VANISHING WILD ANIMALS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11630, 11 May 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

VANISHING WILD ANIMALS.

NEED FOR A NATIONAL SANCTUARY.

By J. C. Tregartheu, F.Z.S. (author of '"Wild Life at the Land's End"). Britain has seen during the iasfc few years a notable' increase in popular affection for animal life. Thousands of people are now watching and studying the varying phases of wild life who never thought of doing so before. But while the lovers of animal are multiplying, the animals themselves are still tho victims of exterminating agencies, and the necessity of preserving species threatened with extinction before it is too late is moro urgent than it has ever been. In Switzerland, in tho Tyrol, and in tho United States certain districts have been officially chosen as sanctuaries for : wild animals, and with most encouragi.ing results. Such a national sanctuary is urgently needed to preserve tho wild life of England. The provision of such a, reserve has, of course, its difficulties, one of which is the selection of the area best fitted for the purpose. Cumberland and Wales, on account of their physical features and extensive wastes, have claims which cannot be ignored, but I doubt whether, all things considered, .there is a, more suitable spot than the north coast of Cornwall. | The cliffs from Morwcnstow to tho Land's End form a. natural fastness for bird, quadruped, and amphibian. There are sheer precipices provided with ledge and shelf, dangerous slopes full of recesses, caverns from which the tide never wholly withdraws; and the most inaccessible of these retreats do actually afford' a. refuge, a forlorn refuge, '■■ to the' wild things which are being harried to the point of extermination. Tire chough, formerly found in many places around the coast, is now so rarethat some eight pairs only remain, and this scarcity, of course, adds to the zest of the egg-hunter and the bird collector. The survivors are found on the crags of Tintagel, where for tho past two nesting seasons the .Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has employed a. watcher, and so preserved the little band from extinction. A persecution almost as relentless pursues tho raven, the buzzard, the peregrine falcon, and the rarer seafowl, whose presence adds such a charm to the stern strand. Tho fox of to-day is conscious of the safety afforded by what Carew, the historian of Elizabethan days, calls "his ancient inheritance," and almost invariably sets his mask for the cliffs when found by tho hounds. Reynard, indeed, has many friends, but the badger, whose earth ho frequently shares, enjoys, as far as I know, no . protection whatever. He is the survivor of a much-persecuted race and deserves a ! little consideration. He would probably already be extinct but for his strictly nocturnal habits and the security of his burrow or set, which is, perhaps, the safest of animal dwellings. Digging is the badger's ruling passion, and .lie pounds away with his long claws con ainoro, driving tunnels through every kind of ground except hard rock. Some of the sets of the Land's End; cliffs cover a considerable area, and have doubtless been in use from time immemorial. The badger's nightly rumblings are chiefly confined to the crofts and grass lands, where ho finds the beetU's and worms on which he chiefly subsists; and though he makes an occasional raid on spring chickens and young rabbits, and has been known to upset a- beehive for the honey he so dearly loves, he is on the whole a harmless fellow and leads a quiet life, save when doing battle for a mate or confronting a terrier in his den. _ Occasionally a vixen will lay her litter in a badger's earth, choosing one which catches the sun, in whose rays the cubs love to bask. There are' few prettier sights than the cubs at play at the mouth of the set. The stoat is still common, but the polecat or fitchet is now rare, and tho pine marten, like the kite, is extinct, the last of thes-e crag-haunting creatures being killed near Tintagel in March, 1878. A frequenter of the cliffs who, despite trap and gun. has succeeded in holding liis own is the otter; an interesting animal, if only on account of thoso habits that differentiate him from tho other creatures of the wild. The otter is the gipsy among quadrupeds. As a. homeless thing its manner of life is unique, as a wanderer it has no equal. Year in and year out he passes up and down the valleys, from headland to headland, island to island, and even from sea to sea. When in the cliffs he will couch in a small cave, in tho adit of a mine, in a brake of reed or osmunda, amid, the sea., rushes of the sand dunes, in a pile of bould'ers, •especially a pile of boulders formed of the. tumbled fragments of a promontory. After the badger, he is probably the shiest of our wild creatures. There are, however, lonely headlands where he will set aside his fears and show himself, particularly on days when mists roll in from the Atlantic and shroud the cliffs in a weird veil of mystery. An otter will also sometimes lie out on tho rocks and indulge in a sun-bath, exposing every hair to the hot rays, and eveir fish and banquet under the eye of an observer. This is the sight of a lifetime, one that the observer will never forget: for besides the engrossing object in the foreground there is a setting of nature's best: the ocean is like a plain of sapphire, and the majestic coastline, leaguo on league, softened by haze, resembles an enchanted strand. The seal has not the same dread of exposing itself to view .as the otter, for it often fishes by day, and generally near the cliffs. The seals are protected at Seilly, and there you may see on Mincarlo and, better still, on the remoter western islands the strange monsters lying on the rocks in the full glare of an August noon. And as these creatures have got to learn their immunity from persecution, so, too, would the seals of the Cornish coast, winch to-dav on rising to the si ir'fa ■'•<■■ scan the cliffs s?archingly, as if they dn-aclod the presence of some ambusliod enemv. Of the fishermen, as 1 have said, they haw.* no fear: iiido'-rl. thev not infrequently follow them from string to string of crab-pots and watch the operation of hauling. Many incidents prove the seal's docility, but none perhaps more strikingly than the following, which is within the knowledge of many- of the inhabitants of Newquay : —. Some twenty years ago Colonel Mitchell, of that town, devoted much time to overcoming the shyness of tb,e seals frequenting the eaves of West Pentire. Day after day, in all weathers, he made his way to the point of the headland with food for them, and in the end he succeeded in getting them to come to his summons and be fed. Tt is a great pity the practice was not kept up after the colonel's death. Interesting glimpses of wild life today may be got round the cliffs, but they are as nothing to the. sights that would be witnessed iii * sanctuary when the creatures had outgrown their fear of .man.