THE NATURALIST

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1403, 19 January 1899, Page 12

THE NATURALIST

HOW ANIMALS LEARNT TO CLIMB

Among the forest tribes of India there is one " parish " which elects its chief on principles not mentioned in the most exhaustive treatise on "village communitiee." It is set deep in the forest, and in the centre of the clearing stands one enormous tree, with a branchless trunk running up for some 150 ft. This giant tree suplies what may be called the communal fund of the tribe, for anions itsbranches the wild bees have built their combs for generations, and as the tree and the village grow older together, and the claimants on the fund increase, so do tho number and weight of the combs from tho labour of the procreant bees. The only human work needeu to gather the harvest of wax—the honey they value little—is that required to climb the towering tree, and when once there, to smoke the bees and shako down the wax. Consequently, the election of the headman is determined in the first instance by his skill as a climber; and though after election he usually succeeds in investing his office with religious or magical sanctions, and endeavours to bequeath it to his son, there is no reason why the post should not be put im to free competition, and awarded, at least in its qualifying stages, to the man who "did" the tree in the best time on record.

Climbing runs in families, for steeplcjaeks are often the sons of fathers wht were in the business; but it i 3 somewhat odd that man, though ho learns to swim so well that armed only with a knife he can •encounter a shark in its native cle inent, and judged by the extent of his mining operations in comparison with the sizo of his body surpasses by a thousand times all animals that work underground, has never become a good climber, or shown the slightest tendency to become " arboreal," as he has become aquatic and subterranean. South Sea babies which cannot walk will roll into the sea and swim, collier boys at fourteen will take pick and lamp and descend into the mine almost as naturally as young moles; but we believe that, in spite of the dangei from wild beasts in forest regions, and tho fact that in such places there is ten times more life on the level of the treetops than on the ground, there is nc single instance of a tribe which, properlj speaking, has become "arboreal" and learnt to climb like monkeys. Though not a few make huts in trees, they approach these by ladders, and except in I the huts which they use as a refuge and sleeping place, they spend their time on the ground. Even in forests where the upper levels of the trees are so closet} laced together that a comparatively slight adapatation would enable the Indians to progress from tree to tree, and where nearly the whole of the fruit, and the greater part of the birds and animals, used for food are found only in this " upper story," man is not, and always reuses to become, a " climbing animal." Natural repugnance to this form of enterprise seems characteristic of savage men, and even of animals which run no riskE whatever. African natives who have only lived in one-storied huts show the greatest dislike to going up stairs, and have been known to creep up on hands and knees, while large dogs when lequired to ascend stairs for the first time often refuse to do so except under strong persuasion and evident reluctance. A half-bred greyhound, now immortalised in a well-known statue of Artemis, would refuse absolutely to descend the stairs when ho had once gone up, and had to be carried down. In the case of the dog this dislike to the very modified form of climbing needed for ascending a staircase cau be accounted for on physical grounds. A very slight fall , even a jump from a cart, will snap a dog's fore-leg below the shoulder, and they seem aware of bh* danger. A fox has not the slightest dis inclination to run these risks; it climbs easily and leaps down lightly, and though not equipped like a cat for "swarming"' a trunk, one was seen by Mr Tom Smith, when Master of the Craven hounds, sitting at a height of 17ft in a straight stemmed beech-tree with only small horizontal branches to aid the climb.

That this art was acquired by animals with far greater difficulty and effort than that of swimming is evident by the limi ted number in tho same class which have managed to become expert climbers. All tho rodents, including even tho guinea oig, are good swimmers. The number which can climb is far more limited, and the line seems drawn not by lack of physical equipment, but by lack of experience, ov possibly of the desire to do so. There is, for instance, a regular series, from the tr'cr* squirrels through the "ground fy-uir rola" to tho p ranis-dogs and mat mots, of very closely allied rodents. The squirrel* aro at the head of the second rank of climbers, though the lack of "swinging power " in thir arms puts them below the monkeys. The "ground squirrels" can climb trees well enough, though they are terrestrial. But the prairie-dogs and marmots, though the former are almost as well equipped for climbing as a rat, have never properly learnt the art, and ! though not afraid to try, the former come I to most lamentable grief in their experiments. Probably the paririe-dogs, which live mainly on level and treeless plains, never had occasion in their lives either to jump or to climb. When loose in a house they try to do both. Being well equipped with claws, and very active, they manage the climbing well enough. But as they have never learnt either to jump or judge distance, or that smooth upright surfaces offer no hold on alighting, they generally miss their jump, and fall violently to the ground. This would not matter, were it not that, as they have large and heavy heads, they usually tall on these,'and either stun themselves or break their teeth. This instance of climbing in the experimental stage would be more interesting did we know how the Australian rabbits first learnt to chmfe

and whether they incurred similar failures and accidents. There is no doubt that the great difficulty of tho second stage of their acquirement of the art we 3 was to learn how to climb down again. Some climbing animals have even now not learnt to come down properly, though adepts at climbing up. 'lhe bear always descends a vertical trunk " stern fore most," just as a man does; so do somo of the opossums, the racoon (generally), and the domestic cat, though a leopard will run down a vertical trunk with no more hesitation than a nuthatch would show. A frightened cat will run up into a position from which it cannot descend at all, either among the small branches of a tree or on buildings. Lateral movement in trees is for all animals a far more difficult feat than vertical ascent or descent. Unless the bougus of one tree touch those of another, the creature must learn to jump, with the certainty of a fall if it misses, either on alighting or in " taking off." The " take ofT" is, we believe, the main difficulty. Except in the case of the tree-kangaroo, some considerable modification of the hind-foot intc something like the palm of a hand, or an equipment of sharp claws, to act like the nails in an Alpine climber's boot and prevent slipping, is., usual in the creatures which excel in lateral climbing. The cat and the bear, the lynx, stoat, ferret, and rat are as yet imperfect in this branch of their business. The marten, on the other hand, excels even tho squirrel in this acrobatic feat, ior the squirrel naturally seeks to escape tho marten or sable in this way, yet these small carnivora make the squirrel their principal food. Tigers probably refuse to climb because their weight is so groat as to make any fall dangerous to a limb. The bears, of which the grizzly climbs little, would run the same danger had not they acquired a special facility for roiling up their limbs, and then their bodies, into something like the initial curve of a collapsing hedgehog, which preserves the bones from injury. A boar will voluntarily roll over precipitous.rocks and pick itself up at the bottom no worse for its fall. No animal with hoofs can climb a tree, though a goat very nearly succeeds in this, and the writer has seen a pig climb out of a stye over a pailing of boards 6ft high, with interstices between each of the boards, and three cross nieces of wood. Tho pig scrambled up just as a dog might, and when the fore-feet were over the top of the fence gave itself a hoist and a wriggle, and rolled over, dropping on its feet. The climbing birds seem past masters of their business, with th« exception of some of the parrots. These are clearly not yet fully accustomed *o the work; for every grey parrot climbs with the aid of his beak; and so dependent is it on this that even when crawling on the ground a parrot will pull itself along from one projection or piece of furniture to another by laying hold with its bill.