King Solomon's Ring Read online

  If your eye is merely longing for a patch of natural, growing verdure and for the beauty of living things, then get an aquarium. Should you wish pleasantly to enliven your flat, then choose a pair of small birds: you have no idea how much homeliness a big cage with a happily married bullfinch pair spreads around it. The quiet, husky yet sweet song of the male bullfinch is wonderfully soothing; his dignified, measured, and even polite courtship and his gentlemanly consideration for his little wife are amongst the prettiest things a bird cage has to offer. With the welfare of these birds, you are only occupied for a few minutes daily. Their bird seed costs but a few pence and the bit of green-stuff, which is the only variation in their menu, is easily obtained.

  If, however, you want a personal contact, if you are a lonely person and want, like Byron, “to know there is an eye will mark your coming and look brighter when you come”, then choose a dog. Do not think it is cruel to keep a dog in a town flat. His happiness depends largely upon how much time you can spend with him and upon how often he may accompany you on an errand. He does not mind waiting for hours at your study door if he is finally rewarded by a ten minutes’ walk at your side. Personal friendship means everything to a dog; but remember, it entails no small responsibility, for a dog is not a servant to whom you can easily give notice. And remember, too, if you are an over-sensitive person, that the life of your friend is much shorter than your own and a sad parting, after ten or fifteen years, is inevitable.

  If you are worried by such considerations, you can find many other creatures of lower mental development which are less “expensive” from an emotional point of view, and yet are “something to love”: for instance, that most easily kept of our indigenous birds, the starling. An extraordinarily understanding friend used to describe him as “the poor man’s dog”. That is entirely appropriate. He has a point of character in common with the dog, namely, that he cannot be bought “ready-made”. It is seldom that a dog, bought as an adult, becomes really your dog, just as seldom as your child is really your child if you, a rich man or woman, leave its upbringing to a nurse, governess or house-tutor. It is the intimate personal contact that counts. So you must feed and clean your nestling yourself, if you want a really affectionate bird of this species. The necessary trouble only lasts a short time. A young starling needs for its development, from its hatching till it is independent, only about twenty-four days. If you take it at the age of about two weeks from the nest, it is early enough and the whole rearing process takes a bare fortnight. It is not too troublesome and demands no more than that you should, with the aid of a forceps, cram food, five or six times daily, into the greedily gaping yellow throat of the nestling, and, with the same instrument, remove the droppings from the other end. These are neatly encapsulated by a thick skin which prevents them from smearing. In this way, the artificial nest always remains clean and no new “nappies” are required. You make the nest of hay and accommodate it in a little box, half shut and turned on its side so that the only opening is an aperture at the front through which you may introduce your hand; this resembles most closely a natural nesting cavity. In such a cradle the young starling always deposits its excreta towards the light so that dirt never falls into the nest, even if you are not there to remove it. Failing more natural food, raw meat or heart, bread soaked in milk, and a little chopped egg will suffice as nourishment; the addition of a little earth has a good effect. If they are obtainable, earthworms or fresh ant’s eggs are a better food, being more natural. The starling requires this costly nourishment only in its infancy; as soon as it can eat by itself, it may be fed on almost any household scraps. As a staple diet for mature starlings, slightly damped wheat bran, with some crushed hemp or poppy seeds is much to be recommended, since, with this type of food, the droppings are dry and almost odourless. A layer of peat moss in the drawer of the cage obviates any bird smell, even in the smallest room.

