Part 10

MICE.

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SINCE men and mice first became acquainted with each other, the mouse has been an enigma to the man. That it possesses strange and mysterious powers he is fully aware, although himself unaffected by them; and to this day neither naturalists nor philosophers have been able to account for, or explain, the abject terror with which the mouse is capable of inspiring the female mind. To the male eye, the mouse is one of the most harmless and inoffensive of created things. With its soft coat and its bright eye, there are few prettier little creatures. It is very easily tamed and domesticated; and most boys have, at some time or other, kept mice as pets. It is affectionate, intelligent, and capable of acquiring all sorts of tricks. It is afraid of man, but it rapidly acquires confidence in him, and after a very few visits it will, if undisturbed, fearlessly pick up crumbs close to the foot of any man who will sit still and watch it. Mice at play are as pretty as kittens, without any of the spitefulness which readily shows itself in even the youngest of the cat tribe. Were the mouse unknown in England, a few imported here would soon, it might be thought, be regarded as the most charming little pets ever introduced.

Such is the mouse as it appears to man. It is true that he is obliged to wage war with it, for it is so prolific that if man and its other enemies did not keep down its numbers it would, in a very short time, produce a famine in the land. It has most destructive habits of burrowing in walls, and eating holes in flooring and wainscots; while its depredations in stacks, granaries, and other similar places are serious. Thus man is forced in self-defence to war against mice; but he does it without ill-feeling, and would rather be able to leave the pretty little things alone. The last thing that would enter his mind would be to be afraid of them, and the terror with which they inspire women is to him absolutely unaccountable. In many respects women are to the full as brave and courageous as men. In the horrors of a shipwreck, in the dangers of a siege, in times of great peril, such as the Indian Mutiny, women have, over and over again, showed themselves to be at least equal to men in bravery, in calmness, and in endurance. But the woman who would, pale but firm, face a lion in an arena, will fly in terror from a mouse; and many a moment of sweet revenge and triumph has been felt by men with spouses of strong minds and shrewish tongues, when they have seen them paralysed with terror by a tiny mouse.

History records no example of a mouse attacking a man, and, when tamed, they never use their teeth. They have no powers of scratching; they cannot assume a threatening aspect; they neither show their teeth, growl, nor spit; they cannot stick up their furs as can a cat; they are, in fact, absolutely without means of aggression, and yet women quail before them. Man has wearied himself with conjectures as to this phenomenon. The Greek and Roman philosophers were posed by it, and the saying, parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus, which has ignorantly been supposed to signify that a small matter was produced after great labour, has, when critically examined, an entirely different and far more profound meaning. The philosopher clearly desired to signify that it needed the labour of mountains to produce a creature capable of awing the female mind. In the Greek fable of the Lion and the Mouse, the same feeling of respect and appreciation for the smaller animal is clearly shown. Some have gone so far as to trace back the enmity between the female and the mouse to the earliest times, and the argument has been advanced that the word translated as serpent, in the account of the Fall of Man, really signified mouse, an explanation which alone seems to satisfy the exigencies of the case.

This hypothesis is greatly strengthened by the fact that the mouse does go on its belly; alone among quadrupeds its feet cannot be seen to move, and it apparently glides along on its stomach. Then, again, its head, and, indeed, its whole body, is very frequently bruised, and, in fact, crushed by the human heel, and for every serpent upon which this process is performed it is done a hundred thousand times upon mice. The mouse does not, it is true, in return bruise the heel of its bruiser; but neither does the serpent, so that this objection applies equally in both cases—indeed, a tight shoe is the only article which habitually bruises or raises blisters upon the human heel. This is no novel idea, for in some old paintings the tempter is pictured in the form of a mouse sitting on Eve’s shoulder, and whispering in her ear. That the Jews entertained a feeling of abhorrence for the mouse far above anything that can be accounted for by natural causes, is proved by the fact that Isaiah lxvi. 17 says, “Eating the abomination, and the mouse.” These facts, coupled with the abject terror inspired by the mouse in the female mind, are really worthy of the attention of divines, who cannot fail to notice that whereas the creature, translated serpent, is said to be more subtle than any other beast of the field, the word cunning, which is synonymous with subtle, is still essentially applied to the mouse; while—putting aside the fact that the snake is not a beast at all—no modern investigator has ever claimed any particular amount of cunning for the serpent.

