Read Ebook: More Minor Horrors by Shipley A E Arthur Everett Sir

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THE STABLE-FLY

Fly! Thy brisk unmeaning buzz Would have roused the man of Uz; And, besides thy buzzing, I Fancy thou'rt a stinging-fly. Fly--who'rt peering, I am certain, At me now from yonder curtain: Busy, curious, thirsty fly -- Cease, if only for a single Hour, to make my being tingle! Flee to some loved haunt of thine; To the valleys where the kine, Udder-deep in grasses cool, Or the rushy margined pool, Strive to lash thy murmurous kin from their dappled skin!

The common names for common insects in English are confusing. Not only are the same insects frequently known by different names on different sides of the Atlantic, but in many cases quite different insects--insects even belonging to different genera--are connoted by the same common name. In this respect matters are different in Germany: partly, perhaps, because the Germans on the whole are more scientifically inclined than we are, but partly, I suspect, because the German language lends itself more easily to express in one word--however long--the characteristics of any given insect.

The female lays a number of white, banana-shaped eggs a few inches below the surface of any decaying organic matter; fermenting grass from the lawn, decaying garden stuff, stable manure--each forms a favourable nidus. The eggs are laid in a heap like those of the house-fly, each heap containing from fifty to seventy. The egg is 1 mm. in length and has a grooved side, through the thicker end of which the larva escapes when the egg-shell splits.

The issuing larva is almost transparent. It not only has no head, but the anterior end dwindles almost to a point. When fully grown it attains a length of 11 mm., and the larval stage usually lasts from two to three weeks; but development may be retarded by adverse circumstances up to eleven or twelve weeks, and in such cases the full-grown larvae are often stunted in size. In these circumstances the pupae they produce are markedly smaller than those which have followed a more normal course of development. As is true of the egg and of the larva, the pupa resembles the pupa of the house-fly, being barrel-shaped and of a chestnut-brown colour; it is 5 to 5?5 mm. in length. The pupa stage lasts from nine to thirteen days, but this period is prolonged by cold.

On emerging from the pupa-case the insect has to push its way to the surface of the rotting vegetation in which it has been produced. This it does partly by the alternate inflation and deflation of the so-called 'frontal sac,' and by actively pushing forward the body by means of its legs. Once on the surface the insect begins to clean itself, pumps air into its body, forces it along the tracheae in the wings, which expand and ultimately harden. In the processes of unfolding they are aided by the hind legs. For a time the insect is immobile, gradually stiffening; but when the integument has hardened it flies off to explore the outer world. Under normal conditions the whole life-cycle varies from twenty-seven to thirty-seven days.

But by far the worst infection which is attributed to this fly is acute epidemic poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis. That this disease occurs in epidemics has been known--especially in Scandinavia--for some time; and eight years ago it attracted serious attention in North America and in our country. In 1907 there were many local outbreaks in the United States and Canada, and it is thought that the infection was first introduced from Scandinavia along the Atlantic coast, and later, inland, as far as the State of Minnesota, by the numerous Scandinavian immigrants that settle there.

RATS

Now, Muse, let's sing of rats!

London, 1833.

The black rat, or Old-English rat, begins to breed under the age of one year, and goes with young six weeks; it breeds frequently during the year, but does not commence in Bombay, according to the Plague Commission, until it has attained the weight of at least 70 grammes. In India they breed all the year round. In Britain they produce six to eleven young at a time; in India the average is 5?2; the largest number found by the Plague Commission having been nine. In Bombay it is noteworthy that in both species the percentage of young rats to the total rat population is greater during the warmer months--from June to October--than at other times of the year. It is also noteworthy that the fall in fertility begins before the onset of the plague epizootic, though, later, it roughly coincides with it. In Britain they increase so fast as to overstock their abode, and thus they are forced, from deficiency of food, to devour one another, and this alone, Pennant thinks, 'prevents even the human race from becoming a prey to them, not but there are instances of their gnawing the extremities of infants in their sleep.'

Day by day we passed them-- Met them unaware, Shambling through the lobbies, Squatting on the stair.

Not a rat among them Moved to give us place, Staring with its cruel eye And its aged face.