  Should a starling seem too large and demanding of too much space, let me recommend you a siskin. This small bird is content with a very modest cage, requires no specially prepared food and will yet satisfy your craving for companionship. Of all the small birds I know, it is the only one which, even when captured in maturity, not only becomes tame but also really affectionate. Certainly, other small birds too become completely tame in the sense that they do not fear their keeper and will sit on his head or shoulder and take titbits from his hands. With a robin this can be achieved in a very short time. However, if one has learned to look deeper into the animal mind and has ceased to project one’s own feelings into the creature in the belief that it must love its keeper because he loves it, then one finally sees in the dark, mysterious eyes of the robin only the one somewhat shallow question, “For goodness’ sake when am I going to get that mealworm?” The siskin, on the other hand, is a seed eater that eats the whole day long, is never really hungry and in whose span of interest therefore the ingestion of food plays a smaller role than in that of the insect-hunting bird. The mealworm in the hand of the keeper is a much stronger bait for the robin than is the hemp seed for the siskin. Therefore the newly caught robin will eat much sooner from the hand than the siskin under like circumstances. Thus the robin can be trained, in a surprisingly short time, to approach its keeper voluntarily; the siskin will only do so after several months, but, once it has taken this step, it approaches him for his company’s sake and not in the expectancy of food. Such a “companionable tameness” is much more endearing to our human mentality than the highly material cupboard-love of the robin. As a social animal the siskin can contrive a personal attachment to its keeper of which the robin is incapable. Of course, there are many other social animals that transfer their social impulse to mankind and, when reared young enough, enter into a close social contact with human beings. The starling, the bullfinch and the hawfinch become delightfully affectionate and the large corvines, parrots, geese and cranes vie even with dogs in this respect. But all these birds must be taken quite young from the nest if they are to be made into tame and friendly household pets. Why the siskin is an exception to this rule and can find social contact with man even when captured in maturity, nobody knows.

  Of the many objects which amply repay the trouble of their care, I mentioned the aquarium, the bullfinch, the starling and the siskin first because they are so easy to keep. Of course, there are dozens of easily obtainable species of animals that are equally easy to maintain, and still more species which are only a little more demanding, and I should strongly advise the beginner to confine himself to this type of animal and to refrain from taking into his charge any really exacting beings.

  “Easy to keep” is a quality which must be differentiated sharply from the conceptions “hardy” or “resistant”. By keeping a living thing in the scientific sense we understand the attempt to let its whole life cycle be performed before our eyes within the narrower or wider confines of captivity. Nevertheless, those animals are usually deceptively termed easy to keep which, in reality, are merely resistant and, to put it crudely, take a long time to die. The classical example of this type of animal is the Greek tortoise. Even under the inadequate treatment of the average ignorant owner, this poor beast takes three, four or even five years until it is really, thoroughly and irrevocably dead, but, strictly speaking, it starts on the downward path from the first day of its captivity. To keep tortoises so that they grow, thrive and multiply, they must be offered conditions of life which, in a town flat, cannot be achieved. In our own climate, nobody, to my knowledge, has truly succeeded in breeding these animals.

  When I enter the room of a plant lover and see that all his plants are growing and flourishing in their present habitat, then I know I have found a soul mate. I cannot endure having, in my room, plants that are dying, however slowly they are doing it. The stoutly growing gum-tree, the lusty philodendron, the modest aspidistra which can even thrive in boarding houses, all warm my heart by their undeniable healthiness, whereas the loveliest rhododendron or cyclamen plant, which is not really g
rowing but slowly deteriorating, brings the breath of putrefaction into my room. For, as Shakespeare says, “If that flower with base infection meet, the basest weed outbraves his dignity”. I am also no friend of cut flowers, but their swift death by decapitation disturbs me less than the prolonged sickness of plants deprived of their natural requirements.