The terror with which women regard the mouse finds expression in various unlooked-for ways. Man has no peculiar liking for his nether integuments, as is evidenced by the eagerness with which cockney sportsmen, who go North, don the Highland garb instead of trousers, and by the popularity among the young fellows who constitute the Scottish Volunteers, of the ordinance which transformed the whole regiment into a “kilted” corps. Among women, however, movements are constantly taking place for the adoption of male lower garments. Sometimes these are spoken of as bloomers, sometimes as knickerbockers, sometimes as divided skirts. The advocates of these garments base their arguments on the ground of health and convenience; but men, who go beneath the surface, are well aware that these are but pretexts, and that the real reason why women desire masculine garb is that they may the better protect their lower limbs from the onslaught of the marauding mouse. No one who has ever seen a woman stand on a chair and wrap her garments tightly round her ankles upon the alarm of “mouse,” can question how keen is the consciousness among the sex of the possibilities of attack by their formidable opponents offered by the present style of clothing. It cannot be pretended that it is the mere fear of being bitten which so unhinges the female nerves where mice are concerned, for there are women who make parrots their pets, although parrots sometimes bite atrociously, and are singularly treacherous withal. There are others who pet spiteful cats, and snappish lap-dogs, and whom neither scratches nor occasional bites at all discompose. It cannot, therefore, be argued that any fear of pain is at the bottom of their antipathy for mice. The mere fact that here and there women can be found who profess not to be afraid of mice in no way affects the general truth of the argument. There are women who are not afraid of cows; who will not jump up in an open boat if it rocks; who are not fond of babies; who do not care for kissing their female friends in public. There are even women who will dress as they please, and not as their dressmakers tell them. But these are the exceptions which prove rules, and the almost universal fear of mice by women can be accounted for only upon the hypothesis of which we have above made mention.

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CATS.

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THE cat is generally considered to be a domesticated animal, but it would be more justly described as a gregarious one. No one who sees the placid and indifferent air with which the cat conducts itself when within doors, and compares it with the wild rapture with which the creature lifts up its voice when assembled with five or six of its species upon the end of a garden wall, can question for an instant that the cat is above all things gregarious in its instincts. That domestication is alien to the feline nature is proved also by the fact that there are no recorded instances of lions, tigers, or even the wild cats of these islands, walking into a parlour and lying down upon the hearthrug of their own accord. In the case of the wild cat it may be urged that such an advance on its part would not be welcome, but assuredly no opposition would be offered to the lion or tiger who might yearn to domesticate itself in this manner. The extreme repugnance which the feline race in their wild state evince for fire is another proof of the absence of any domestic yearnings in their breasts, for fire is the emblem of domesticity. The cat, then, has clearly assumed domesticated habits under protest, and as against its innermost nature; but it must be admitted that the imputation of hypocrisy, which has been freely brought against the animal, is hardly justified. The cat, to do it justice, pretends to no fondness whatever for those who care for it. It will submit to be rubbed and stroked, and to be placed upon ladies’ laps, simply because it likes these attentions, not because it is grateful to those who render them. It will rub against a human leg, but will also rub against the leg of a table with an equal air of affection. It will not answer when called unless there be a prospect of food, but will gaze in stolid indifference at the fire, as if wholly unconscious of being addressed. This absence of affection in cats is in itself an argument against the Darwinian theory. Since the days of ancient Egypt, cats have been pets. Ladies have—in the absence of better subjects for affection—doted upon them from time immemorial; but in all these countless generations the cats have not been able to get up a reciprocal feeling. Friends of the species have endeavoured to urge in its favour that it is affectionate to its young. If, however, five out of six kittens are removed and drowned, the mother in no way concerns or troubles herself. She certainly will look sharp after the last, but this only shows that she likes to have something to nurse and play with. Had she had a particle of real love for her offspring, she would have cared for all alike.

