One of the first things I stumbled over—and it is one of those incredible truths which has been right under my nose all my life—is how completely we have lost contact with the natural world around us.
That is a frightening fact, for it could mean death for all of us.
6
THE TERRIBLE INTENT
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED why some people can walk through the woods and see all kinds of wildlife, whereas others see nothing?
The answer to that is something I learned while trying to solve the mystery of the doves. We have lost all contact with that great natural world beyond our doors. In fact, we are so far out of step with it, so destructive and uncaring, that we seem like insensitive invaders from another planet.
When you enter a wild area, all life around you is very much aware of how you feel about it. The way you feel decides how much of that life you see.
Suppose you are out hunting and are all fired up about bringing home your share of the game. The chances are that you will see very little game close enough to shoot. With every step forward you are broadcasting the fact that your intentions are deadly.
Just being a human is bad enough. The experience of centuries has taught wildlife that you cannot be trusted and that you are better avoided. And when you become a killer on the loose, every creature wants to hide.
Indian hunters of old knew that their deadly intentions could be felt by the game they stalked. But they had to kill for food, so they were careful to turn their thoughts to something else while they crept forward into shooting range. A Cherokee even offered a little prayer just before he shot, begging the creature’s forgiveness for taking its life.
Now, suppose you are out hunting and suddenly change your point of view.
My cousin had that experience while hunting deer in Colorado. In the beginning he and a friend tramped many miles through the mountains, and the only deer they saw were a few in the distance, swiftly retreating. Then the hunters became lost, and for several heartbreaking days they struggled through the wilderness, trying to find a way out. Now they saw deer, dozens of deer. Many of them were only a stone’s throw away, and this in spite of the fact that both hunters were still carrying their rifles in plain sight. But by that time neither man had the least interest in killing anything. They were exhausted and frightened, and all they wanted was to get home.
When man is in trouble, the creatures around him know it, and the list of those which have been of help is endless. In their book, The Strange World of Animals and Pets, Vincent and Margaret Gaddis give many instances of animals, and even birds, coming to the assistance of humans in need. This, of course, will be no surprise to anyone with a cat or a dog. These animals know instantly when something is wrong. If they are unable to right it, they can pour out sympathy in unlimited quantities.
There is another kind of hunter, who never carries a weapon, who always sees the wildlife around him. He goes forth to discover and admire, not to kill. And since all living things, even plants, like to be loved and told how wonderful they are, they are not reluctant about showing themselves when this person comes along.
Most hunters of this kind are naturalists. By that I mean amateur naturalists, people who would not dream of destroying a creature so it could be stuffed for a museum. Many of them, if they discovered something very rare, wouldn’t tell even their best friends about it for fear the news would spread and tragedy result. As a rule these people are loners, and when they go forth to see what they can see, the world of nature usually meets them more than halfway. Sometimes it practically snows them under.
In one of his outdoor books, Edwin Way Teale tells of a friend who is always surrounded by a cloud of birds every time she goes walking in her woods. They alight on her hands, head, arms and shoulders until they no longer have standing room. Other nature writers tell of similar cases, and they are by no means as rare as you would think. One, of course, is my neighbor the beekeeper. I have never seen him without a considerable chorus of feathered companionship, though most of his friends fly away at my approach. Another such case was my great-uncle, a ripsnorting old rascal who was never quite tamed even in his final days. But the birds, as well as the small animals around his farm, thought he was great. When he became too ancient to stir far from the rocking chair on his porch, the birds would come to him. They would settle all around him, and take turns singing!
And there was the last keeper of St. Marks Light, down on the Gulf. I had heard that he had a very special way with wild geese, so I went there once with a photographer, hoping to get pictures for a magazine article about him. A number of people have managed to get on speaking terms with wild geese, but it has always been done within the confines of a well-protected sanctuary. As far as I know, the keeper of St. Marks Light was the only man who could stand in the open and actually have wild geese come to his call. They would appear as if from nowhere, swoop down from the sky, circle close around him, and feed from his hand. He loved those geese, and the geese loved him—but we never managed to get good pictures of man and birds together, not even with a telephoto lens! If the photographer and I crept closer than a quarter of a mile, those wary geese would take off as if we were contaminated!
To us they were merely the subject for a magazine article that would put money in our pockets. All we wanted was to get the job done and collect for our efforts. But those contrary geese would not cooperate! We were furious. Those crazy, ding-ratted, blankety-blank birds! We could have wrung their necks.
Our feelings about them were just the opposite of those of the lighthouse keeper, so the geese simply did not care for our company.
On the other hand, crows have never cared for my company either, but instead of shunning me as the geese did, they always took another approach. When I lived in the Midwest, where I met so many squirrels, I used to go hiking daily, and would often be followed by a great flock of derisive crows, telling me how little they thought of me.
If you have never been told off and put in your place by a flock of crows, you have no idea how most wild creatures feel about humans. Usually the wild is voiceless when man is around, but a crow always has something to say. Furthermore he has a terrific vocabulary and can give full expression to his feelings. It has been years since I crossed an Illinois cornfield with a raucous escort of some fifty cawing, haw-hawing black demons, but my ears still burn with the things they said.
