Edmund Selous

“ But we snakes are so clever that as soon as we come into the world we can take care of ourselves, and don’t want anyone to help us.”
“I should like to see some of your eggs,” said Tommy Smith. “What are they like?”
“They are white,” said the grass-snake, “and they are joined together in a long string, sometimes as many as sixteen or even twenty. So you may think how beautiful they look, like a necklace of very [86] large pearls. Only they are not hard like pearls. Their shell is soft, and not at all like the shell of a bird’s egg.” ”

“ Tommy Smith was surprised to hear the woodpigeons talk like this of the poor fowls, for he had often seen the good mother hen walking about with her brood of children, calling to them when she found a worm, and taking care of them so nicely. “It seems to me,” he thought, “that every animal thinks itself better than every other animal; and they all think whatever they do right, just because they do it, and the others don’t. But I suppose that is because they are animals, and not human beings.” ”

“ Tommy Smith went on eagerly. “Do let me tell you how the peewit”—
“I have nothing to learn from him, I hope,” said the mole; “a poor foolish bird who wastes all his time in the air.”
“Oh, but if you only knew how the mother peewit”—Tommy Smith was beginning again.
“I should be sorry to take her as an example,” said the mole sharply; “she is a flighty thing, without solid qualities. Other animals may be all very well in their way,” she went on, after a pause, “but they are not moles, and they none of them know how to dig.” ”

“ Tommy Smith looked rather ashamed when he heard this, and did not quite know what to say. He thought the rook spoke as if he were preaching a sermon, and then he remembered having heard some old country people talk of “Parson Rook.” Still, what he said seemed to be sensible, and all he could say, at last, as an answer was, “Oh, it’s all very well, but you know you rooks do a great deal of harm.”
“That shows how little you know about us,” answered the rook. “We do not do harm, but good; and if the farmers knew how much good we did them, they would think us their best friends.” ”

“ My palace has seven, and I know some very rich moles who have eight. These are the great corridors which some people call the high roads. Some of them run through fine avenues of tree-roots, and, you know, a fine avenue of tree-roots has a splendid appearance. They wind all about, and go for ever such a way, and there are smaller corridors which run out of them on each side, and spread all over the fields.”
“You mean under the fields, Mr. Mole,” said Tommy Smith; “for, you know, the grass grows over your corridors, and nobody can see them.” ”

“ In the spring and summer I have something else to think about. Besides, there is nothing worth hiding away then—no acorns, or beechnuts, or filberts, and, of course, one wants to have something really nice to eat when one wakes up in the winter. But in the autumn all those things are ripe. The autumn is the great eating-time. That is the time of the year that I like best of all.”
“What! better than the spring or the summer?” said Tommy Smith.
“Well, in the spring there are buds on the trees,” the squirrel reflected; “and the birds’ nests have got eggs inside them. ”

“ Tommy Smith couldn’t help remembering what the rat had said to him about asking the hen, and he thought he would ask her some day. But now he was talking to peewits. “You told me it was very difficult to find your eggs,” he said.
“So it is,” said the father peewit; “but it is not impossible.”
“I wish it were,” said the mother peewit. “But there are wicked men who learn how to do it, and then they can find them quite easily. Oh, what a wicked world it is!”
Tommy Smith didn’t know what to say to comfort the poor peewits, until all at once an idea occurred to him. “Why do you lay eggs at all?” ”

“ Owl,” said Tommy Smith.
“I should think so,” said the owl; “the belfry is there, you know, and I am so fond of that. It is so nice to sit in one’s belfry and think of one’s barns, and farms, and haystacks. And then, when the bells ring, you can’t think what fun that is—especially on the first day of January when they ring in the New Year. I get quite excited then, and I give a scream, and throw myself off the old tower, and fly round it, and whoop and shriek until I [202] seem to be one of the mad bells myself. For they are mad then, you know. They go mad once every year—on New Year’s day. ”

“ Peewit, for you are always saying ‘Pee-wee-eet’?”
“I am always happy as long as people don’t shoot me, or take away my eggs,” said the peewit. “Why should I not be? It is very pleasant to be alive.”
“And the grass-snake said he was happy too,” thought Tommy Smith. “Then, are all animals happy, Mr. Peewit?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” the peewit answered, “they [101] all enjoy their life. That is why it is so wrong to kill them. For when you kill an animal, you take some of the happiness that was in the world out of it, and you can never put it back there again, however much you try.” ”

“ A fallen tree lay across Tommy Smith’s path. It had once been a tall, stately oak, now it made a nice mossy seat for a little boy. We are not all of us so useful when we grow old. “I will sit down on it,” thought Tommy Smith, “and listen to the birds singing, and pretend they are people, and not birds at all.” So Tommy Smith sat down and listened. ”

“ Every night I fly round the fields and farmyards, and when I see a mouse, or a rat, or a mole, or a shrew-mouse, down I pounce upon it. Now think how many owls there are all over the country, and think what thousands and thousands [198] of rats and mice they must catch every night, and then think what a lot of good they must do. Or, here is another way. Think how many rats and mice there are even now, although there are so many owls to catch them, and think how much harm they do, and think how many more there would be, and how much more harm they would do if there were no owls to catch them. ”

“ I should not have wasted my time like this, only I heard that poor creature, the grass-snake, talking about himself, so I thought I would just show you what a much more important animal I am than he.”
“I think that you are rather conceited, Mr. Adder,” said Tommy Smith. “The grass-snake is very clever. He can lay eggs, and he says that is more than you can do.”
“I should be ashamed to do such a thing,” said the adder. “A young grass-snake requires an egg, but a young adder [95] knows how to do without one. We can crawl as soon as we come into the world. ”