  Concerning plants, this way of thinking may seem exaggerated, but, in the case of animals, almost anyone will agree with me. The death of an animal will awake sympathy even in a person less susceptible to suffering. So it is imperative to take on only such animals as, under the conditions that can be offered, really live instead of just dying slowly. Most of the disappointments that later discourage people from keeping animals are attributable to the unfortunate choice of the first one with which they made the attempt. The dead goldfinch lying on the floor of its cage makes a far more lasting impression than the wilting flower in its pot, and the owner, plagued with remorse, swears never again to keep a bird. Had he kept, instead of a goldfinch, a starling or a siskin, he would probably have kept it for fifteen years. There are few birds that are so often “killed by kindness” by ignorant bird lovers as goldfinches. They need large amounts of oil-containing seeds and I myself would hardly undertake the care of a newly caught goldfinch, had I not the necessary quantity of thistle- and poppy-seeds at my disposal. The only possible substitute for these is crushed hemp, with emphasis on the crushed, because the goldfinch is unable to crack open whole hemp seeds with his rather feeble beak. There are some conscientious dealers of my acquaintance who actually submit their customers to quite a serious examination before they will entrust them with a bird of one of the more exacting species—a most commendable procedure.

  Another sound, if seemingly cheap, piece of advice: keep your hands off sick animals. Catch or buy only a healthy bird, take it out of the nest or get it from somebody who understands. If you want to keep an animal for any length of time, do not take on any weaklings and foundlings that are brought to you. The young bird which has fallen from its nest, the roe-deer kid which has strayed from its mother, and all other animals which have fallen by chance into human hands usually bear the seeds of death, or at least they are so weakened that only an owner with veterinary experience can hope to save them. As a general rule, let the procuring of your pet cost you some trouble or money, or both, and it will bring you in interest at the rate of a hundred per cent. When you have made up your mind what you really want, insist on it. But if you are offered a really tame animal, particularly of a social kind, that is, an animal that has obviously been reared by hand from infancy, or has been settled in captivity for a very long time, then seize the opportunity, even if it costs four or five times as much as a timid wild thing of the same species.

  An important factor, which busy city workers should take into consideration before buying a pet, is the time-table, that is, their own and that of the animal. If one leaves one’s home for work at daybreak and only returns at dusk, and is accustomed to spend the weekend out of doors, away from home, one will derive little pleasure from a song bird. The consciousness that, before leaving home, one has cared well for the bird so that it is probably now singing merrily, ensures but meagre satisfaction. If, however, you have managed to acquire, with due consideration for your way of living, a pair of the charming dwarf owls, a tame little owl, some small nocturnal mammal or some other animal which is just beginning its daily round as you come home from work, you will always have something to brighten your leisure hours. Small mammals rarely receive, from animal lovers, the notice which they deserve. It is true that the more interesting species are rather difficult to obtain. Apart from domesticated house-mice and rats, the equally domesticated and therefore somewhat uninteresting guinea-pig is about the only small mammal which dealers regularly have for sale. In recent times, a new species of rodent has been widely bred and has now appeared in the pet shops. This animal is the golden hamster and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants something to while away those lazy evening hours when the brain is too tired for higher intellectual pursuits. Even as I write these lines, a sextet of irresistibly funny three-weeks-old golden hamster babies are performing the drollest wrestling match, in which the mouse-sized, cuddly, fat fellows roll over and over and, with loud squeaks and feigned savage bites, chase each other in wild hops round their cage. I know of no other rodent that plays in such an intelligent way, quite like dogs and cats, as the golden hamster. It is cheering to have beside you in the room someone who is so joyfully abandoned and can express it with such quaint gracefulness as one of these little fellows.

  I think the golden hamster was created expressly for the sake of the poor animal lover in the city. It combines all the qualities that are pleasant in a house pet and is nearly free from those that are undesirable. A tame golden hamster never bites, or at least it does so just as rarely as a guinea pig or a rabbit; the mothers of very small hamster babies must certainly be handled carefully but, there again, only in the immediate precincts of their brood; a yard away from the nest they can be touched with impunity. How pleasant would the squirrel be as a room mate if he did not climb up everything and mark all gnawable objects with traces of his teeth! The golden hamster hardly ever climbs, and gnaws so little that he can be allowed to run freely about the room where he will do no appreciable damage. Besides this, this animal is externally the neatest little chap, with his fat head, his big eyes, peering so cannily into the world that they give the impression that he is much cleverer than he really is, and the gaily coloured markings of his gold, black and white coat. Then his movements are so comical that he is ever and again the source of friendly laughter when he comes hurrying, as though pushed along, on his little short legs, or when he suddenly stands upright, like a tiny pillar driven into the floor and, with stiffly pricked ears and bulging eyes, appears to be on the look-out for some imaginary danger.

