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VESUVIUS, CAMPI
FLEGREI, AND
CAMPANIAN
VOLCANISM
Edited by
BENEDETTO DE VIVO
HARVEY E. BELKIN
GIUSEPPE ROLANDI
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under
copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research
and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods,
professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be
mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they
have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or
editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a
matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of
any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
ISBN: 978-0-12-816454-9
Front Cover: the image “La Grande Eruzione del Vesuvio del 1767 - The great 1767
Vesuvius eruption” is of the artist Adriana Pignatelli Mangoni
Contributors
Harvey E. Belkin
Retired, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, United States
Robert J. Bodnar
Fluids Research Laboratory, Department of Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, United States
Mauro Caccavale
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Claudia Cannatelli
Department of Geology, FCFM, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile; Andean
Geothermal Center of Excellence (CEGA), University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
Michael R. Carroll
Università di Camerino- Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie, Sezione Geologia,
Camerino, Italy
Marta Corradino
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e del Mare (DiSTeM), Università di Palermo,
Palermo, Italy
Giuseppe De Natale
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, sezione di Napoli «Osservatorio
Vesuviano», Napoli, Italy
Benedetto De Vivo
Pegaso On Line University, Naples, Italy; Adjunct Professor, Dept of
Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech),
Blacksburg, VA, United States; Nanjing University, Nanjing, China; Hubei
Polytechnic University, Huangshi, China
Massimo Di Lascio
Consultant, Self-employed Geologist, Battipaglia (Salerno), Naples, Italy
xiv Contributors
Rosario Esposito
University of California, Department of Earth, Planet, and Space Sciences,
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Giuseppe Esposito
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Alessandro Fedele
INGVdOsservatorio Vesuviano, Naples, Italy
Tom Gidwitz
South Dartmouth, MA, United States
Annamaria Lima
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, delle Risorse e dell’Ambiente, Universitá di
Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy
Chiara Macchiavelli
Group of Dynamics of the Lithosphere, Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume
Almera, Structure and Dynamics of the Earth, Barcelona, Spain
Fabio Matano
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Alfonsa Milia
ISMAR, CNR, Napoli, Italy
Flavia Molisso
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Roberto Moretti
Université de Paris, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, CNRS UMR 7154,
Paris, France; Observatoire Volcanologique et Sismologique de Guadeloupe,
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Gourbeyre, France
Contributors xv
Concettina Nunziata
Department of Earth Sciences, Environment and Resources, University of
Naples Federico II, Italy
Salvatore Passaro
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Angelo Peccerillo
Retired from Department of Earth Sciences, University of Perugia, Perugia,
Italy
Giulia Penza
University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy
Fabrizio Pepe
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e del Mare (DiSTeM), Università di Palermo,
Palermo, Italy
Giuseppe Rolandi
Retired, University Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy
Roberto Rolandi
Dipartimento Scienze della Terra, Ambiente e Risorse, Università di Napoli-
Federico II, Naples, Italy
Daniela Ruberti
Department of Engineering, University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, Aversa
(Caserta), Italy
Marco Sacchi
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
xvi Contributors
Antonio Schettino
University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy
Renato Somma
INGVdOsservatorio Vesuviano, Naples, Italy
Frank J. Spera
Department of Earth Science and Earth Research Institute, University of
California, Santa Barbara, CA, United States
Volkhard Spiess
Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Paola Stabile
Università di Camerino- Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie, Sezione Geologia,
Camerino, Italy
Lena Steinmann
Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Stella Tamburrino
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Maurizio M. Torrente
DST, Università del Sannio, Benevento, Italy
Claudia Troise
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, sezione di Napoli «Osservatorio
Vesuviano», Napoli, Italy
Eugenio Turco
University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy
Mattia Vallefuoco
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
Guido Ventura
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, INGV, Roma, Italy
Marco Vigliotti
Department of Engineering, University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, Aversa
(Caserta), Italy
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the support of Elsevier B.V. through the process of planning, writing,
reviewing, and the production of Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism.