An intense devotion to public assemblies of its kind upon housetops and walls, and to the raising of music, Wagnerian in its absence of melody, are the special characteristics of the cat. To gratify its passion for concerted music it will dare every danger. Showers of lumps of coal, of boots and brushes, cause but a momentary interruption of its song; and even wet weather, which of all things it most hates, will not suffice to damp its ardour. It can hardly be doubted that cats are well aware that their gatherings for vocal purposes are hateful to mankind; but this knowledge in no way affects them, and even the voice of the mistress, who an hour before bestowed bread and milk, is absolutely unheeded when raised in an agonised appeal for silence. The predatory instinct is strong in these creatures, and however well a cat be fed or treated, it remains a thief to the end of its life. It is believed by those best acquainted with them that the greater portion of the time spent by a cat sitting in a state of apparent somnolency on the hearthrug, is really occupied in maturing plans for the surreptitious carrying off of pats of butter, for raids upon the larder, or for the assassination of canary birds.

The question why the cat should of all creatures be selected by ladies as a domestic pet has occasioned high debate among philosophers of all ages. The animal possesses many vices. It is erratic in its habits, noisy, and thievish. It has no real affection for its mistress. It has but one virtue—it is soft, but many other things are soft which are free from drawbacks. Some have pretended to see a resemblance between the natures of the cat and the woman, but no sufficiently strong analogy can be traced to support so libellous an assertion. The fact that both love the fireside and hate going out into the wet, and that it is dangerous to rub either the wrong way, can scarcely be considered as of sufficient importance to warrant the suggestion of general similarity. The feeble plea that cats catch mice cannot be admitted as an argument in favour of their general acceptance. There are not mice to catch in a great many houses, and it is notorious that where there are, not one cat in fifty will trouble itself to catch them. The cat who can get milk given it in a saucer is not going to trouble itself by catching mice; and the knowledge that it is expected to pay for its board by keeping down mice troubles it not at all. Even as a mouse-catcher the cat is a poor creature—taking half an hour over a job which a terrier of the same size will perform in a second.

It has been urged that without cats there could be no cat shows, and this may be conceded frankly, but mankind might get on without these exhibitions. Were cats unobjectionable in their ways, the onus of proving why they should be abolished would rest with those who do not keep them; but as they are most objectionable, owing to the torture of nerves caused by their midnight assemblages, to say nothing of their destructiveness to well-kept gardens, it is for those who own them to prove that there is some compensation, some good quality, some advantage arising from the keeping of pets which are a pest and an annoyance to neighbours. A man is not allowed to hire an organ or a German band to play in front of his house, even in the day time, if a neighbour object; why, then, should he be allowed to keep a creature which renders night hideous with its caterwaulings? The legislation which taxes man’s faithful friend and companion, the dog, allows his wife to keep two or three cats, and to populate the whole of the district with their progeny, if she choose to do so. Over and over again has the desirability of placing a tax upon these animals been pressed upon successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, but they have hitherto turned deaf ears to the suggestion; and the reason is clear: Chancellors of the Exchequer are but mortal, and have wives. No man having a wife would venture to propose a tax upon cats, and until we have a minister who is without either a wife or other female relations, sisters, aunts, or cousins, the cat will remain master of the situation.

And yet we are not altogether without hope. The present is essentially an age of association. There are Salvation Armies, Blue Ribbon Armies, Good Templars, Vegetarians, and Anti-tobacconists. Every one is interested in the well-doing of every one else. It cannot be doubted that sooner or later there will be an Association for the Suppression of Bad Language, and the very first step which such a body must take would be the suppression of the cat nuisance. It is calculated that at least 90 per cent. of those who have fallen into the lamentable habit of using strong expressions have been driven thereto, in the first place, by the voice of the midnight cat; and a pious divine has gone so far as to admit that at least mental profanity is absolutely universal, even among the best of men, under these circumstances. Even ladies of irreproachable morals and conduct have admitted the use of mental bad language, under the irritation caused by hours of sleeplessness through the infliction of a concert on the tiles. A society which would take the matter in hand would command an enormous support, although the great proportion of the subscriptions and donations in furtherance of its object would be anonymous, for few men would venture upon an open adherence to a society which, as a first step towards the suppression of swearing, would undertake to put down the domestic cat.

