GENERALLY, wildlife sees us before we see it. It’s rare to have the kind of face-to-face encounter that American writer Annie Dillard experienced when she unexpectedly came across a weasel and became locked in its gaze for so long she felt they were like lovers, exchanging brains: ‘The world dismantled and tumbled into that black hole of eyes.’
It seems strange that animals so keen to keep out of sight have such attention-grabbing features. Rabbits often freeze, blending against a bare winter hedge or molehills and rocks, but, once they run, their snowy tails immediately give them away. It is the same with roe deer. Motionless on winter barley or stubble, they merge with the scenery, but, when they scamper off, there go those flashing white beacons that seem to say: ‘Hey, look over here!’ Humorous cartoonist Gary Larson drew on that vein in one of his most familiar works: a deer, standing upright, displays a large bullseye target on its chest. ‘Bummer of a birthmark, Hal,’ his friend observes.
Why do so many prey animals have such obviously flashy appendages? In rabbits and some deer, the short, white, erect tails are known as scuts. Beatrix Potter captured these pristine puffs perfectly as they peeked pertly below the blue jacket and pink cloaks worn by Peter Rabbit and his sisters Flopsy, Mopsy and, of course, Cotton-tail. In Richard Adams’s seminal 1972 novel Watership Down, the scut is explained through a lapine creation myth. Irritated by the rabbits’ fecundity and refusal to cooperate, sun god Frith provides the fox and the weasel with cunning, fierceness—and the desire to hunt rabbits. Seeking out the impudent rabbit leader, by now digging frantically to avoid his new enemies, the deity bestows two gifts upon the visible anatomy. Thus were the rabbit’s back legs made more powerful and his tail ‘grew shining white and flashed like a star’. He had been given both speed and warning.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
