Visigoths

“ These starving troops of the Black forests and White seas, themselves half wolf, half drift-wood, (as we once called ourselves
Lion-hearts, and Oak-hearts, so they) , merciless as the herded hound, enduring as the wild birch-tree and pine. You will hear of few beside them for five centuries yet to come: Visigoths, west of Vistula;—Ostrogoths, east of Vistula ”

“ The Visigoths of Spain The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of their Gallic possessions; but their loss was amply compensated by the easy conquest, and secure enjoyment, of the provinces of Spain. From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic kingdom of Gallicia, the modern Spaniards still derive some national vanity; but the historian of the Roman Empire is neither invited nor compelled to pursue the obscure and barren series of their annals. [126] The Goths of Spain were separated from the rest of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrenæan mountains ”

“ The independent tribes were persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the sovereign of the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or Thervingi, renounced the royal title, and assumed the more humble appellation of Judges; and, among those judges, Athanaric, Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most illustrious, by their personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the Roman provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. ”

“ The reason of the superstitious prejudice and hatred against this people and their origin has not been discovered, although the subject has been an object of investigation and much discussion during the last four hundred years. The conjecture already referred to, which has long prevailed in France, that the Cagots and other despised castes in the Basque lands' were descendants of the Visigoths, who were conquered by Clovis, and fled to the mountains, has been shown to be baseless and untenable. ”

“ One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and ratified the code of laws which had been compiled by a succession of Gothic kings, from the fierce Euric, to the devout Egica. As long as the Visigoths themselves were satisfied with the rude customs of their ancestors, they indulged their subjects of Aquitain and Spain in the enjoyment of the Roman law. Their gradual improvement in arts, in policy, and at length in religion, encouraged them to imitate, and to supersede, these foreign institutions ”

“ There is nothing strange, I think, in the mere fact of the vizcacha being unable to work his way out when thus buried alive; for, for all I know to the contrary, other species may, when their burrows are well covered up, perish in the same manner; but it certainly is remarkable that other vizcachas should come from a distance to dig out those that are buried alive. In this good office they are exceedingly zealous; and I have frequently surprised them after sunrise, at a considerable distance from their own burrows, diligently scratching at those that had been covered up. ”

“ This is the case with the vizcacha, the large rodent of the pampas, which lives with its fellows, to the number of twenty or thirty, in a cluster of huge burrows. When a vizcacha dies in a burrow, the body is dragged out and thrown on to the mound among the mass of rubbish collected on it--but not until he has been dead a long time, and there is nothing left of him but the dry bones held together by the skin. ”

“ In winter the vizcachas seldom leave their burrows till dark, but in summer come out before sunset; and the vizcachera is then a truly interesting spectacle. Usually one of the old males first appears, and sits on some prominent place on the mound, apparently in no haste to begin his evening meal. When approached from the front he stirs not, but eyes the intruder with a bold indifferent stare. ”

“ These cities are by no means occupied by their builders alone, but have their undesirables within their borders. The unique style of burrowing [Pg 78] which the vizcachas employ benefits several kinds of birds, especially the Minerva, and one species of the swallows, which build their nests in the bank-like holes in the sides of the vizcacha's cities. Several insects, among which may be mentioned a large nocturnal bug, with red wings and shiny black body, also seek the same shelter ”

“ The Minera bores its hole in the sides of the Vizcacha’s great burrow, and in this burrow within a burrow the Swallow lays its eggs and rears its young, and is the guest of the Vizcacha, and as much dependent on it as the House-Wren and the Domestic Swallow on man; so that in spring, when this species returns to the plains, it is in the villages of the Vizcachas that we see them. There they live and spend the day, sporting about the burrows, just as the Common Swallow does about our houses ”

“ The Tehuelcho Indians in Patagonia comb their hair with a brush-comb very much like that on the vizcacha's toe, but in their case it does not properly fulfil its office, or else the savages make little use of it. Vizcachas have a remarkable way of dusting themselves: the animal suddenly throws himself on his back, and, bringing over his hind legs towards his head, depresses them till his feet touch the ground. In this strange posture he scratches up the earth with great1 rapidity, raising a little cloud of dust, then rights himself with a jerk, and, after an interval, repeats the dusting. ”

“ It is amusing to see the sheep-farmer, the greatest sufferer from the vizcachas, regarding them with such indifference as to permit them to swarm on his "run," and burrow within a stone's throw of his dwelling with impunity, and yet going a distance from home to persecute with unreasonable animosity a fox, skunk, or opossum on account of the small annual loss it inflicts on the poultry-yard. That the vizcacha has comparatively no adverse conditions to war with wherever man is settled is evident when we consider
3O2 The Naturalist in La Plata. ”

“ On viewing a Vizcachera closely, the first thing that strikes the observer is the enormous size of the entrances to the central burrows in the mound; there are usually several smaller outside burrows. The entrance to some of the principal burrows is sometimes four to six feet across the mouth, and sometimes it is deep enough for a tall man to stand in up to the waist.
It is not easy to tell what induces a Vizcacha to found a new community, for they increase very slowly, and are very fond of each other’s society. It is invariably one individual alone who founds the new village. ”

“ Vizcachas swarmed in all that district where they have now practically been exterminated, and lived in villages, called vizcacheras, composed of thirty or forty huge burrows—about the size of half a dozen badgers' earths grouped together. The earth thrown out of these diggings formed a mound, and being bare of vegetation it appeared in the landscape as a clay-coloured spot on the green surface. Sitting on a horse one could count a score to fifty or sixty of these mounds or vizcacheras on the surrounding plain. ”

