Читать книгу The Heart of the Wild: Nature Studies from Near and Far - S. L. Bensusan - Страница 4

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It is not easy to explain how the Red Fox and the Golden Eagle came to be friends. Perhaps there were hours in the months of his extreme loneliness when the great bird was pleased to unbend, and the fox was the only living creature that was neither to be eaten nor feared. Then they were near neighbours. From the rocky ledge upon which the eagle’s eyrie was set you could throw a stone to the fox earth. The Golden Eagle, king of the air and monarch of all the wild life he surveyed, could well afford to feel generously disposed to the fox in this wild highland country, for poor Reynard by no means cut the gallant figure of his brethren in Leicestershire and other homes of grass land. He went dejected and lived poorly, liable to be shot on sight, no more than vermin in the eyes of gamekeepers and foresters.

It was early morning, from his vantage-ground the King of the Air surveyed his splendid hunting grounds. All round as far as the eye could see there were hills, the heather that covered their lower sides glowed faintly in the morning light. The air had a nipping freshness that dwellers in town cannot imagine. Even the fox appreciated it, though he had been on the prowl all night. He was preparing to sleep, and only kept one eye open to watch his patron.

The golden eagle stood erect, his keen eyes piercing the distance from Ben Hope to Ben Hiel and south to the valleys that ended with Ben Loyal. It was his territory, bird and beast paid him tribute over all the land his far-seeing eye could reach, even to the distant sea. Then the joy of morning and of power came to him. He flapped his wings and screamed, the sound of his triumph echoed among the hills.

“Good-morning, my lord,” said the fox obsequiously.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” replied the eagle with good-natured contempt. “Don’t you wish you could fly on a morning like this?” Once again he flapped his wings that must have measured six feet from tip to tip, and the rising light caught the orange-coloured feathers that lay sharp and pointed along his neck, gilded the yellow cere at the base of bill, and set the gold iris of his deep-set eyes aflame. Even the fox found his fear mingled with admiration when he looked from the black claws to the bill that was straight at base and hooked at the point, a weapon that could tear life out of any wild thing that lived in the Highlands.

In the sun the deep brown feathers of the eagle’s body were turned to purple, the muscles stood out like whipcord on the yellow legs feathered to the toes. Those talons, nearly three inches long, could catch and kill any game bird in the Highlands, from the capercailzie that lives among the dark woods upon the shoots of the larch and pine, down to the ptarmigan of the barren hill-tops, or his red cousin of the heather and ling.

“It is so fine that I must enjoy the view before I start,” continued the eagle. “I suppose you supped late?”

“Yes, my lord,” replied the fox nervously, “I found a couple of dead——”

“Faugh!” interrupted the eagle in great disgust. “Carrion: I can’t enjoy anything that I haven’t struck down for myself. Sometimes, when the snow is on the ground, and I have flown some hundreds of miles in search of a dinner, I may have to content myself with a stillborn lamb, or even with frozen birds, but I couldn’t make a rule of it, or ever thrive on such fare.”

“Do you fly for hundreds of miles literally and truly?” asked the astonished fox. “Why, if I go over ten miles of ground, in the spring for example, I expect my vixen to say quite a number of flattering things; and in the winter, when I’m living solitary, I would never think of going so far as that unless I were starving.”

“My speed is about one hundred miles an hour,” said the eagle solemnly, “and I can increase it for a short distance. And now I’ll bid you good-morning.” He gave another wild exultant cry and flung himself into space. Before the fox could open the other eye, the bird was a speck of brown without definite shape, rapidly disappearing.

“Well, well,” soliloquised the fox, “if I can’t fly, I don’t have to travel hundreds of miles to find a meal.” So saying, he retired to his earth.

But the Golden Eagle had not far to fly on this occasion. For the first few moments he soared higher and higher, rejoicing in the vast spaces of the sky, in the illimitable freedom of life, in the caress of the morning. Only when the ecstasy had passed did he look below, far below, where men and beasts live cribbed, cabined and confined to the surface of mother earth. Below the hill-tops, where the ptarmigan in their winter garb were invisible even to his keen eyes amid the surrounding snow, past long ranges of moor where fur and feather lay low amid the heather in an agony of apprehension, he saw a great blackcock sunning himself on a rock by the side of a plantation of Scotch firs. The guns had all gone south, the artful bird had baffled them time and again, though some of his brothers, and his sister the grey hen, had gone to bag. Now, careless of danger, the bronze-plumaged bird sat sunning himself in the sunlight, spreading his handsome white tail feathers and thinking of the days that were not far away when he would do battle with his brethren for the grey hens. Around him fur and feather crouched low and shut eyes; little birds that had come down from the high lying moors checked their song, a shadow seemed to drop across the wintry sun. Too late the blackcock looked up, saw his terrible enemy literally dropping upon him, saw the huge wings and the tail feathers open like a fan to break the impending fall, was conscious of a sudden blow—and knew no more. In a moment the Golden Eagle’s talons had pierced the blackcock to the heart, and all that remained on the rock was a handful of bronze feathers, as the captor rose with a shrill cry of triumph. He made straight for a bare rock some mile or more away, and then with one foot upon the dead bird he plucked it rapidly with his beak, scattering the feathers on all sides. This done, he tore the skin open and feasted ravenously on the still warm flesh.

