Animal movement

“ As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and an inanimate look; a mean-looking dog and a few fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. ”

“ But, as soon as a load has once been bound on the back of one of these furious creatures, the wild spirit dies out of it, the head droops, the gait becomes steady, and the animal behaves as if it had led a domesticated life all its days. ”

“ The animals are found at length; and, by means of a deployment of dogs and horsemen, are driven towards some hill which may be convenient to the pasture. The instinct of the animal guiding it thither, renders this part of the performance easy enough. ”

“ We find, moreover, intermediate strains, such as swimming birds and suckling animals, which live in the water, amphibious species and others which still further mediate between the more obviously generic. These are, however, mere confusions of race, and indicate no higher mediation of considerable range. Throughout we find the animal subject in its self-preservation to the absolute necessities of external nature, cold, drought, or insufficient supply of the means of nourishment. ”

“ These with elephants and camels, mules, asses, goats, dogs, and sheep, cats and rabbits, gold-fishes and singing-birds, really compose the whole of our animal equipage harnessed to the car of human life. ”

“ This training is very important, because wild life is a constant warfare, and their lives often depend upon their speed in flight. The [229] meat-eating animals, too, must be in good trim, as they are compelled to chase their game daily. ”

“ A wild animal has to search, and often to labour, for every mouthful of food—to exercise sight, hearing, and smell in seeking it, and in avoiding dangers, in procuring shelter from the inclemency of the seasons, and in providing for the subsistence and safety of its offspring. There is no muscle of its body that is not called into daily and hourly activity ”

“ Those that are at bottom experimental, consisting of trials at hazard without immediate end, often giving the animal a certain knowledge of the properties of the external world. This is the introduction to an experimental physics, optics, and mechanics for the brood of animals. (2) Movements or changes of place executed of their own accord—a very general fact as is proven by the incessant movements of butterflies, flies, birds, and even fishes, which often appear to play in the water rather than to seek prey; the mad running of horses, dogs, etc., in free space. ”

“ The singular point is how the dog discovered their route, and how, hours after, he traced them up into the tavern yard and out through a street, and along a road where horses and sleighs were passing all the time; and how he distinguished the difference of the horses' feet and sleigh runners from scores of others which had passed to and fro in the meantime. It is a case of animal instinct, or whatever it may be called, beyond comprehension. ”

“ This was the Backboned division, to which belong the fish of our seas and rivers; the frogs and toads, snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and tortoises; the birds of all kinds and sizes; the kangaroos; the rats, pigs, elephants, lions, whales, seals, and monkeys.
Is it possible, then, that all these widely different creatures, which are fitted to live not only in all parts of the land, but also in the air above, and the seas and rivers below, and which are, in fact, all those4 popularly known as “animals,” only form one division out of seven in the real animal kingdom? ”

“ The movements of birds and other animals are deemed to be the result, not of mere instinctive animal powers implanted and limited by the creation, without inherent power to exceed or enlarge them, but of a process of ratiocination. They go a step farther, and believe that animals, particularly birds, can look into, and are familiar with the vast operations of the world above. ”

“ Hence I said that the animals in our zoological gardens, even if born and reared in captivity, may exhibit a craving for freedom and a yearning to perform their instinctive activities. This craving may be regarded as a blind and vague impulse, prompting the animal to perform those activities which are for its own good and for the good of the race to which it belongs. ”

“ The species of animal whose coöperation we borrow are numerous, and vary according to latitude and climate. But whether we employ the horse, the ass, the camel, or the reindeer, the same problem is always presented: to get from the animal as much work as possible, sparing him, as far as we can, fatigue and suffering. ”

“ Learning, from frequent repetition of the fright, that the ground is a dangerous place, it has acquired the habit of building, roosting, and feeding on the high trees; and this habit is now operating for the preservation of this interesting bird, which a few years ago was almost extinct.” [104] Now, in this case, the young birds which followed the lead of those who, under experience, had acquired the habit, would stand a better chance of survival than those who, failing to do so, were caught napping on the ground. ”

“ We could fill pages with the account of the differences existing between animals created for such different purposes and fitted to inhabit different climates, their mode of feeding and catching prey. The manner of bringing forth and rearing the young, and the temperament and temper of the animal creation would fill a volume, but we cannot now stay to examine these various characteristics. ”

“ Folk who loved their animal comrades—their dogs, horses, cats, parrots, elephants—were observing, with the wonder and interest of discoverers, the astonishing fashion in which the mere instincts of these so-called irrational creatures were able to simulate the operations of reason. ”

“ Bright eyes glitter and small paws patter, little noses sniff the air and sharp ears twitch. There is a rustling of leaves above and a crackling of twigs below, a splashing in the swamp and a silent bending of the grasses. In the sunshine or the rain, in the daytime or at night, life is busy everywhere on this beautiful old earth.
All the mammals are alike in having hair on some part of their bodies, in having teeth at some time in their lives, and in feeding the young with milk. ”

“ When the source is unfamiliar, the animal becomes prepared for action. The energies are aroused for attack, or for hiding, freezing, or running, according to the mode of defense to which the animal has [28] been adapted in its adjustments to the stimulations of its environment. The lion, the tiger, the skunk, the snake, the bird, the rabbit, the squirrel will act differently, according to their natural disposition in response to external objects and stimuli. ”

“ The physiognomy is menacing and ferocious, and the whole aspect of the animal is sufficiently formidable to influence the spectator who is, for the first time, placed near him in his native wilds, with certain feelings which indicate the propriety of immediate attention to personal safety. ”

