, hotly pursued by foes, and concealed himself in a cave. Straightway, an obliging spider threw his web across the entrance; so that when the enemy came up, seeing it, they said, “No one has been here--for behold the unbroken web!” and carried the search elsewhere. Thus the Prophet escaped, and good Mahometans have honored the race of Webspinner since that day.

The story of Bruce is equally pleasant. The weary king was about to give up the struggle for his rights, when encouraged by the efforts of a patient little spider, to “try again,” he did so--this time saving both life and kingdom.

In the Cricket on the Hearth, Charles Dickens spread the fame of that friendly little creature far and near. But long before his day, the eccentric Lord Byron (uncle to the poet) had diverted his bitter old age by the study of its ways. Human society, except that of a few servants, he would none of; but for hours together would lie upon the ground, playing with the crickets he had tamed, making them perform tricks, and--if they displeased him--whipping them with little wisps of hay.

From so moody and misanthropic an old gentleman, it is a pleasure to turn to a lady now living--an artist--who cultivates crickets on social principles, and reaps duly a large social reward.

The following account of her pets has been sent by a friend.

“The crickets of Miss C----’s studio days were considered such a curiosity that she had letters from California and all over the country, asking about them and the care of them. Her end and aim was to raise crickets from the eggs, laid in glass globes in the studio, that would sing in the winter, when all the summer crickets were frozen up in the fields, beneath the snow; crickets to sing to her all through the long winter nights, when the wind would be howling down the chimney, and the sleet beating against the windows.

“Years and years gave no success, beyond a few, that were sure to die before the end of January; but at last, just the winter before she married, there was one sweet singer which made music for her all winter long, and which she trained to sing in the ruffle of her neck. Better yet, it liked to sit and sing in the ruffle at her left wrist, while the hand kept very quiet, holding the mahl-stick at the easel. Meanwhile, Toodles, the immense maltese trained cat, would sing an accompaniment from the rug before the open grate fire.”

Now is not that a picture of cheery cosiness and comfort! I trust the lady will pardon her separation from other artists and their pets, in consideration of the pleasant glow her open studio door lets shine upon the Odd Set.

Who would ever think of a snail becoming famous? Such is the case, however; and in the Museum of Natural History, at South Kensington, the very hero may be seen of whom we write. Also his portrait, together with his story, enlivens the pages of Dr. Woodward’s Manual of the Mollusca, under the heading of Helix Desertorum. He was brought with other specimens, in 1846, from Egypt; and having so withdrawn into his shelly house that it seemed empty, was gummed to a piece of cardboard, numbered, named, and placed in the museum. Here he lay for four years, in a kind of Rip Van Winkle slumber, his very existence unknown, until in 1850 he woke, and tried to walk off from the card. But to do this, he must have abandoned his well-gummed house, and such a sacrifice was not to be thought of. So he snoozed again, until an inquisitive scientist noticed his footprints, immersed him in warm water, and thus at length released him from “durance vile.” His picture was drawn, his history noted, and then--no higher distinction being possible for a snail--he was disposed of, let us say. He ceased to be, and only his shell remains.

A yet more wonderful pet has lately died in Edinburgh at the age of certainly sixty years, and very possibly more. Its name was Granny, and it was a sea-anemone. Found on the wild Berwickshire coast, in Scotland, in 1828, it remained with its discoverer until 1854, and then passed into the care of Prof. Flemming. By him it was placed in the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, and there lived a peaceful if monotonous life. Every two weeks it was given half a mussel, which was the only food it required. But lack of incident was no drawback to fame; and, like “Helix desertorum,” Granny was sketched, described, and visited. More wonderful yet, it possessed an album, wherein famous visitors inscribed their names, and whose autographic treasures will long commemorate the tranquil fascinations of Granny!

With these odd characters may be counted Sir John Lubbock’s wasp. We usually think of wasps, in the language of a modern humorist, as little creatures, very inflammable in their nature, and hasty in their conclusions, or end. The wasp in question seems to have been gentler-tempered or milder-mannered than the majority of her race; and came to be on sociable terms with her scientific friend. Like so many pets, she was short-lived. “In her last hours,” says Sir John, “she would take no food, though she still moved her legs, wings and abdomen. The following day, I offered her food for the last time, but both head and thorax were dead or paralyzed; she could but wag her tail. So far as I could judge, her death was quite painless, and she now occupies a place in the British Museum.”

The quaintest, most pathetic pet in history, I take it, was the fly, which set out--very gaily, no doubt--with other flies, in a ship bound to Spitzbergen. One by one, with the increasing cold, his companions perished, until at last he was left alone. It was no great comfort that the sailors cherished him as never fly was cherished before; and erelong, despite the tenderest care, he turned over on his back and died. He was honored with burial, and even with tears, as the last frail link, at home’s antipodes, with home.

To conclude this Odd Set, there can hardly be anything odder than the story of a toad with which formerly I was well acquainted. His summer residence was the shady, cool brick floor of a kitchen porch, with a cistern conveniently set in one corner. He was a portly, contemplative fellow, and had no objection to receiving flies from the human race. It was his habit to come out from retirement towards evening, and sitting on the well-curb, imbibe the evening air and insects. On one of these occasions he was seen by a grave college professor and a student of strong experimental bias who--noticing the June fireflies sparkling all around--were seized with the desire to give him a light meal.

It was quite to his taste, and he swallowed a number of flies. But even his capacious stomach had a limit, and when it could accommodate no more, he sat motionless and pensive on the curb. And then there was a curious sight. He had absorbed the fireflies so rapidly, that though imprisoned, they were still alive; and, beginning to glow, they turned their captor into a kind of Chinese lantern. Actually, he was lit up from within, and a soft luminousness shone through his thin membranous throat. Erelong the glow ceased--the “slaves of the lamp” were dead. It was an uncanny, goblin-like sight; but my own sympathies, I confess, were rather with the lights than the lantern.

IX.

MILITARY PETS.

IX.

MILITARY PETS.

Ælian tells us that among the Greeks at Marathon fought one soldier who had a favorite hound. As the two were friends and fellow-soldiers in life, so in death they still lay side by side upon that immortal battle field. And, says Ælian, their effigies were placed together on the memorial tablet, to the end that their fame might live long after their bodies were dust.

Was it not finely done--to commemorate with the man that died for his country the animal that died for his master?