Behind the Elsevier banner is a staff of extremely competent, hardworking people, without
whom the production of this volume would have been far more difficult and of lesser quality.
Omer Mukthar Moosa, Mark Rogers, Sheela Bernardine B. Josy, and Amy Shapiro are
gratefully thanked. We especially thank Hilary Carr, whose excellent editorship has led and
instructed us to the successful completion of this volume. We also thank Adriana Pignatelli
Mangoni, Naples, Italy, for the use of her gouache La Grande Eruzione del Vesuvio nel 1767
that appears on the volume’s cover. Lastly, we thank all the chapter authors for their con-
tributions and the many peer reviewers for their suggestions and corrections.
Benedetto De Vivo
Harvey E. Belkin
Giuseppe Rolandi
Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi
1
Flegrei, and Campanian
Volcanism
Benedetto De Vivo,1, 2, 3, 4 Harvey E. Belkin,5
Giuseppe Rolandi6
1
Pegaso On Line University, Naples, Italy; 2Adjunct Professor, Dept of
Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech),
Blacksburg, VA, United States; 3Nanjing University, Nanjing, China; 4Hubei
Polytechnic University, Huangshi, China; 5Retired, U.S. Geological Survey,
Reston, VA, United States; 6Retired, University Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy
This natural feeling or impression of things beyond the range of sight, this
extra sense, or chumfo unity of all the senses, is probably akin to another
feeling by which the animal or man becomes aware of distant persons, or of
distant moods or emotions. The sleeping dog’s alarm beneath the weakened
derrick, or the sleeping Indian’s uneasiness near the doomed birch-stub, might
be explained on purely physical grounds: some tremor of parting fibers, some
warning vibration too faint for eardrums but heavy enough to shake a more
delicately poised nerve center, reached the inner beast or the inner man and
roused him to impending danger. (There is a deal of babble in this explanation,
I admit, and still a mystery at the end of it.) But when a man or a brute
receives [73]knowledge not of matter, but of minds or spirits like his own; when
a mother knows, for example, the mental state of a son who is far away, and
when no material vibrations of any known medium can pass between them,—
then all sixth-sense theories, which must rest on the impinging of waves upon
nerve centers, no longer satisfy or explain. We are in the more shadowy region
of thought transference or impulse transference, and it is in this silent,
unexplored region that, as I now believe, a large part of animal
communication goes on continually.
That belief will grow more clear, and perhaps more reasonable, if you follow
this unblazed trail a little farther.
[74]
1 For further example and analysis of the matter, see pp. 196–199. ↑
2 Crawford, Thinking Black (1904). ↑
[Contents]
IV
Natural Telepathy
The way of animal communication now grows dimmer and dimmer, or some
readers may even think it “curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice of Wonderland
said when she found herself lengthening out like a telescope. But there is
certainly a trail of some kind ahead, and since we are apt to lose it or to
wander apart, let us agree, if we can, upon some familiar fact or experience
which may serve as a guiding landmark. Our general course will be as follows:
first, to define our subject, or rather, to make its meaning clear by illustration;
second, to examine the reasonableness of telepathy from a natural or
biological viewpoint; and finally, to go afield with eyes and minds open to see
what [75]the birds or the beasts may teach us of this interesting matter.
To illustrate the matter by a personal experience: For many years after I first
left home my mother would become “uneasy in her mind,” as she expressed it,
whenever a slight accident or [76]danger or sickness had befallen me. If the
event were to me serious or threatening, there was no more doubt or
uneasiness on my mother’s part. She would know within the hour that I was in
trouble of some kind, and would write or telegraph to ask what was the
matter.