Since they are shot at continually in the corn country, crows can be pardoned for having a low opinion of man, and for being loudly outspoken when they have the chance. Their big chance, of course, comes when they can catch someone like me abroad without a gun. When it happened, I used to think I was being personally singled out for abuse. Now I realize it was just the wild talking back to all mankind.
But such language!
7
A GRIEVING SNAKE
WE HUMANS are very proud of our ability to reason, but with the arrival of the doves it soon became obvious to me that pure reason is of far less importance in the world of nature than some other qualities. Reason alone, of course, would never have brought the second dove to the first. Only an intuitive feeling did that. An intuition—which is another name for ESP—seems to be rooted deep in the emotions.
Do wild creatures actually have the same type of emotions as humans?
They do, and it comes as a real shock even to experienced woodsmen when they suddenly discover this fact. John Kulish, a trapper for many years, tells in his book Bobcats Before Breakfast how his entire view of wildlife changed after he came upon the grieving mate of an otter he had killed. No human could have felt a greater desolation. No one knows how a wild goose feels when it loses its mate, but I can find no record of one ever taking another mate when the first is lost. Many an amateur naturalist, moreover, has seen a songbird go into a state of quivering shock when its mate has a sudden accident and then spring up bursting with joy when the other bird revives.
To lose a mate is one thing, but what about the los
s of a friend? There are friendships among animals as strong as any found among humans, as every racehorse owner knows. When a horse forms such an attachment—it may be with almost any creature from a dog to a donkey—the friend travels with the horse, or no races are won that day. If the friend dies, it may be a long time before the horse even attempts to race again. In one case I know, where the lost friend was a little donkey, the horse stopped racing entirely.
But what of the lower forms of life?
“Snakes have feelings too,” my uncle told me. “I know two very unusual stories about them that will prove it. Most people may find them hard to believe, but I assure you they are true. One happened to me, and the other to a young neighbor girl.”
My uncle’s first story is one I’ll never forget. When he was a young man in Florida, clearing some land for a garden, he was digging out a stump when it suddenly broke open. The hollow interior, he discovered, was the home of a pair of smallish brown snakes. They happened to be the brown variety of the king snake, although he didn’t know that at the time—nor did they look small at first glance. They seemed perfectly huge. The brown variety of the king snake has markings somewhat like a rattler’s, and my uncle, who fears no man, can be pardoned for being frightened. His first reaction was to swing his mattock and try to kill both snakes. Unfortunately he killed only one.
I say unfortunately because it would have been better if the second snake had died with the first. But it escaped unharmed, and from that day on it began to haunt him.
That little, harmless brown snake, one of man’s best friends, watched for my uncle and followed him whenever he left the house. Often, when he was at work somewhere about the place, he would turn suddenly and see the snake only a few yards away, eyeing him steadily. Time after time, when he was sitting on his porch, he glimpsed it testing the screen wire, searching for a way to get inside.
A man with a pair of king snakes living on his property can count himself lucky, for they are better mousers than cats, and poisonous snakes seldom live long around them. My uncle had done a terrible thing, and now a friend had become an enemy.
My uncle was sorry, but in the beginning he was not greatly disturbed. Surely, he thought, the creature would tire of this silly stalking game and go away.
But the little brown snake didn’t leave. Day after day, week after week, it continued to haunt him. He had destroyed its home and killed its mate, and it sought revenge with the only weapon it had that might succeed against a man.
Every animal is instantly aware of fear in another, and there can be no question but that the snake knew the exact state of my uncle’s nerves from one morning to the next. By now he was in a very jumpy condition, and getting worse daily. Something had to be done.
My uncle tried every means he could think of to kill the creature. Each time he failed. King snakes are very quick and intelligent, and this one always outwitted him. The haunting continued.
Desperate, my uncle finally won the strange duel by leaving a weapon of some kind in every handy place he could think of. One day the little snake got too close, and my uncle was able to snatch up a hidden hoe and put an end to it. But he was never happy about his victory, and even now the memory of it still haunts him.
My uncle’s second story is entirely different, and because of Zan and the doves it deserves some thought. A neighbor, young Paula, had a pet snake. This pet was a wild snake that lived in the adjoining meadow. It was a secret from her parents, who would have been horrified, had they known of it, and surely would have killed it. But Paula, far from being horrified, must have felt only the greatest admiration and delight when she first saw it, or they could never have become acquainted. Evidently the snake knew instantly how she felt and responded with the same kind of feeling, for they became fast friends. Whenever she slipped into the meadow to play, Paula would call her friend by tapping on a spoon with a pebble. The snake always came to her signal.
My uncle did not know whether Paula’s friend was a harmless variety of snake or one of the dreaded rattlers. But as long as it was her friend, she was safe even with the most vicious diamondback. They are gentlemen. They strike only for food or in defense, and they will not abuse a trust. To the person with that rare ability to understand them, they are capable of a wealth of feeling and affection.
