I remember once, when I was quite young, sitting on the banks of a small sluggish stream in Greece. Suddenly, out of the water crawled an insect that looked as if it had just arrived from outer space. It made its laborious way up the stalk of a bullrush. It had great bulbous eyes, a carunculated body supported on spidery legs, and slung across its chest was a curious contraption, carefully folded, that looked as though it might be some sort of Martian aqualung. The insect made its way carefully up the bullrush while the hot sun dried the water off its ugly body. Then it paused and appeared to go into a trance. I was fascinated and yet interested by its repulsive appearance, for in those days my interest in natural history was only equalled by my lack of knowledge, and I did not recognize it for what it was. Suddenly I noticed that the creature, now thoroughly sun-dried and as brown as a nut, had split right down its back and, as I watched, it seemed as though the animal inside was struggling to get out. As the minutes passed, the struggles grew stronger and the split grew larger, and presently the creature inside hauled itself free of its ugly skin and crawled feebly on to the rush stalk, and I saw it was a dragonfly. Its wings were still wet and crumpled from this strange birth, and its body soft, but, as I watched, the sun did its work and the wings dried stiff and straight, as fragile as snowflakes and as intricate as a cathedral window. The body also stiffened, and changed to a brilliant sky-blue. The dragonfly whirred its wings a couple of times, making them shimmer in the sun, and then flew unsteadily away, leaving behind, still clinging to the stem, the unpleasant shell of its former self.
I had never seen such a transformation before, and as I gazed with amazement at the unattractive husk which had housed the beautiful shining insect, I made a vow that never again would I judge an animal by its appearance.
Animal Courtships
Most animals take their courtship very seriously, and through the ages some of them have evolved fascinating ways of attracting the female of their choice. They have grown a bewildering mass of feathers, horns, spikes and dewlaps, and have developed an astonishing variety of colours, patterns and scents, all for the purpose of obtaining a mate. Not content with this, they will sometimes bring the female a gift, or construct a flower show for her, or intrigue her with an acrobatic display, or a dance, or a song. When the animals are courting they put their heart and soul into it, and are even, if necessary, ready to die.
The Elizabethan lovers of the animal world are, of course, the birds: they dress themselves magnificently, they dance and posture and they are prepared at a moment’s notice to sing a madrigal or fight a duel to the death.
The most famous are the birds of paradise, for not only do they possess some of the most gorgeous courting dresses in the world but they show them off so well.
Take, for example, the king bird of paradise. I was once lucky enough to see one of these birds displaying in a Brazilian zoo. Here, in a huge outdoor aviary full of tropical plants and trees, three king birds of paradise were living – two females and a male. The male is about the size of a blackbird, with a velvety orange head contrasting vividly with a snow-white breast and a brilliant scarlet back, the feathers having such a sheen on them that they seem polished. The beak is yellow and the legs are a beautiful cobalt blue. The feathers along the side of its body – since it was the breeding season – were long, and the middle pair of tail feathers were produced in long slender stalks about ten inches in length. The feather was tightly coiled like a watch spring, so that at the end of each of these wire-like feathers shone a disc of emerald-green. In the sunlight he gleamed and glittered with every movement, and the slender tail-wire trembled and the green disc shook and scintillated in the sun. He was sitting on a long bare branch, and the two females were squatting in a bush close by, watching him. Suddenly he puffed himself out a little and gave a curious cry midway between a whine and a yap. He was silent for a minute as if watching the effect of this sound on the females; but they continued to sit there, observing him unemotionally. He bobbed once or twice on the branch, to fix their attention perhaps, then raised his wings above his back and flapped them wildly, just as if he were about to take off on a triumphant flight. He spread them out wide and ducked forward, so that his head was hidden by the feathers. Then he raised them again, flapped vigorously once more, and wheeled round so that the two females should be dazzled by his beautiful snow-white breast. He gave a lovely liquid warbling cry, while the long side-plumes on his body suddenly burst out, like a beautiful fountain of ash-grey, buff and emerald-green that quivered delicately in time to his song. He raised his short tail and pressed it closely to his back, so that the two long tail-wires curved over his head and on each side of his yellow beak hung the two emerald-green discs. He swayed his body gently to and fro; the discs swung like pendulums and gave the odd impression that he was juggling with them. He lifted and lowered his head, singing with all his might, while the green discs gyrated to and fro.
The females seemed completely oblivious. They sat there regarding him with the mild interest of a couple of housewives at an expensive mannequin parade, who, though they admired the gowns, realized they have no hope of purchasing them. Then the male, as if in a last desperate effort to work his audience into some show of enthusiasm, suddenly swung right round on the perch and showed his beautiful scarlet back to them, lowered himself to a crouch and opened wide his beak, revealing the interior of his mouth which was a rich apple-green in colour and as glossy as though it had just been painted. He stood like this, singing with open mouth, and then gradually, as his song died away, his gorgeous plumes ceased to twitch and tremble and fell against his body. He stood upright on the branch for a moment and regarded the females. They stared back at him with the expectant air of people who, having watched a conjurer performing one good trick, are waiting for the next. The male gave a few slight chirrups and then burst into song again and suddenly let himself drop, so that he hung beneath the branch. Still singing, he spread his wings wide and then walked to and fro upside down. This acrobatic display seemed to intrigue one of the females for the first time, for she cocked her head on one side in a gesture of inquiry. I could not for the life of me see how they could remain so unimpressed, for I was dazzled and captivated by the male’s song and colouring. Having walked backwards and forwards for a minute or so, he closed his wings tightly and let his body dangle straight down, swaying softly from side to side, singing passionately all the while. He looked like some weird crimson fruit attached to the bough by the blue stalks of his legs, stirring gently in a breeze.