It is commonly assumed that any such power must be a little weird or
uncanny; that it contradicts the wholesome experience of humanity or makes
fantastic addition to its natural faculties; and I confess that the general
queerness, the lack of balance, the Hottentotish credulity of folk who dabble in
occult matters give some human, if not reasonable, grounds for the
assumption. Nevertheless, I judge that telepathy is of itself wholly natural;
that it is a survival, an age-old inheritance rather than a new invention or
discovery; that it might be exercised not by a few astonishing individuals, but
by any normal man or woman who should from infancy cultivate certain
mental powers which we now habitually neglect. I am led to this conviction
because I have found something that very much resembles telepathy in
frequent use throughout the entire animal kingdom. It is, as I think and shall
try to make clear, a natural gift or faculty of the animal mind, which is largely
subconscious, and it is from the animal mind that we inherit it; just as a few
woodsmen [77]inherit the animal sense of direction, and cultivate and trust it
till they are sure of their way in any wilderness, while the large majority of
men, dulled by artificial habit, go promptly astray whenever they venture
beyond beaten trails.
That the animals inherit this power of silent communication over great
distances is occasionally manifest even among our half-natural domestic
creatures. For example, that same old setter of mine, Don, who introduced us
to our fascinating subject, was left behind most unwillingly during my terms at
school; but he always seemed to know when I was on my way home. For
months at a stretch he would stay about the house, obeying my mother
perfectly, though she never liked a dog; but on the day I was expected he
would leave the premises, paying no heed to orders, and go to a commanding
ledge beside the lane, where he could overlook the highroad. Whatever the
hour of my coming, whether noon or midnight, there I would find him waiting.
In many other ways Don gave the impression, if not the evidence, that he was
a “mind-reader.” He always knew when Saturday came, or a holiday, and
possibly he may have associated the holiday notion with my old clothes; but
how he knew what luck the day had in store for him, as he often seemed to
know the instant I unsnapped his chain in the early morning, was a matter
that at first greatly puzzled me. If I appeared in my old clothes and set him
free with the resolution that [79]my day must be spent in study or tinkering or
farm work, he would bid me good morning and go off soberly to explore the
premises, as dogs are wont to do. But when I met him silently with the notion
that the day was my day off, to be wasted in shooting or fishing or roving the
countryside, then in some way Don caught the notion instantly; he would be
tugging at his leash before I reached him, and no sooner was he free than he
was all over the yard in mad capers or making lunatic attempts to drag me off
on our common holiday before breakfast.
That any dog of mine should obey my word, doing gladly whatever I told him,
was to be expected; or that in the field he should watch for a motion of my
hand and follow it instantly, whether to charge or hold or come in or cast left
or right, was a simple matter of training; but that this particular dog should,
unknown to me, enter into my very feeling, was certainly not the result of
education, and probably not of sight or sense, as we ordinarily understand the
terms. When we were together of an evening before the fire, so long as I was
working or pleasantly reading he would lie curled up on his own mat, without
ever disturbing me till it was time for him to be put to bed, when he would
remind me of the fact by nudging my elbow. But if an hour came when [80]I
was in perplexity, or had heard bad news and was brooding over it, hardly
would I be away in thought, forgetful of Don’s existence on a trail I must
follow alone, when his silky head would slide under my hand, and I would find
his brown eyes searching my face with something inexpressibly fine and loyal
and wistful in their questioning deeps.
Should this record seem to you too personal (I am dealing only with first-hand
impressions of animal life), here is the story of another dog—not a blue-
blooded or highly trained setter, but just an ordinary, doggy, neglected kind of
dog—submitted by a scientific friend of mine, who very cautiously offers no
explanation, but is content to observe and verify the facts: [81]
This second dog, Watch by name and nature, was accustomed to meet his
master much as Don met me in the lane; but he did it much more frequently,
and timed the meeting more accurately. He was nearer the natural animal,
never having been trained in any way, and perhaps for that reason he retained
more of the natural gift or faculty of receiving a message from a distance. His
owner, a busy carpenter and builder, had an office in town, and was
accustomed to return from his office or work at all hours, sometimes early in
the afternoon, and again long after dark. At whatever hour the man turned
homeward, Watch seemed to follow his movement as if by sight; he would
grow uneasy, would bark to be let out if he happened to be in the house, and
would trot off to meet his master about half-way. Though he was occasionally
at fault, and sometimes returned to brood over the matter when his master,
having started for home, was turned aside by some errand, his mistakes were
decidedly exceptional rather than typical. His strange “gift” was a matter of
common knowledge in the neighborhood, and occasionally a doubtful man
would stage an experiment: the master would agree to mark the hour when
he turned homeward, and one or more interested persons would keep tabs on
the dog. So my scientific friend repeatedly [82]tested Watch, and observed him
to take the road within a few moments of the time when his master left his
office or building operations in the town, some three or four miles away.