Grace Wiley, a herpetologist of California, happened to be such a person. She collected poisonous snakes of all kinds, and in the past many people have watched her—from behind the safety of a glass door—“gentle” some of the most vicious and deadly snakes on earth. She usually accomplished this miracle in a very short time, the only sounds being the incredulous gasps from those privileged to witness the performance.
She would sit quietly in the corner of a small, bare room which contained only her chair and a sturdy table. From the moment the wild, caged specimen was loosed upon the table, Miss Wiley would begin silently beaming her thoughts upon it—thoughts of deep admiration and affection and respect. Gradually the creature’s fury and distrust would melt away. Now, seeing her as an equal instead of an enemy, an equal offering trust and friendship, it would offer the same by permitting her to pet it with a padded stick. Soon the stick would be laid aside, and Grace Wiley would be at the table, for she had made a friend.
Other people, including J. Allen Boone, have used Grace Wiley’s approach to “gentle” everything from killer mustangs to killer whales, and to “tame” an amazing variety of untamable creatures—houseflies, ants, fish, snails, and even microbes. In no case, however, is any actual “taming” done. The approach is always made by an equal to an equal, and nothing is forced. Following admiration, there is simply that silent appeal for an exchange of love and understanding and friendship. From nature, you always receive what you give.
The highest emotion, surely, is love. If no snake, or even a fly, is a stranger to it, then every living thing on this whirling spaceship is an individual much like ourselves, a kindred being, wondering and aware.
8
THE INVISIBLE COMPASS
WHEN I NO LONGER had any doubt that Zan’s doves had managed to find each other by means of ESP, I immediately wondered if other creatures also possessed this ability. When I began exploring, I found myself opening doors that I didn’t know existed.
The homing “instinct” of certain pigeons seemed a good place to begin. Was their so-called instinct really a form of ESP? Were they the only birds to have it? What about animals?
Right away I stumbled over the fact that homing pigeons simply aren’t with it when it comes to finding their way back to the family roost. Carry one too far into strange territory, and if he has not been carefully trained by an expert, he is lost. There are exceptions, of course, for one intrepid homer broke all records by flying from Arras, France, to Saigon, South Vietnam, a distance of 7,200 miles! But that is the very rare pigeon. In fact, only about one pigeon in a dozen of the homer strain shows unusual ability and is able to return from long distances without too much coaching.
But with wild birds it’s a different story entirely. Many of them have been tested by investigators and have been found to have strong homing ability. Outstanding is the English shearwater. Put him in a box, shut out all the light, whirl him around to make him lose his sense of direction, and release him in a foreign country hundreds of miles away, like Germany or Turkey or even North Africa, and what happens? He immediately switches on the invisible compass within his head, and forthwith sets out in the direction of the needle, which always points to home. Almost before you know it he is back, right where he started from.
The cold North Atlantic is unknown to these birds, and they never venture far out over it. An investigator took one of them all the way from the Isle of Man to Boston in a carefully closed box, and released it. The distance is 3,000 dreary, wind-howling miles, but that intrepid shearwater—may he be eternally blessed—made it home in record time!
There is no question that many birds, possibly all of them, have a definite homing abi
lity.
Could you, if you were locked in a box you couldn’t see out of and taken several hundred miles away and released in a strange forest in the dead of night—could you, in such a situation, immediately set out in the right direction for home?
Bats can. So can cats, horses, many dogs, and a host of other animals, to judge by the evidence. Mice can do it too, if they aren’t taken too far. After all, a mile to a mouse is a tremendous distance. White-footed mice, who love to play games and sing (they sound like warblers, for I have heard their tiny elfin voices in the night and watched them play a kind of ball game by rolling pecans across the floor), are highly intelligent home-loving bodies, and they are tops at finding their way back when released in strange territory.
Cats, too, are home lovers, and their ability to tell instantly the exact direction of home and to find it is incredible. The oddest experiment I ever heard of was devised by German investigators to test the homing ability of cats. Each cat was put in an opaque bag, taken on a long, roundabout drive through a city, carried into a dark laboratory, and released in the center of a labyrinth. The place had twenty-four doors opening in every direction. Over a hundred and forty cats were used in the test, and nearly every one of them emerged from the exit that lay exactly in the direction of its home!
This reminds me of a home-loving cat that the family of a friend of mine tried to give away. It was given to an uncle, who placed it securely in a bag and transported it over a winding country road to his own farm, a dozen miles away through the Florida woods. When he got there, both cat and bag were missing! Somehow the cat, in spite of being in a bag, had managed to leap and tumble out of the back of the vehicle.
Several days later someone in the family was horrified to see an animated bag moving through the woods, heading straight for the house. It was the cat who wouldn’t be given away. Though he had been taken miles from home to an entirely strange area and was hampered by a bag so that it was impossible to make out directions, he knew the exact course to take, nor did he waste time trying to follow the winding road. He cut directly through woods that he had never been in before and made a beeline for home. The cat recovered from his ordeal, lived to a happy old age, and was never given away again.
The Strange White Doves Page 3