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THE LADYBIRD.

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THE ladybird occupies among insects a position very similar to that held by the robin among birds, and is similarly protected by a feeling akin to superstition. It must be owned that the robin has no peculiar claims upon the affection of man, on the grounds of benefits bestowed. It sings prettily, but there are many birds which surpass it in this respect; it has a friendly confidence in man, but not more so than has the sparrow; it can scarcely be considered to hold very high rank among the birds that render man vital services by acting as exterminators of the pests of the fields and gardens, and, indeed, it takes an ample toll of seed and fruit for any service it may do in the way of destroying insects. The jay’s bright feathers do not afford it protection from the keeper’s gun, and the patch of red on the breast of the robin would scarcely in itself account for the general feeling in its favour. Nor would the pretty markings on the back of the ladybird, for there are many more brilliant and showy insects; and the affection and kindly treatment which it receives, even from children, can hardly be explained, save as an instinct implanted by nature in the human breast, as a protection for one of his greatest friends and allies. Next, perhaps, to the ichneumon, the ladybird is the most valuable of all insects to man. The bee furnishes him with wax and honey, the silkworm with a fabric for the adornment of his female kind, the cochineal insect with a dye, the locust with a food, this being, however, but a poor return for its destruction of vegetation. The worm acts as a subsoil plough, takes down dead leaves and herbage, and brings fresh soil to the surface; many beetles work as scavengers, the Spanish fly provides us with blisters, and, indeed, it may be accepted that the great majority of insects are, in one way or another, directly or indirectly of benefit to man. But it may be doubted if any, save only the ichneumon, can vie with the ladybird in this respect. Its life is spent in the pursuit and destruction of the aphis, which, were it not for its vigilance, would so increase that it would become, in temperate climates, as great a scourge as is the locust in the localities it inhabits. Not only does the ladybird as a perfect insect live upon the aphis, but in its earlier, though less known, stage it is equally destructive to them, and from the time when it issues from the egg to its death its whole life is passed in the destruction of these pests of the farmer and gardener. In its labours this way it is ably assisted by the larvæ of the Hemerobius, which, in its perfect state, is a brilliant four-winged fly; and by those of the Syrphidæ, which transfix and devour their thousands on their trident-like mandibles. But these creatures, useful as they are, are far less common than the ladybirds, which are to be found on every plant, and, being amongst the earliest insects to make their appearance in the spring, are ready to meet the first invasion of the aphis. It may frankly be admitted that the ladybird is not, in this work of destruction, animated solely by a desire to benefit man, and even that this is quite a secondary matter in its opinion. This, however, may be said of many other recognised benefactors of man. The bullock is considered none the less a benefactor because he eats, not with the express purpose of making flesh, but to gratify his appetite; while the sheep values his warm coat rather because it keeps out the cold than because it will some day furnish man with a garment.

There are a great variety of ladybirds, differing only in the colours and markings of their coats; these are for the most part red, black, or yellow, with black, yellow, or white spots. The red with seven black spots is the most common, and is found all over Europe and in parts of Asia and Africa. It is everywhere a favourite with children, and in France they are called Vaches à Dieu or Bêtes de la Vierge, and are considered sacred to the Virgin. Why this should be so is not very clear, but it would be much more easy to find explanations for the title than for the verses that especially endear them to children throughout this country—

“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, Your house is on fire, your children alone.”

There are two or three versions of the last two words, but all alike express that there is danger to the children as well as to the house. The antiquity of this legend is prodigious; it is one of the group brought by the earliest arrivals in Europe from the Far East, and there can be little doubt that it came to us from Scandinavia. It is familiar to children, with but slight variation, all over Europe, and African children repeat an almost identical sentence over the ladybird. As the legends current in Europe and Asia are but seldom found among the sons of Ham, it does not seem by any means beyond the bounds of probability that the legend was in existence before the Flood, and that the children of the sons of Noah carried it to the various quarters of the world when they scattered from the common centre.