His meal over, he preened himself, and with sudden movement rose from the rock and resumed his flight, still hungry. This time he went in the direction of the moorland, and instead of floating over it at a great height travelled low, as though he had been an owl. The place was solitary at all times, undrained and seldom shot, and he knew it for a place where white hares might be found. Nor was he disappointed, for he started one unfortunate puss, and laughing at her feverish attempts to escape, dropped heavily upon her. In that moment the poor hare screamed and died. The terrible talons had gone right through her lungs, and at the same instant the curved beak delivered a stunning blow upon her head. Looking hastily round, the eagle saw a piece of high flat ground by the side of a wood, and rose in flight towards it, carrying his prey in his talons without any apparent effort. But as he lifted it, and before he had put the dead hare in the best position for his attack, two ravens came suddenly from a neighbouring corrie and flew screaming towards him, calling him all manner of insulting names for daring to poach on their preserves. Without waiting to argue with them, he gripped the hare again and flew away, followed for a long distance by the black, angry birds, whose language will not bear repetition. Finally they tired of pursuit, or perhaps remembered that he might lose command of his temper and turn upon them. But to do that with any effect he must have dropped the hare, and they knew well enough that he would be by no means anxious to do that. So they abused him until they were tired, and then returned to their corrie, feeling certain that their reputation would be enhanced by what had taken place.

Then the Golden Eagle sought another rock, and devoured the hare at his leisure—very angrily withal, for he hated being made ridiculous by contemptible eaters of carrion like ravens. But the rich repast comforted him, and when he left the rock and ascended high in air, it was to seek a river or loch. That was soon found, and he dropped slowly by its edge, with more grace and less force than he had used when falling upon the blackcock. His wings and tail were spread sooner than before, and he came to anchor as a fine sailing yacht might come to rest with all her canvas fluttering down. By the edge of the loch he washed with great care, removing the bloodstains from talons, beak and cere, but he did not drink. Thirst seldom troubled him.

His hunger satiated at last, and there being no little ones to provide for, the Golden Eagle rose high, and sailed in leisurely fashion for miles, keeping a watchful eye on the earth, where he saw fear-stricken birds and beasts seeking what shelter the land afforded. But he was not hungry enough to take anything that offered, and preferred to wait until some dainty morsel was put directly in his way. And it happened that a red grouse, hit in the wing during the last drive of the season, was to be seen fluttering vainly over the moorland, and the eagle fell on this unfortunate, bringing the gift of instant death. Perhaps he was unintentionally kind. Not being hungry, he was content to eat the dainty parts that pleased him best, and leave the rest for fox or stoat, or any vermin that might come along. Once again he washed with scrupulous care, and then, rising high, turned in the direction of home. He was many miles away, but before the widespread sweep of his wings miles disappeared, and the thirty or forty that he had covered took less than half an hour to race through. With his familiar scream of triumph he lighted on his home rock, surveyed the world, and knew that it was good.

The fox had had a very long nap. He, too, had washed in his own half-hearted fashion, and was preparing for his evening prowl.

“I hope you have had a good day, my lord,” he said rather anxiously. He had a vague fear that the hour might come when a succession of bad days would make the great bird too careless or too hungry to regard foxes with his present indifference.

“I’ve done very well, thank you,” replied the Golden Eagle with the graciousness born of a full meal. “Good luck to your hunting.” So saying he stretched himself to his fullest extent, then gradually drew his feathers closely together, allowed the bright eyes that had never winked at December’s sun to close, and the alert, vigorous head to sink slowly down. And so he slept.

He had but one care. His mate, who had built and lived with him for five long years, had disappeared a month before, and he could find no trace of her. In vain he had travelled as far as Caithness on the east, and to Foula among the Shetlands in the north, and down south as far as Perthshire, screaming the old love-cry as he went that she might hear and answer him. She had left the eyrie as usual one morning; they never hunted together, and he had not seen her again. Nor would he, for she had failed to find food and had been tempted by carrion. The carrion—a dead chicken—covered a steel fox-trap, and though, in her frenzied fight for liberty, she had torn the controlling staple from the ground, a keeper had passed within shot before she could get clear of the wood, and now her skin was being stuffed by a Perth taxidermist, and she would presently appear under a glass case in the hall of the shooting lodge by the loch side.