Thus far the record is clear and straight, but there is one important matter
which my friend overlooked, as scientific men commonly do when they deal
with nature, their mistake being to regard animals as featureless members of a
class or species rather than as individuals. The dog’s master always came or
went in a wagon drawn by a quiet old horse, and upon inquiry I found that
between Watch and the horse was a bond of comradeship, such as often
exists between two domestic animals of different species. Thus, the dog often
preferred to sleep in the stall near his big chum, or would accompany him to
the pasture when he was turned loose, and would always stand by, as if
overlooking the operation, when the horse was being harnessed. It may well
be, therefore, that it was from the horse rather than from the man that Watch
received notice when heads were turned homeward; but of the fact that some
kind of telepathic communication passed between two members of the trio
there is no reasonable doubt.
Some of my readers may make objection at this point that, though something
like telepathic [83]communication appears now and then among the brutes, it
should be regarded as merely freakish or sensational, like a two-headed calf;
while others will surely ask, “Why, if our dogs possess such a convenient
faculty, do they not use it more frequently, more obviously, and so spare
themselves manifold discomforts or misunderstandings?”
Thus, historically there was a time when the living cell, or the cell-of-life, as
one biologist calls it with rare distinction, was sensitive only to pressure;
[85]when in its darkness it knew of an external world only by its own
tremblings, in response to vibrations which poured over it from every side.
Something made it tremble, and that “something” had motion or life like its
own. Such, imaginatively, was the sentient cell’s first knowledge, the result of
a sense of touch distributed throughout its protecting surface.
Long afterward came a time when the living cell, multiplied now a millionfold,
began to develop special sense-organs, each a modification of its rudimentary
sense of touch; one to receive vibrations of air, for hearing; another to catch
some of the thronging ether waves, for seeing; a third to register the floating
particles of matter on a sensitive membrane, for taste or smelling. By that time
the cell had learned beyond a peradventure that the universe outside itself had
light and color and fragrance and harmony. Finally came a day when the cell,
still multiplying and growing ever more complex, became conscious of a new
power within itself, most marvelous of all the powers of earth, the power to
think, to feel, and to be aware of a self that registered its own impressions of
the external world. And then the cell knew, as surely as it knew sound or light,
that the universe held consciousness also, and some infinite source of thought
and feeling. Such, apparently, [86]was the age-long process from the sentient
cell to the living man.
Since we are following a different trail, this is hardly the time or place to face
the question how this development from mere living to conscious life took
place, even if one were wise or rash enough to grapple with the final problem
of evolution. Yet it may not be amiss while we “rest a pipe,” as the voyageurs
say, to point out that, of the two possible answers to our question (aside from
the convenient and restful answer that God made things so), only one,
curiously enough, has thus far been considered by our physical scientists. The
thousand books and theories of evolution which one reads are all reducible to
this elementary proposition: that the simple things of life became complex by
inner necessity. In other words, an eye became an eye, or an oak an oak, or a
man a man, simply because each must develop according to the inner law of
its being.
That may be true, though the all-compelling “inner law” is still only a vague
assumption, and the mystery of its origin is untouched; but why not by outer
compulsion as reasonably as by inner necessity? A cell-of-life that was
constantly bombarded by moving particles of matter might be compelled to
develop a sense of touch, in order to save its precious life by differentiating
such particles [87]into good and bad, or helpful and harmful. A cell over which
vibrations of air and ether were continually passing might be forced for its own
good to develop an ear and an eye to receive such vibrations as sound and
light; and a cell over which mysterious waves of thought and emotion were
ceaselessly flowing might be driven to comprehend that particular mystery by
developing a thought and emotion of its own.