“ Lastly, the flying race, the dappled birds,
Hawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life
Amid the ocean billows in the brine,
Utter at other times far other cries
Than when they fight for food, or with their prey
Struggle and strain. ”

“ Again, how elated the field naturalist will feel when, after hours of patient watching, he gets a sight of a troop of timid jays, or the woodpecker, busy in his search for food on some noble tree! How elated when, scaling the cliff's rugged side in search of sea birds' eggs, or tramping over the wild and barren moor, he flushes the snipe or ring ousel from its heathery bed, or startles the curlew from its meal in the fathomless marsh! We might enlarge upon this subject ad infinitum, but to a field naturalist these pleasures are well known, and to the closet personage uncared for. ”

“ At first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and evidently designed to act the important part of weapons of defence. When in contact with man almost the first effort of the animal is—to bite.
“They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations in trees. Their construction is more that of nests than hut, as they have been erroneously termed by some naturalists. They generally build not far above the ground. ”

“ The animals that had forced their way into the centre of the mass to the spot where the blood was, pawed the earth, and dug it up with their horns, and trampled each other down in their frantic excitement. ”

“ The good old natural way to find out what an animal can do and will do is to catch him and watch him. Some small neighbours of mine did not catch grasshoppers and throw them into the water because they were cruel, although their mother berated them for cruelty. They wanted to find out whether grasshoppers could swim or not. The boys who catch squirrels and rabbits and birds and put them in cages want to take care of them and teach them tricks. ”

“ It follows from their instinctive character that animal plays are peculiar to the species which perform them. We find series of sports peculiar to dogs, others to cats, and so on through all the species of the zoölogical garden, whether the creatures be wild or tame. ”

“ We have thus portrayed for us a number of animals—plants seldom or never appear—and among the best rendered are wild creatures: we see antelopes quietly feeding or startled at a sound, birds flying or picking worms from the ground, fallow [165] deer forcing their way through thickets, browsing peacefully, or galloping away, boars facing the hounds and dogs chasing hares, wild cattle forming their defensive circle, hawks seizing their prey. ”

“ But, while fighting, the stags are doing Nature's work for the evolution of the race, no Nature protects them until the work is finished.
The answers to all the other questions are equally simple, and each links up the red deer to some principle of evolution which explains many other questions about other creatures; and by studying these, you learn to understand all Nature, including your own. ”

“ Such are the birds that are satisfied with and grateful for a few grains; they live in complete gladness, and break into rich and melodious song while soaring over meadows, plains, hills and mountains. Similarly those animals which graze, like the sheep, the antelope and the gazelle, consort in the greatest amity, intimacy and unity while living in their plains and prairies in a condition of complete contentment. But dogs, wolves, tigers, hyenas and those other beasts of prey, are alienated from each other as they hunt and roam about alone. ”

“ If one questions a country lad sitting on a stile watching the hunters go by, he knows well enough that the huntsman and his horse, the hounds and the hare they [36] are chasing, are all creatures built up on the same kind of bony scaffolding or skeleton, that their life is carried on by means of similar organs, lungs to breathe with, a stomach to digest the food taken in by the mouth and gullet, a heart to drive the blood through the vessels, while the eyes, ears, and nostrils receive in them all in like manner the impressions of sight, hearing, and smell. ”

“ We now come to a very important group of mammals called ungulates, or hoofed animals, because of the way in which their feet are formed. The oxen, sheep, goats, antelopes, deer, horses, swine, elephants, and rhinoceroses all belong to this order. ”

“ In birds, for example, both those powers depending upon structural perfection, as flight, vision, song, and plumage, and those depending upon a highly developed nervous system, as the instincts of migration and nest-building, serve, in the end, wholly to better enable the animals to maintain their own life and that of their species—to carry out the functions of nutrition and reproduction. ”

“ These great animals would go trampling through the forests, breaking down the trees and crushing the grass and flowers under their feet, or rush over the fields in pursuit of their prey, making such dreadful, threatening noises that all the other animals would flee before them, just as now the more timid animals flee from the lion or rhinoceros. ”

“ There are groups where the attitudes are expressive of a varied action. Certain animals, like the weasel or mink, being seen with a bird so near that, apparently, it might be caught by a single spring; and still others, like the wolf or wild-cat, are arranged head to head, as if prepared for combat; and still others, like the squirrel or coon, are in the more playful attitudes, sometimes apparently chasing one another over hill or valley ”

“ Now and then some sudden wave of instinct or purpose would run through all the great army of birds,—those in the buttonwood city, the robins struggling on the green, and far in the dim forest depths thrush and song-sparrow and warbler. ”

“ Nevertheless, how many hearts with warm red blood in them are beating under cover of the woods, and how many teeth and eyes are shining! A multitude of animal people, intimately related to us, but of whose lives we know almost nothing, are as busy about their own affairs as we are about ours: beavers are building and mending dams and huts for winter, and storing them with food; ”

“ In the wary and patient hunting for prey by the carnivora, in the gregarious and altruistic habits of the herding hoofed mammals, in the highly developed and affectionate care of the young shown by most mammals, and in the loyal friendship and self-sacrifice of dogs and horses in their relations to man, we see the culmination among animals of the development of the functions of the nervous system. ”

“ That animals should prey upon one another is a means of preserving a due balance in the world of nature, and in many ways these beasts of prey are also useful to man. What beautiful and warm furs are procured by hunters just in those countries where no other covering would defend the inhabitants from the wintery cold!—as, for instance, the skins of bears, wolverines, and arctic foxes, wild cats, and many others."
"The skin of the seal, or sea dog, is also valuable," said Ernest. ”