One day differed only from another by reason of the success or failure of its hunting. If rabbits and grouse—red, black, or white—were plentiful, the Golden Eagle sought no other food and returned to his eyrie at peace with all the world. But there were days in the winter season when nothing was to be found, or more often still when the quarry got to cover, and then the eagle would come home screaming with rage, and the red fox would slink to his earth and remain until he was well assured that the great bird was asleep.

Towards January’s end the Golden Eagle fasted for two days, and on the third rose in the air, feeling strangely weak and ill at ease. Happily the mist, that had been lying all over the land and had helped to keep him hungry, was growing thin and yielding altogether in places where the sun struck boldly at it. So the bird winged his way to one of the wildest forests in Sutherlandshire, a place seldom disturbed for nine months out of the twelve. The last stalker had left with October, the monarchs of the herd had long ceased from “belling” and had been forced to the lowlands and the root-crop fields by the stress of severe weather. With keen eyes, and a rage born of hunger in his heart, the Golden Eagle saw a small herd of young stags and hinds disappear into a wood where he could not hope to follow them, and then he skirted a few corries and came to a wild glen where rocks lay strewn haphazard as though there had been a battle of giants there in the days of old. But the eagle only saw one rock—a high one standing at the brow of the glen and bathed in sudden sunshine. A young fawn not a year old had left its herd and was basking in the light. With a scream of triumph the Golden Eagle swooped down upon the luckless little animal, drove the cruel talons deep into its back, and buffeted its head with his heavy wings. Dazed by the suddenness of the attack and blinded by the blows from the bird’s strong pinions, the poor fawn staggered to the edge of the rock, the eagle released his grip, and his victim fell headlong on to a rock below, striking it with a force that broke its neck and ended its sufferings.

The dead body was too heavy for the bird to carry off, so he stayed by its side and tore and ate ravenously, until all the hunger that troubled him was forgotten. It was a very difficult task to rise from the heavy meal, but he made way at once to the nearest stream in order to wash in the icy water, and only then turned heavily towards home, feeling very little inclined after the long fast and the heavy meal to move in any but leisurely fashion. But he had to forget his inclinations. Two large peregrine falcons spied their rival a long way off, and seeing that he was not in a fit state to face their onslaught, made a furious attack upon him. Could he have reached either of them it would have gone hard with the one caught; but he was like a merchantman pursued by a couple of fast cruisers, and while they could turn and twist and use their wings in any direction they fancied, he had to follow a steady course, and content himself with uttering threats of what he would do if he caught one of them then or thereafter. When at last, having done all it was safe to do without getting quite within reach of the terrible beak or talons, the falcons flew screaming to their homes, the eagle was left with a very bad indigestion. Had he been carrying his food in his talons he must have dropped it, and the swift enemies would have caught it in the air and made off beyond hope of recovery, for they could cover three miles to his two.

Doubtless the crows and other eaters of carrion would soon leave nothing of the carcase from which he had torn his meal.

Shortly after this day, a touch of mildness that seemed a forerunner of spring came to the Highlands, and the Golden Eagle took a sudden flight to the north-east. He passed beyond the limits of the land and the home of the sea eagles, and moved swiftly in the direction of the desolate island of Foula, beyond the larger group of the Shetlands. And on the following day he turned to the south again, but not alone, his new mate came with him, a beautiful creature, larger, heavier and even more fierce than he. She had come from Norway to Foula Island, and consented gladly enough to share his home in the wild hills of Sutherlandshire.

Through the slowly lengthening days of February the two eagles, while hunting independently, worked together to restore the nest on the rock. It was a very big and rough affair, six feet across at the base, built of sticks taken from the Scotch fir and the larch and the thick twigs of heather. Inside it was soft with grass and fern and mosses, and when it was complete the mother eagle laid three eggs, each three inches long and nearly as big round the broader end. They were purple, with red-brown blotches and streaks of yellow and black. It was March before the first egg was laid, and as the other two came at intervals of several days, the first nestling came before the other eggs were hatched. He was an ugly little fellow with big mouth, staring eyes, and grey down in place of feathers.

Then the other two nestlings made their appearance, and the fox, whose vixen had given him a litter of cubs, was more uneasy than ever. It was apparently impossible to satisfy the appetite of the eaglets. The father and mother birds thought less for the time being of their own wants than of the requirements of their babies. For miles round all the weaklings and cripples among the game birds were destroyed, and one afternoon the mother eagle came to the eyrie with a young lamb in her claws. She had snatched the new-born creature from the hill-side, and would have been delighted to feed regularly on lamb, but the shepherd had seen her, and when she paid her next visit to the hills on the following morning he was waiting with a shot-gun. Anxiety made him fire too soon, a handful of feathers came fluttering down, and the mother eagle received a couple of pellets in her side and several through the outer edge of the primaries of one wing. Thereafter she left the lambs alone. Her alarm was the greater because she had never heard a gun before, and the shock of the charge, though well-nigh spent before it reached her, was very severe.