At this point, one of the females grew bored and flew off to another part of the aviary. The remaining one, however, with head cocked to one side, was peering closely at the male. With a quick flap of his wings he regained his upright position on the perch, looking a trifle smug, I thought, as well he might. Now I waited excitedly to see what would happen next. The male was standing stock-still, letting his feathers shimmer in the sunlight, and the female was becoming decidedly excited. I felt sure that she had succumbed to his fantastic courtship, which was as sudden and as beautiful as a burst of highly coloured fireworks. Sure enough, the female took wing. Now, I thought, she was going up to congratulate him on his performance and they would start married life together at once. But to my astonishment she merely flew on to the branch where the male sat, picked up a small beetle, which was wandering aimlessly across the bark, and with a satisfied chuck flew off to the other end of the aviary with it. The male puffed himself out and started to preen in a resigned sort of fashion, and I decided that the females must be especially hard-hearted, or especially inartistic, to have been able to resist such an exhibition. I felt very sorry for the male that his magnificent courtship should go unrewarded. However my sympathy was wasted, for with a squeak of triumph he had discovered another beetle, which he was happily banging on the branch. He obviously did not mind in the least being turned down.
Not all birds are such good dancers as the birds of paradise, nor are they so well dressed, but they h
ave compensated for this by the charming originality of their approach to the opposite sex. Take, for example, the bower-birds. They have, in my opinion, one of the most delightful courtship methods in the world. The satin bower-bird, for instance, is not particularly impressive to look at: about the size of a thrush, he is clad in dark blue feathers that have a metallic glint when the light catches them. He looks, quite frankly, as if he is wearing an old and shiny suit of blue serge, and you would think that his chances of inducing the female to overlook the poverty of his wardrobe were non-existent. But he contrives it by an extremely cunning device: he builds a bower.
Once again it was in a zoo that I was lucky enough to see a satin bower-bird building his temple of love. He had chosen two large tussocks of grass in the middle of his aviary and had carefully cleared a large circular patch all round and a channel between them. Then he had carried twigs, pieces of string and straw, and had woven them into the grass, so that the finished building was like a tunnel. It was at this stage that I first noticed what he was doing, and by then, having built his little weekend cottage, he was in the process of decorating it. Two empty snail-shells were the first items, and they were followed by the silver paper from a packet of cigarettes, a piece of wool that he had picked up, six coloured pebbles and a bit of string with a blob of sealing wax on it. Feeling that he might like some more decoration, I brought him some strands of coloured wool, a few multi-coloured sea-shells and some bus tickets.
He was delighted; he came down to the wire to take them carefully from my fingers, and then hopped back to his bower to arrange them. He would stand staring at the decorations for a minute and then hop forward and move a bus ticket or a strand of wool into what he considered a more artistic position. When the bower was finished it really looked very charming and decorative, and he stood in front of it preening himself and stretched out one wing at a time as if indicating his handwork with pride. Then he dodged to and fro through his little tunnel, rearranged a couple of sea-shells, and started posturing again with one wing outspread. He had really worked hard on his bower, and I felt sorry for him, for the whole effort was in vain: his mate had apparently died some time previously and he now shared the aviary with a few squawking common finches that took no interest whatsoever in his architectural abilities or in his display of household treasures.
In the wild state, the satin bower-bird is one of the few birds that uses a tool, for he will sometimes paint the twigs used in the construction of his bower with highly coloured berries and moist charcoal, using a piece of some fibrous material as a brush. Unfortunately, by the time I had remembered this and had made plans to provide my bower-bird with a pot of blue paint and a piece of old rope – the bower-birds are particularly fond of blue – he had lost interest in his bower and not even the presentation of a complete set of cigarette cards, depicting soldiers’ uniforms through the ages, could arouse his enthusiasm again.
Another species of bower-bird builds an even more impressive structure, four to six feet high, by piling sticks round two trees and then roofing it over with creepers. The inside is carefully laid with moss, and the outside, for this bower-bird is plainly a man of the world with expensive tastes, is decorated with orchids. In front of the bower he constructs a little bed of green moss on which he places all the brightly coloured flowers and berries he can find; being a fastidious bird, he renews these every day, taking the withered decorations and piling them carefully out of sight behind the bower.
Among the mammals, of course, you do not come across quite such displays as among the birds. On the whole, mammals seem to have a more down-to-earth, even modern attitude, towards their love problems.