I do not say that this is the right answer; I mention it merely as a speculative
possibility, in order to get our alleged scientific mind out of its deep rut of
habit by showing that every road has two sides, though a man habitually use
only one; and that Reason or Law or God, or whatever you choose to call the
ultimate mainspring of life, is quite as apt to be found on one side of the road
as on the other. Inner necessity is not a whit more logical or more explanatory
than external force or compulsion when we face the simple fact that an animal
now sees and feels in the light instead of merely existing in darkness, or that
primitive cells which were dimly sentient have now become as thinking gods,
knowing good and evil.
What this thought of ours is we do not know. Beyond the fact that we have it
and use it, thought still remains a profound mystery. That it is a living force of
some kind; that it projects itself [88]or its waves outward, as the sun cannot
but send forth his light; that it affects men as surely as gravitation or heat or
the blow of a hammer affects them,—all this is reasonably clear and certain.
But how thought travels; what refined mental ether conveys it outward with a
speed that makes light as slow as a glacier by comparison, and with a force
that sends it through walls of stone and into every darkness that the light
cannot penetrate,—this and the origin of thought are questions so deep that
our science has barely formulated them, much less dreamed of an answer. Yet
if we once grant the simple proposition that thought is a force, that it moves
inevitably from its source to its object, the conclusion is inevitable that any
thinking mind should be able to send its silent message to any other mind in
the universe. There is nothing in the nature of either mind or matter to
preclude such a possibility; only our present habit of speech, of too much
speech, prevents us from viewing it frankly.
The question why our dogs, if they have the faculty of receiving a master’s
message at a distance, do not use it more obviously, is one that I cannot
answer. Perhaps the reason is obvious enough to some of the dogs, which
have a sidelong way of coming home from their roving, as if aware they had
long been wanted. Or, possibly, the difficulty lies not in the dog, but in his
master. Every communication has two ends, one sending, the other receiving;
and of a thousand owners there are hardly two who know how properly to
handle a dog either by speech or by silence. Still again, one assumption
implied in the question is that dogs or any other animals of the same kind are
all alike; and that common assumption is very wide of the fact. Animals differ
as widely in their instinctive faculties as men in their judgments; which partly
explains why one setter readily follows his master’s word or hand, or enters
into his mood, while another remains hopelessly dumb or unresponsive. The
telepathic faculty appears more frequently, as we shall see, among birds or
animals that habitually live in flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its
most striking or impressive manifestation between a mother animal and her
young, as if some prenatal influence or control were still at work.
For example, I have occasionally had the good [90]luck to observe a she-wolf
leading her pack across the white expanse of a frozen lake in winter; and at
such times the cubs have a doggish impulse to run after any moving object
that attracts their attention. If a youngster breaks away to rush an animal that
he sees moving in the woods (once that moving animal was myself), the
mother heads him instantly if he is close to her; but if he is off before she can
check him by a motion of her ears or a low growl, she never wastes time or
strength in chasing him. She simply holds quiet, lifts her head high, and looks
steadily at the running cub. Suddenly he wavers, halts, and then, as if the look
recalled him, whirls and speeds back to the pack. If the moving object be
proper game afoot, the mother now goes ahead to stalk or drive it, while the
pack follows stealthily behind her on either side; but if the distant object be a
moose or a man, or anything else that a wolf must not meddle with, then the
mother wolf trots quietly on her way without a sound, and the errant cub falls
into place as if he had understood her silent command.
