Читать книгу Those Other Animals - G. A. Henty - Страница 8

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THE tortoise has in all ages been an object of wonder to man. Its form, its slowness of movement, its wonderful coat of armour, its power of prolonged fasting, the absence of any apparent pleasure in its existence, have all seemed to set it apart among living creatures. The Orientals, who are profound thinkers, arrived at the conclusion that the world must be held up on the back of a tortoise, no other creature appearing capable of sustaining the burden. But even their powers of speculation shrank from endeavouring to cope with the inevitable problem: what in that case held up the tortoise? There was nothing in the habits or customs of the tortoise, as met with on the surface of the earth, that could authorise the supposition that it could, in any state, not only support itself in the air, but hold up the not inconsiderable burden of the earth; indeed, the problem was evidently so insoluble an one that we meet with no trace in any of the writings of the early pundits that they ever attempted fairly to grapple with it.

It would certainly seem that nature has been more unkind to the tortoise than to any other creature. It has given it nothing whatever to compensate for the dulness of its existence or its slow and laborious method of progression. Almost all other creatures are, in their youth at any rate, gay and frolicsome, delighting in their powers of speed and activity. No one has ever observed the tortoise at play; it can neither run nor frisk, climb a tree, nor throw a somersault. It plods gravely on from its birth to its death, like a creature in a living tomb, carrying a burden that seems almost too great for its strength—eating a little, sleeping a great deal,—thinking, it must be presumed, for even a tortoise must do something, deeply and uninterruptedly. As it sees so little of the world around it, we must suppose that its meditations are self-directed, and that it is continually occupied with attempts to solve the problem of the why and the wherefore of its own existence. As it has a hundred years to think this out, there is no reason to doubt that were the tortoise capable of conveying its thoughts and conclusions to man the results would be of the highest value, and that it would be found that the speculations of our deepest thinkers are shallow indeed by the side of profound meditations of the tortoise. It has, too, the advantage of long traditions, and the accumulation of the wisdom of ages; for the tortoise is, perhaps, the oldest existing creature on earth. Its congeners, who ranged with it the surface of the earth countless ages before the present race of animals existed, have all passed away, but the tortoise remains almost identical with his far-off ancestors.

The number of varieties of the land and water tortoise, the latter known as the turtle, are very great, and are of high interest to scientific men; the points of structural difference between them, especially in the skull, being very much more numerous and important than those existing between any species of animals, birds, reptiles, or fish. Their habits differ as widely as their structure. Of the land tortoises, some prefer a vegetable diet, some insects, worms, and molluscs, while some of the larger turtles will feed upon fishes and small aquatic birds. Both land and water tortoises are capable of fasting for upwards of a year. Their tenacity of life is extraordinary, for their hearts will continue to beat, and they are still able to move their limbs with considerable force, for ten or twelve days after their heads have been cut off. The tortoise is sensitive as to weather; it does not like too great heat, and lies in the shade when the sun is strong. It equally objects to cold, and buries itself under loose rubbish, or scrapes itself a hole in the ground on the approach of winter, taking many weeks about the operation.

It might be thought that, clad in its waterproof coat, it would regard rain with indifference; but this is far from being the case, for if a shower is at hand it will hurry away to shelter. It can only be supposed that this extreme sensitiveness to all atmospheric changes has been bestowed upon the tortoise to afford it matter for interest and excitement. Not only does it sleep throughout the whole of the winter months, but in summer it retires to rest early in the afternoon, and remains asleep till late in the morning. In the Galapagos Islands the tortoises rival in size those of the prehistoric period, weighing three or four hundred pounds. The speed of these animals is relatively fast, for they can travel as much as six yards a minute. The water turtle attains even a greater size, individuals having been taken weighing from sixteen to seventeen hundred pounds.

The life of the turtles and fresh water tortoises is a lively one in comparison to that of the land species. Instead of the short and misshapen legs that serve the purposes of locomotion to the latter, they are furnished with paddles that enable them to swim with great rapidity, and were it not for their sleeping habits, and for the necessity for the females to go ashore to lay their eggs, man would have but few opportunities of enjoying turtle soup, for their speed is far greater than that at which any boat could be rowed. They are thus able to obtain an abundance of food from the slower moving fish; and as their power of jaw is very great they are practically masters of the waters they frequent. Those close observers, the Chinese, who have a marked partiality for turtle, do not rely wholly upon its sleepiness of habit or its occasional landings for their supply of soup; they employ in their service a fish of the Remora species, which is of peculiar construction, and possesses a great power of grip. These fish are trained to the work, and taken out in tubs in the fishing boats. To the tail of each fish a ring is attached, and to this the fisherman attaches a long cord, and slips the fish overboard as soon as they approach a basking turtle. Directly the fish discovers the turtle, it makes towards it, and fixes itself firmly to it by means of a peculiar apparatus upon its head. The fisherman then hauls in the rope, and pulls both fish and turtle to the boat, and on getting them on board pushes the fish’s head forward, when it at once looses its hold. The story would appear incredible were it not vouched for on high authority.

Except as an example to man of patience under a singularly joyless life, the purpose of the land tortoise is not very marked. The second lesson it teaches—namely, that a life of indolence and lethargy conduces to extreme longevity—can scarcely be considered as an advantageous one. One species, indeed, furnishes a material that is utilised principally for the manufacture of combs and female ornaments, and it was remarked by the Brothers Mayhew as singular that the tortoise which supplies ladies with combs has itself no back hair. However, even in this respect the uses of the tortoise have of late years been greatly discounted by the introduction of compounds of india-rubber for the purpose of combs, and the decline of the fashion for the lofty decorative combs used by our grandmothers—a fashion which, however, appears to be, to a certain extent, reviving just at present.

Properly considered, the tortoise should be viewed as an example to be avoided rather than followed. Had it not been for the indolent habits of the prehistoric tortoise, there can be little doubt that it would in time have effected very considerable changes in its structure. The survival of the fittest might not have done much for it, as all tortoises can hold their own in the way of living on. But the progress of selection, the intermarriage between active males and females, would naturally have led in time to a much greater development of leg, and the tortoise might have become as speedy on land as the turtle in water. Unfortunately active tortoises, male or female, were extremely scarce, and the result of ages of indolence has been that the race has remained absolutely without progress, and that no visible improvement has been effected since its first introduction among the inhabitants of earth. The lesson furnished by it cannot be too earnestly taken to heart, especially as we see the same thing, although in a modified extent, among the lower races of humanity.