“ Visscher ordered in a powerful cocktail to give him courage, and then he tried to carve off some of the breast.
The lobster is honery even in death. He is eccentric and trifling. Those who know him best are the first to evade him and shun him. Visscher had failed to straddle the wish bone with his fork properly, and the talented bird of the deep rolling sea slipped out of the platter, waved itself across the horizon twice, and buried itself in the bosom of the eminent and talented young man. ”

“ It is difficult to compel a vizcacha to enter a burrow not his own; even when hotly pursued by dogs they often refuse to do so. When driven into one, the instant their enemies retire a little space they rush out of it, as if they thought the hiding-place but little less dangerous than the open plain. I have frequently seen vizcachas, chased into the wrong burrows, summarily ejected by those inside: and sometimes they make their escape only after being well bitten for their offence. ”

“ Unlike some burrowing animals, the vizcacha does not select a spot where there is a bank or depression in the soil, or roots of trees, or even tall grass; knowing that they only attract the opossum, skunk, armadillo, and weasel, he chooses an open level plot of ground where he can watch in all directions for enemies while he works. ”

“ Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was nothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy; and by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous eyes of Montgomery’s attendant came back again before me with the sharpest definition. I stared before me out at the green sea, frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other strange memories of the last few days chase one another through my mind.
What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island, a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men? ”

“ Before sunset the old male Vizcachas come forth to sit gravely at the mouths of their great burrows. One or two couples of Mineras, their little brown bird-tenants, are always seen running about on the bare ground round the holes, resting at intervals with their tails slowly moving up and down, and occasionally trilling-out their shrill laughter-like cry. Often a pair of Burrowing-Owls also live in the village, occupying one of the lesser disused burrows; and round them all flit half a dozen little Swallows, like twilight-moths with long black wings. ”

“ The intercourse is so frequent that little straight paths are formed from one village to another. Their social instinct leads members of one village to assist those of another when in trouble. Thus, if a vizcachera is covered over with earth in order to destroy the animals within, Vizcachas from distant burrows will subsequently be found zealously digging out their friends. The hospitality of the Vizcacha does not, however, extend to his burrow; he has a very strong feeling with regard to the sanctity of the burrow. ”

“ Many social species are thus powerfully affected by cries of distress from one of their fellows; and some will attempt a rescue in the face of great danger--the weasel and the peccary for example.
Mild and sociable as the vizcachas are towards each other, each one is exceedingly jealous of any intrusion into his particular burrow, and indeed always resents such a breach of discipline with the utmost fury. Several individuals may reside in the compartments of the same burrow ”

“ I am very much inclined to believe that a Gipsy, well up in the scale of Scottish society, experiences, in one respect, nearly the same feelings in coming in contact with a wild Gipsy, that are peculiar to any other person. These are of a very singular nature. At first, we feel as if we were going into the lair of a wild animal, or putting our finger into a snake’s mouth; such is the result of the prejudice in which we have been reared from infancy; but these feelings become greatly modified as we get accustomed to the people. ”

“ I take great pleasure in going to some spot where they are abundant, and sitting quietly to listen to them; for they are holding a perpetual discussion, all night long, which the presence of a human being will not interrupt.
At night, when the vizcachas are all out feeding, in places where they are very abundant (and in some districts they literally swarm) any very loud and sudden sound, as the report of a gun, or a clap of unexpected thunder, will produce a most extraordinary effect. ”

“ And, said a Scottish Gipsy: “It will never be forgotten; as long as the world lasts, the Gipsies will be Gipsies.” What idea can be more preposterous than that of saying, that a change of residence or occupation, or a little more or less of education or wealth, or a change of character or creed, can eradicate such feeling from the heart of a Gipsy; or that these circumstances can, by any human possibility, change his descent, his tribe, or the blood that is in his body? ”

“ To supply the combatants in the Anti-Vivisection Crusade with some such knowledge, and such cartes du pays of the physiologists’ ground, was the original purpose of the Vivisectors’ Directory, as prepared for The Zoophilist. It was recognised by those engaged in the thick of the fight against scientific cruelty that it was impossible to retain in the memory the names of all, even of the most notorious Vivisectors, or to attach to them their particular class of experiments ”

“ For in such the viscera are more sanguineous, and of greater bulk in proportion to the body, than at any later period of life, it being in the earliest stage of formation that the nature of the material and its abundance are most conspicuous. ”

“ Often after he has thus slain them, he leaves their bodies untouched for the Polyborus and vulture to feast on, so great a delight does he take in destroying life. The vizcacha falls an easy victim to this subtle creature; and it is not to be wondered at that it becomes wild to excess, and rare in regions hunted over by such an enemy, even when all other conditions are favourable to its increase. ”

“ The viscacha makes his home, like the rabbit, by burrowing in the ground, where he remains during daylight. The faculty of acquisition in these animals must be large, for in their nightly trips they gather and bring to the mouth of their burrow anything and everything they can possibly move. ”

“ Curiosity is so strong in our youth, in such cases, as often to induce them to return to the spot, after being satisfied that the Gipsies have decamped for another district. They will then examine the débris of the encampment with a great degree of minuteness, wreaking their vengeance on what is left, by turning up with their feet the refuse of almost everything edible, particularly as regards the bones and feathers of fowl and game, and, if it happened to be near the sea, crab, limpet, and whelk shells, and heaps of tin clippings and horn scrapings. ”