“ One ought always to be modest when one makes a speech. And now (the owl said) he was quite sure that Tommy Smith would never be unkind to animals any more as long as he lived, because, just before he flew away, he had asked him to promise that he wouldn’t. But Tommy Smith had just gone off to sleep then, and so he had had to promise it in his sleep. “And, you know,” said the owl, “that when a promise is made in that way, it is always kept.” Then all the animals clapped their—well, whatever they could clap, and said “Hurrah!” ”

“ Have not your father and mother taught you that?”
“Oh yes, they have,” said Tommy Smith; “but I don’t think they meant animals.”
“They ought to have meant them,” said the rook, “whether they did or not, for animals have feelings as well as human beings. If you are kind to them, they are happy; but if you are unkind to them and hurt them, then they are unhappy. An animal, you know, is a living being like [30] yourself, and surely it is better to make any living being happy than to make it unhappy.” ”

“ Immediately all kinds of things that are good for rats to eat, such as bits of cheese, scraps of bread or toast, beans, onions, bacon, potatoes, apples, biscuits,—everything of that kind that you can possibly think of (besides some things that you can’t possibly think of) , began to pour out from all the great caves, and to fly like lightning from rat to rat down all the long lines. One rat seized something in his fore-paws and passed it on to another, and that one to the next, so quickly that it made Tommy Smith quite giddy to look at it ”

“ The owl looked very pleased at this, so Tommy Smith thought he would take the opportunity to ask his advice about something which had been puzzling him a good deal. “Please, Mr. Owl,” he said, “I promised the rat not to kill him any more. But, if rats and mice do such a lot of harm, oughtn’t I to kill them whenever I can?”
“Certainly not,” said the owl. “A little boy should be kind to animals, and not trouble his head about anything else. No, no; be kind to animals and leave the rats and mice to me.” That was the wise owl’s advice to Tommy Smith, and I think it was very good advice. ”

“ He cracks his whip, and the dogs leap and bark around him—such a noise! I hear it all as I lie crouched in my form, and my heart beats with terror. But I cannot lie there long, for now they are coming towards me. I start up, and run for my life. Away I go, one poor, timid animal, who [64] never hurt anyone, and after me come men and women, boys and girls, horses and dogs, all happy, and all thinking it the finest thing in the world to hunt and to kill—a hare.”
“Are the dogs greyhounds?” said Tommy Smith.
“No,” answered the hare; “the dogs I am talking about now are not greyhounds, but beagles. ”

“ Look how nicely the grass is pressed downward and bent back on each side, so that it makes a pretty little bower for me to rest in when I am tired of running about. That is better, I think, than a mere hole in the ground; and, for my part, I look upon burrowing as a very foolish habit. I prefer fresh air, and I think that it is much nicer to see all about one than to live in the dark. ”

“ Even if the rat got away, he would whip the dog for not catching it, yet the dog had done his best; for, of course, dogs must do what their masters tell them, and cannot know any better. It was just the same with hares or rabbits, squirrels, rooks, or partridges. Indeed, this boy could not see any animal playing about, and doing no harm, without trying to frighten it or to hurt it.
When the spring came, and the birds began to build their nests, and to lay their pretty eggs in them, then it is dreadful to think how cruel this Tommy Smith was. ”

“ Sparrows are a nuisance, you know, because there are too many of them. But, as for mice, there will be three or four of them in every pellet (you can count them by the skulls) , and you know what a nuisance [200] they are. Let anyone who is not quite sure whether I am a useful bird or not look at my pellets. Then he’ll know, and if he shoots me after that, he must either be very stupid, or very wicked, or both. Well, do you still mean to shoot me when you grow up?”
“Oh no,” said Tommy Smith, “I never will, now that I know how useful you are, and what a lot of good you do.” ”

“ So those people who are always finding out reasons for killing animals say we do harm to the forests. But I can tell them this, that no forest was ever cut down by the squirrels that lived in it. Men cut down the forests, and shoot the birds and the squirrels; but if they left them all three alone, they would all get on very well together. Once, you know, almost the whole of England was covered with forests. Do you think it was the squirrels who cut them all down?”
[176]
“Oh no,” said Tommy Smith. “It was men with axes, I should think.”
“Yes,” said the squirrel. ”

“ Owl, what does being ‘nocturnal’ mean?”
“To be nocturnal,” said the owl, “is to wake up and see at night, and go to bed in the daytime, which is what we owls do.”
“Oh yes, I know,” said Tommy Smith; “and if an owl ever does come out in the daytime, a lot of little birds fly after him and”—
“Yes,” said the owl. “It is very grand, is it not, to be attended in that way? Common birds have to fly about by themselves, but, of course, when one is a great owl, it is natural that people should make a fuss about one.” ”

“ Now the weasel has a very good nose, so that he is able to follow the scent that I have left on the ground, until he comes to where I am; and, besides, when I know that that cruel little animal is following me, I get so frightened that I cannot run away, as I would from you, or from a fox, or a dog. And so he comes up and kills me.”
“Poor hare!” said Tommy Smith. “I feel very sorry for you. I am afraid that you are not clever like other animals, or else you would escape and get away more often. The rat would run down a hole, I am sure, and so would the rabbit. ”

“ Now you say, ‘How sweetly the lark sings,’ or ‘How beautifully the nightingale sings,’ because they sing better than other birds. But if every bird was as clever at singing as they are, then to sing well would be such a common thing, that you would hardly notice it at all. As it is, you don’t think about the lark nearly so much as the nightingale, because you hear him much oftener. ”