  On the table in the middle of my room, near the desk, stands the nucleus of my golden hamster stud, a simple little terrarium, out of which, with the regularity of the calendar, the litters of young hamsters move, as they grow up, into the roomy boxes that will soon leave no more space in my study. In this terrarium lives the brood mother, with her latest litter. Blasé lovers of rare and delicate animals may deride the fact that I am so much affected by so cheap an animal which every five-year-old child can tend. But, to the student of animal behaviour, it is of no consequence how costly or how difficult to keep an animal may be. He is, or ought to be, entirely free from that ambition, common to so many bird and fish lovers, to keep just those perishable species that are most difficult to maintain. His interest in an object is determined by the question of how much can be observed from it, and in this respect the modest golden hamster surpasses many expensive and exacting species. So it happens that my eye rests more often on the little terrarium with golden hamsters than on the aviary which stands beyond it and which contains the most rare and valuable item of my live-stock collection: a pair of bearded tits sitting on three eggs.

  If I want to, I can keep exacting and delicate animals in such a way that their whole life-cycle is enacted in my study before my eyes, and only he who has succeeded in breeding bearded tits in an indoor aviary or has achieved something equally difficult, can afford to smile over my simple golden hamsters and the great delight which I take in them: but he, presumably, will know better than to do so!

  Of course, the past master of animal keeping may be tempted to try his hand with a particularly tricky species for the sheer love of surmounting difficulties and, for him, such an attempt may be of value as an exercise; but the beginner must stop to consider that, in his case, a similar undertaking may easily result in sheer cruelty to animals. The endeavour to keep a very exacting species of animal is only justified by its scientific value; when carried out for a mere fancy, it becomes ethically dubious. Even the most experienced animal keeper should consider, before he undertakes the care of a sensitive organism, that not only the written, but also t
he much more stringent unwritten law demands that captive animals must lack nothing that is necessary to their bodily and mental welfare. In the first enthusiasm over the charm and beauty of a new species, we are often too ready to shoulder this serious responsibility. The enthusiasm fades but the responsibility remains and, before we are aware of it, we are loaded with a burden of which we are not so easily relieved. In the little marble-paved pool, which reflects a graceful statue in the corner of our glass veranda, I once kept, for more than a year, two dabchicks, minute diving birds, most interesting in their behaviour and charming to behold. These highly specialized divers cannot stand upright on dry land and walk clumsily, step by step. Normally, they hardly ever leave the water, except to climb on to their floating nest. For this reason they were perfectly contented with their little pool and, once settled and tame, they stayed there of their own free will and without the need of a fence. They were indeed a bewitching piece of interior decoration. Unfortunately these most charming of indoor water birds possess the awkward property that they will eat only live fish not longer than two inches and not shorter than one inch in size. The few mealworms and the odd bits of greenstuff, which they eat in addition to their staple diet, are insufficient to ward off hunger for even half a day, should there be a dearth of fish. In spite of the large fish containers with their continuous stream of fresh water which I kept for my charges in the cellar, and although the financial side of the question at that time was no object, the continual worry of food organization was nerve-racking. More than once, in the winter of that year, I rushed, in desperation, from one pet shop to another, or, in equal desperation, hacked open the ice in every pool of the near-lying Danube backwaters that gave promise of small fish, merely to tide over fishless days which for my dabchicks would have spelt death. Although I could not make the decision to part with these pocket swans, I sighed with relief in the midst of my sorrow when, one fine summer’s day, the pair found its way, out through the open window.