Pennant draws attention to the harm the black rat causes by gnawing and devouring not only edibles, but paper, cloth, water-pipes, and even furniture. In England it makes a lodge--either for the day's residence or a nest for its young--near a chimney, and 'improves the warmth by forming in it a magazine of wool, bits of cloth, hay, or straw.' In the East it nests in the indescribable rubbish and 'unconsidered trifles' the natives accumulate in their rooms, and is seldom, if ever, interfered with.

Although the black rat is tending to be driven out by the brown rat, it still lingers on in some warehouses in London, at Yarmouth, in Sutherlandshire, I believe in Lundy Island, and I have been told it occurred not so very long ago on the island in the Serpentine. It doubtless occurs in many other places.

Until the discovery of America, the rat and mouse were unknown in the New World, and the first rats who ever saw it are said to have been introduced in a ship from Antwerp.

They are, in fact, omnivorous, and nothing in the way of human food is alien to them. They do enormous harm to corn-ricks and to stored grain. They are inveterate enemies of the hen-roost, the pigeon-house, and, as we have seen, of the rabbit-warren. When pressed by hunger, they readily turn cannibal, and the brown rat easily masters the black. There are stories of some few specimens of each species being left in a cage overnight; on the following morning there were only brown rats in that cage. To some extent they help to keep down one of the field-mice , and this is especially the case in North America; but the benefit is doubtful since they are held to be at least as destructive to the crops as the field-mice, and probably more so.

The ferocity with which they defend themselves when attacked is well known, and at times, when they are driven by hunger, they do not hesitate to attack man. They are said to nibble the extremities of infants, and in one--apparently authentic--instance they overcame and devoured a man who had entered a disused coal-mine tenanted by starving rats. The bite is said to be severe , and the bite is long in healing.

Rats eat much garbage and offal, and readily feed upon dead bodies. About sixty years ago there stood, at Monfaucon, a slaughter-house for horses, and this it was proposed to remove still farther from Paris. It is stated that the carcasses of the horses slaughtered--which sometimes amounted to thirty-five a day--were cleared to the bone by rats in the course of the following night. This excited the attention of a M. Dusaussois, who made the following experiment: He placed the carcasses of two or three horses in an enclosure, which permitted the entrance of rats by certain known and closable paths. Towards midnight, he and some workmen entered the enclosure, closed the rat-holes, and in the course of that night killed 2650 rats. He repeated the experiment, and by the end of four days had killed 9101 rats, and by the end of a month 16,050 rats. During the process of these experiments other carcasses were exposed in the neighbourhood, so that in all probability M. Dusaussois attracted to his enclosure but a small proportion of the total available number of rats. All around this slaughter-house the country was riddled with extensive burrows, so that the earth was constantly falling in. In one place the rodents had formed a pathway, 500 yards long, leading to a distant burrow.

Of the smaller trench annoyances few are more worrying than the plague of rats. Shelters and trenches, no matter where they are made, whether in woods or open fields or on the mountainside, become immediately infested with the objectionable creatures. In one case within my own personal knowledge they drove a French officer out of a comfortable and commodious dug-out into a damp and melancholy shelter, which was to some extent protected from them by sheets of corrugated iron. The plague had attained considerable dimensions before a really organised attempt was made to deal with it, and there were many cases of rats actually biting men who were chasing them down the trenches.

Terriers have proved of considerable assistance. Trains full of dogs have been dispatched to the Front, and poison has been fairly effective. Lately, a reward has been offered for every dead rat brought in by men in the trenches, and regular battues have been organised. In a single fortnight one army corps alone has disposed of no fewer than 8000 rats. At a halfpenny a rat this has involved an expense of ?16, and it was certainly money well spent. The sport of rat-catching on such very advantageous terms has proved very popular among the men, who now suggest that the standing reward offered for the more dangerous and more exciting form of sport involved in the capture of a German machine-gun should be raised to a higher figure.

Ferrets have been largely used in the British trenches, but their price is now very high, and the supply is very limited. The method which has had some success in combatting the rabbit-plague of Australia--killing all captured females and let all captured males loose--is certainly worth a trial. Rats will gnaw through concrete, but not if plenty of pieces of broken glass be mixed with the concrete. They will never cross a band of tar which has been kept liquid by mixing with grease. In the French trenches, special rat-runs are dug and these are provided with 'live' wires. On touching one of these the rat is electrocuted.

