Ch. 3: A Wave of Life - Page 2

maintained.

I kept an armadillo at this time, and good cheer and the sedentary life
he led in captivity made him excessively fat; but the mousing exploits
of even this individual were most interesting. Occasionally I took him
into the fields to give him a taste of liberty, though at such times I
always took the precaution to keep hold of a cord fastened to one of his
hind legs; for as often as he came to a kennel of one of his wild
fellows, he would attempt to escape into it. He invariably travelled
with an ungainly trotting gait, carrying his nose, beagle-like, close to
the ground. His sense of smell was exceedingly acute, and when near his
prey he became agitated, and quickened his motions, pausing frequently
to sniff the earth, till, discovering the exact spot where the mouse
lurked, he would stop and creep cautiously to it; then, after slowly
raising himself to a sitting posture, spring suddenly forwards, throwing
his body like a trap over the mouse, or nest of mice, concealed beneath
the grass.

A curious instance of intelligence in a cat was brought to my notice at
this time by one of my neighbours, a native. His children had made the
discovery that some excitement and fun was to be had by placing a long
hollow stalk of the giant thistle with a mouse in it--and every hollow
stalk at this time had one for a tenant--before a cat, and then watching
her movements. Smelling her prey, she would spring at one end of the
stalk--the end towards which the mouse would be moving at the same time,
but would catch nothing, for the mouse, instead of running out, would
turn back to run to the other end; whereupon the cat, all excitement,
would jump there to seize it; and so the contest would continue for a
long time, an exhibition of the cleverness and the stupidity of
instinct, both of the pursuer and the pursued. There were several cats
at the house, and all acted in the same way except one. When a stalk was
placed before this cat, instead of becoming excited like the others, it
went quickly to one end and smelt' at the opening, then, satisfied that
its prey was inside, it deliberately bit a long piece out of the stalk
with its teeth, then another strip, and so on progressively, until the
entire stick had been opened up to within six or eight inches of the
further end, when the mouse came out and was caught. Every stalk placed
before this cat was demolished in the same businesslike way; but the
other cats, though they were made to look on while the stick was being
broken up by their fellow, could never learn the trick.

In the autumn of the .year countless numbers of storks (Ciconia maguari)
and of short-eared owls (Otus brachyotus) made their appearance. They
had also come to assist at the general feast.