“What fools these men are,” said the Golden Eagle angrily to the Red Fox some days after the accident to his mate, “they grudge us the food for our little ones. And yet if they had but the wit to understand, we serve their purposes as well as our own. The strong birds and beasts that are useful in the world can get away from us, the weak ones are taken. But if they were not taken they would soon spoil the race. Why, I have taken hundreds of crippled birds from these moors and valleys since men began to shoot in these parts.”

“Do you remember the place before shooting began?” asked the fox in great wonderment.

“Not perhaps before the gun began to be used,” replied the eagle, “but my memory goes back to times when there was very little shooting indeed. The moors were all undrained, the forests were sheep farms for the most part, and the deer were not preserved. The Highland boys used to load their old guns with slugs and black powder pushed in with a ramrod, and would wait at the springs for the deer, and if they shot one would salt it for winter eating. Then the lairds were poor men, and shared their deer with the poachers. I was a young bird in those days, though I shall never be old. The eagle renews his youth, and I expect to record a hundred years. Now I must be off, here comes my mate.”

The mother bird was a black speck in the distance, but her mate’s loving eye could find her out, and he sailed away to meet her as she came heavily towards the nest, a young pig in her claws. She found a farmhouse, and dropped on to the pig-sty, where mother sow had presented her owners with a litter of seven. Six had managed to get within cover, the seventh, a weakly little animal, had paid the penalty, and was already pork. The farmer’s wife had seen the outrage, but her husband and sons were working on another part of the land and could not be reached. So the eaglets had a splendid meal of sucking-pig, and there was enough for the parents too.

In a few weeks the down on the eaglets’ bodies had turned to feathers, and they were completely fledged, handsome birds, like their parents in all respects save that they had a white ring on the tail feathers. One morning after they had learned to fly and were beginning to enjoy the exercise, the Golden Eagle addressed them seriously.

He and his mate had just come from the farmhouse where they had surprised a couple of hens.

“Look here, my children,” he said as he plucked one dead fowl with wonderful rapidity, “eat well to-day, for from to-morrow you will have yourselves to look after.” His children eyed him curiously, so did the Red Fox who sat solemnly outside his lair. “I mean it,” continued the Golden Eagle seriously. “You will hunt for yourselves after to-day, and if you come poaching on the hunting-grounds of your mother and myself there will be trouble and you will be in the midst of it. Down to now we have raised and fed you, your wants have been our worry, but now that time is up, and after to-day you are no more to us than if you didn’t exist. We don’t want to see you again, and if you are wise you will take care that we don’t.” And on the following morning the young eaglets departed, flew some way together, and then chose their respective kingdoms.

They did not thrive, and of the three only one reached maturity. The first lighted on a stoat in a ditch and could not strike it with the sharp talons before the angry little beast had jumped at its throat and bitten through the external jugular vein. Another, not heeding his parents’ warnings, set out for the farm whence the sucking-pig had come and was shot. But the parent birds remained together in their eyrie and knew no trouble save when storms were brewing. They could see storms rising out of the Atlantic, and when one was on the way to their beloved hills they would grow nervous and restless and fill the air with their screams.

August came round and the Golden Eagle’s joy of life knew no bounds. Never had the moors been so full of delicious red grouse, never before in all his long life had he fed so well.

One afternoon he sat on a rock at the head of a wild corrie. Below him went the stalker and his master, two hundred yards away and quite invisible.

“A fine day, Donald,” said the sportsman; “my best achievement since I came to the Highlands.” To be sure he was only a Sassenach, but he had shot a grouse, and caught a salmon in the morning, and an hour ago, after a long stalk, he had grassed a ten-pointer that was on its way to the lodge strapped to a pony’s back.

“Best kill that de’il yonder,” grumbled Donald, taking a huge pinch of snuff preparatory to launching into a long account of the Golden Eagle’s misdeeds.

Some unaccountable impulse brought the eagle to his wings. Ignorant of his danger, he floated lazily down the valley until the barrel of a mannlicher rifle gleaming from below caught his quick eye. He seemed to see right into it. As though conscious of imminent danger, he screamed defiance and rose higher with loud flapping of his heavy wings. The rifle cracked....

“How terribly the Mother Eagle has been screaming,” said the Red Fox to himself as he made cautious way down the hill that night. “Thank goodness she has gone to sleep at last. My nerves were giving out.”