In the eighteenth century, among the officers of his 'Britannic Majesty,' was an official rat-catcher, whose special uniform was scarlet, embroidered in yellow worsted with figures of field-mice destroying wheat-sheaves. Inquiry at the Lord Chamberlain's office has satisfied me that the officer still exists and still catches rats, but I fear the uniform has been abolished. However, a book has recently appeared dealing officially and exhaustively with all matters of this kind, and as soon as I can come by it, I will look the matter up. Should this dignified uniform have really disappeared, might not a humble petition be presented that it be revived? Surely, never more than at the present time should the honour and glory of the rat-catcher be exalted!

THE FIELD-MOUSE

TO A FIELD-MOUSE ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785.

Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa' sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion Which maks thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave, An' never miss 't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! An' naething now to big a new ane O' foggage green! An' bleak December's win's ensuin', Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, An' weary winter comin' fast, An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till, crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out for a' thy trouble, But house or hauld, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain For promis'd joy.

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me! The present only touches thee: But, och! I backward cast my ee On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear.

The general colour of the dorsal surface is described as wood-brown, which pales at the front end and towards the shoulders and flanks, and grows to a more reddish tinge at the posterior end. The whole of the lower surface is of dull, white, silvery colour, and on some well-developed specimens there is a spot of buff, or orange, on the throat, which sometimes lengthens out to form a collar. Moulting seems to be rare--at any rate but a few cases have been recorded.

The field-mouse occurs all over Europe, and extends into parts of Asia. It is found all the way from Iceland, southward to Algiers, and from Ireland to India. In the Himalayas it has been taken at a height of 11,500 feet, and in the mountains of Europe it frequently occurs at a height of 7000 feet. It is certainly the most universally distributed of European animals, and the number of individual specimens probably far exceeds that of any other mammal which occurs in its district.

In the hedge-sparrow's nest he sits, When the summer brood is fled, And picks the berries from the bough Of the hawthorn overhead.

They are not above sucking the birds' eggs, or even devouring the young birds. They will sometimes enter disused tunnels and devour hibernating flies and other insects. Unlike rats, they seldom enter human habitations, and they are quite innocent of the peculiar odour which is so disagreeable in the house-mouse; and unlike the house-mouse and the harvest-mouse they are seldom found in stacks of corn. Their preference for berries explains the fact that they generally haunt woods and hedgerows, and their passion for growing corn accounts for the fact that they swarm in cornfields towards harvest-time.

The field-mouse, however, does not neglect open and barren districts, and is found from the sea-beach to the mountain-tops. It seems to flourish equally well in the flower-beds of the London parks and on the lonely hills of Scotland. Its activities are largely confined to the night-time, which may account for the exceptional size of its eyes. It is described 'as bounding along in a peculiar zig-zag and erratic manner, remotely resembling the movements of a kangaroo or jerboa.' Its spoor is very characteristic. The hind feet pressing nearly on the same spot as the fore feet, but less lightly than the latter. From time to time it sits upright, pricking its ears; and obviously its sense of hearing is very acute, for it distinguishes sounds inaudible to the human ear. It is mild in manner, gentle and inoffensive, extremely timid, and most easily trapped. It is to some extent gregarious, as many as fourteen or fifteen sometimes being found in the same burrow.

As Fig. 49 shows, the burrow generally has an entrance which is marked by a little heap of excavated earth. This leads down into the nest where food is often stored.

saepe exiguus mus Sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit.

At the other end of the nest there are generally a couple of bolt-holes separated from one another by an angle of nearly ninety degrees.

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.

The field-mouse is prolific, the female producing several litters throughout the greater part of the year. The mother carries the young-born litter about for two or three weeks, nipping the skin of her offspring at the side, half-way between the fore and hind legs. The average number of young born at one time is probably somewhere about five, though litters of nine are by no means unknown. All predaceous animals naturally eat field-mice, and they are the favourite food--at any rate, in some localities--of owls.

INDEX

Agramonte, Dr., 105

Albertus Magnus, 135

Allen, H. Warner, 151

Austen, 55

Bell, 135

Bellesme, Jousset de, 72

Biscuit-'weevil,' 111-13

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