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.
Denne historien er fra August 07, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra August 07, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