I was able to watch the courtship of two tigers when I worked at Whipsnade Zoo. The female was a timid, servile creature, cringing at the slightest snarl from her mate until the day she came into season. Then she changed suddenly into a slinking, dangerous creature, fully aware of her attraction but biding her time. By the end of the morning the male was following her round, belly-crawling and abject, while on his nose were several deep, bloody grooves caused by slashing backhands from his mate. Every time he forgot himself and approached too closely he got one of these backhand swipes across the nose. If he seemed at all offended by this treatment and lay down under a bush, the female would approach him, purring loudly, and rub herself against him until he got up and followed her again, moving closer and closer until he received another blow on the nose for his pains.
Eventually the female led him down into a little dell where the grass was long, and there she lay down and purred to herself, with her green eyes half-closed. The tip of her tail, like a big black-and-white bumble-bee, twitched to and fro in the grass, and the poor besotted male chased it from side to side, like a kitten, slapping it gently with his great paws. At last the female tired of her vamping; she crouched lower in the grass and gave a curious purring cry. The male, rumbling in his throat, moved towards her. She cried again, and raised her head, while the male gently bit along the line of her arched neck, a gentle nibble with his great teeth. Then the female cried again, a self-satisfied purr, and the two great striped bodies seemed to melt together in the green grass.
Not all mammals are so decorative and highly coloured as the tiger, but they generally compensate by being brawny. They therefore have to rely on cave-man tactics for obtaining their mates. Take, for example, the hippopotamus. To see one of these great chubby beasts lying in the water, staring at you with a sort of benign innocence out of bulbous eyes, sighing occasionally in a smug and lethargic manner, would scarcely lead you to believe that they could be roused to bursts of terrible savagery when it came to choosing a mate. If you have ever seen a hippo yawning, displaying on each side of its mouth four great curved razor-sharp tusks (hidden among which two more point outwards like a couple of ivory spikes) you will realize what damage they could do.
When I was collecting animals in West Africa we once camped on the banks of a river in which lived a hippo herd of moderate size. They seemed a placid and happy group, and every time we went up or down the stream by canoe they would follow us a short distance, swimming nearer and nearer, wiggling their ears and occasionally snorting up clouds of spray, as they watched us with interest. As far as I could make out, the herd consisted of four females, a large elderly male and a young male. One of the females had a medium-sized baby with her which, though already large and fat, was still occasionally carried on her back. They seemed, as I say, a very happy family group. But one night, just as it was growing dark, they launched into a series of roars and brays which sounded like a choir of demented donkeys. These were interspersed with moments of silence broken only by a snort or a splash, but as it grew darker the noise became worse, until, eventually realizing I would be unlikely to get any sleep, I decided to go down and see what was happening. Taking a canoe, I paddled down to the curve of the river a couple of hundred yards away, where the brown water had carved a deep pool out of the bank and thrown up a great half-moon of glittering white sand. I knew the hippos liked to spend the day here, and it was from this direction that all the noise was coming. I knew something was wrong, for usually by this time each evening they had hauled their fat bodies out of the water and trekked along the bank to raid some unfortunate native’s plantation, but here they were in the pool, long past the beginning of their feeding-time. I landed on the sandbank and walked along to a spot which gave me a good view. There was no reason for me to worry about noise: the terrible roars and bellows and splashes coming from the pool were quite sufficient to cover the scrunch of my footsteps.
At first I could see nothing but an occasional flash of white where the hippos’ bodies thrashed in the water and churned it into foam, but presently the moon rose, and in its brilliant light I could see the females and the baby gathered at one end of the pool in a tight bunch, their heads gleaming above the surface of the water, their ears flicking to and fro. Now and again they would open their mouths and bray, rather in the manner of a Greek
chorus. They were watching with interest both the old male and the young who were in the shallows at the centre of the pool. The water reached up only to their tummies, and their great barrel-shaped bodies and the rolls of fat under their chins gleamed as though they had been oiled. They were facing each other with lowered heads, snorting like a couple of steam-engines. Suddenly the young male lifted his great head, opened his mouth so that his teeth flashed in the moonlight, gave a prolonged and blood-curdling bray, and, just as he was finishing, the old male rushed at him with open mouth and incredible speed for such a bulky animal. The young male, equally quick, twisted to one side. The old male splashed in a welter of foam like some misshapen battleship, and was now going so fast that he could not stop. As he passed, the young male, with a terrible sideways chop of his huge jaws, bit him in the shoulder. The old male swerved round and charged again, and just as he reached his opponent the moon went behind a cloud. When it came out again, they were standing as I had first seen them, facing each other with lowered heads, snorting.
I sat on that sandbank for two hours, watching these great roly-poly creatures churning up the water and sand as they duelled in the shallows. As far as I could see, the old male was getting the worst of it, and I felt sorry for him. Like some once-great pugilist who had now grown flabby and stiff, he seemed to be fighting a battle which he knew was already lost. The young male, lighter and more agile, seemed to dodge him every time, and his teeth always managed to find their mark in the shoulder or neck of the old male. In the background the females watched with semaphoring ears, occasionally breaking into a loud lugubrious chorus which may have been sorrow for the plight of the old male, or delight at the success of the young one, but was probably merely the excitement of watching the fight. Eventually, since the fight did not seem as if it would end for several more hours, I paddled home to the village and went to bed.