But, though there can be no dispute as to the enormous antiquity of these apparently non-sensible lines, scientific men, although agreeing that there must be a deep and hidden meaning somewhere, are quite unable to arrive at any consensus as to what that meaning can be. As of late years it has been the habit of scientific men, whenever they cannot find any other satisfactory explanation of an ancient legend or story, to assign it to one of the sun myths, “Ladybird, ladybird,” must now be considered as included in that broad category, and so takes its place by the side of the siege of Troy, the wars of the Gods with the Titans, and other apparently widely diverse legends. The highest credit is due to scientific men for the ingenuity shown in the invention of this sun-myth limbo, into which they are able to shunt away all legends and traditions that prove too tough for them to unravel. But, failing to grapple with the story of the burning of the ladybird’s house, it would certainly be satisfactory if we could get with certainty at the legend that connects them with the Virgin. The French call them Bêtes de la Vierge, the German Unser Herrenhuhn, while our own ladybird, which is, of course, a mere shortening of “Our Lady’s bird,” is a literal translation of the German name, the French differing only in calling the insect a beast, while the Germans and ourselves call it a bird. The most plausible supposition is that as the Virgin is in many Catholic pictures depicted as pierced to the heart with seven swords, the seven black spots on the red ladybird are considered as typical of those wounds, the form of the little creature being not unlike that of a heart.

Seeing the extreme value of the ladybird’s assistance as a destroyer of the green fly, it has more than once been seriously proposed to introduce breeding establishments for its multiplication; and there can be no doubt, were this practicable, agriculturists, and especially hop-growers, whose bines are cruelly ravaged by the green fly, would benefit vastly. The silkworm is bred in enormous quantities, and there seems no reason why the ladybird should be less susceptible of cultivation, if it could but be taught to lay aside its habits of restlessness. Unfortunately, the ladybird is a frequent and rapid traveller, and the hop-grower would have no assurance that his neighbour’s gardens would not benefit more than his own by his labours in breeding it. Few beetles take so readily to the wing; it runs fast, too, on the little legs packed so snugly away under the flat side of its hemisphere. Still, as the flea can be taught not to jump, it ought to be possible to restrain the ladybird from flying; and, in that case, if kept amply supplied with its favourite food, it might be content to breed in captivity, and the management of such an establishment would be a source of great interest and amusement to children. Owing, perhaps, to its immunity from cruel treatment at the hands of man, the ladybird exhibits no fear whatever of him. While the spider will rush to a hiding-place, the caterpillar drop itself from a twig, and the flea endeavour to escape by the aid of its prodigious activity from the touch of man, the ladybird will run unconcernedly across his hand, and, indeed, appears to take a pleasure in so doing, until, tired of the amusement, it opens its wing-cases, and, after a preliminary flourish of its wings, goes off in a swift flight in search of its next meal. Properly trained, the ladybird ought to be a skilful performer of tricks, although we are not aware that any efforts have been made in that direction, but a regiment of them drilled as soldiers and taught to manœuvre accurately to the sound of the bugle should certainly be an attractive spectacle.

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THE DOG.

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OF the various works of man, there are few of which he has more reason to be proud than the transformation under his hands of the wild dog into the domesticated animal. The change was not early effected; during Scriptural times it had made but little progress. The term “dog” is everywhere used as one of opprobrium. “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this?” is in itself sufficient to show that the possibility of the dog being possessed of many virtues had never occurred to the speaker. The dog was, indeed, regarded down to comparatively modern times in three lights only: as a scavenger, as a guard against wild beasts, and as an assistant in the chase, and it is thus that he is still viewed in the East and by uncivilised peoples. It must be owned that the wild dog, or the dog such as he exists on sufferance in Oriental communities, has but few higher claims, that he is by nature but little in advance of his cousins the wolf, the jackal, and the coyote, and that he is cowardly, cringing, and ferocious according to circumstance. His virtues, in fact, are at this stage altogether latent; he has been cowed by a long course of misapprehension and ill-treatment, and displays only his worst qualities. It is as difficult to recognise him as a near relation to the civilised dog as to see the connection between a Digger Indian and a Shakespeare or a Newton. It is, then, no small credit to man that he has discovered and brought out the grand qualities of the dog, and that in making him his companion and his friend he has developed virtues equal to those he himself possesses.