You may observe the same phenomenon of silent order and ready obedience
nearer home, if you have patience to watch day after day at a burrow of
young foxes. I have spent hours by different dens, and have repeatedly
witnessed what seemed to be excellent discipline; but I have never yet
[91]heard a vixen utter a growl or cry or warning of any kind. That audible
communication comes later, when the cubs begin to hunt for themselves; and
then you will often hear the mother’s querulous squall or the cubs’ impatient
crying when they are separated in the dark woods. While the den is their
home (they seldom enter it after they once roam abroad) silence is the rule,
and that silence is most eloquent. For hours at a stretch the cubs romp lustily
in the afternoon sunshine, some stalking imaginary mice or grasshoppers,
others challenging their mates to mock fights or mock hunting; and the most
striking feature of the exercise, after you have become familiar with the
fascinating little creatures, is that the old vixen, who lies apart where she can
overlook the play and the neighborhood, seems to have the family under
perfect control at every instant, though never a word is uttered.
That some kind of communication passes among these intelligent little brutes
is constantly evident; but it is without voice or language. Now and then, when
a cub’s capers lead him too far from the den, the vixen lifts her head to look at
him intently; and somehow that look has the same effect as the she-wolf’s
silent call; it stops the cub as if she had sent a cry or a messenger after him. If
that happened once, you might overlook it as a [92]matter of mere chance; but
it happens again and again, and always in the same challenging way. The
eager cub suddenly checks himself, turns as if he had heard a command,
catches the vixen’s look, and back he comes like a trained dog to the whistle.
As the shadows lengthen on the hillside, and the evening comes when the
mother must go mousing in the distant meadow, she rises quietly to her feet.
Instantly the play stops; the cubs gather close, their heads all upturned to the
greater head that bends to them, and there they stand in mute intentness, as
if the mother were speaking and the cubs listening. For a brief interval that
tense scene endures, exquisitely impressive, while you strain your senses to
catch its meaning. There is no sound, no warning of any kind that ears can
hear. Then the cubs scamper quickly into the burrow; the mother, without
once looking back, slips away into the shadowy twilight. At the den’s mouth a
foxy little face appears, its nostrils twitching, its eyes following a moving
shadow in the distance. When the shadow is swallowed up in the dusk the
face draws back, and the wild hillside is wholly silent and deserted.
You can go home now. The vixen may be hours on her hunting, but not a cub
will again show his nose until she returns and calls him. If a [93]human mother
could exercise such silent, perfect discipline, or leave the house with the
certainty that four or five lively youngsters would keep out of danger or
mischief as completely as young fox cubs keep out of it, raising children might
more resemble “one grand sweet song” than it does at present.
Another lupine trait which first surprised and [95]then challenged my woodcraft
is this: in the winter-time, when timber-wolves commonly run in small packs, a
solitary or separated wolf always seems to know where his mates are hunting
or idly roving or resting in their day-bed. The pack is made up of his family
relatives, younger or older, all mothered by the same she-wolf; and by some
bond or attraction or silent communication he can go straight to them at any
hour of the day or night, though he may not have seen them for a week, and
they have wandered over countless miles of wilderness in the interim.
We may explain this fact, if such it be (I shall make it clear presently), on the
simple ground that the wolves, though incurable rovers, have bounds beyond
which they seldom pass; that they return on their course with more or less
regularity; and that in traveling, as distinct from hunting, they always follow
definite runways, like the foxes. Because of these fixed habits, a solitary wolf
might remember that the pack was due in a certain region on a certain day,
and by going to that region and putting his nose to the runways he could
quickly pick up the fresh trail of his fellows. There is nothing occult in such a
process; it is a plain matter of brain and nose.
In this case it is possible to limit the time of the wounded wolf’s seclusion,
because the limping track that led from the den was but a few hours old when
I found it, and the only track leading into the den was half obliterated by snow
which had fallen two nights previously. How many devious miles the pack had
traveled in the interim would be hard to estimate. I crossed their hunting or
roaming trails at widely separate points, and once I surprised them in their
day-bed; but I never found the limit of their great range. A few days later that
same limping wolf left another den of his, under a windfall, and headed not for
the buck, which was now frozen stiff, but for another deer which the same
pack had killed in a different [97]region, some eight or ten straight miles away,
and perhaps twice that distance as wolves commonly travel.
If you contend that this wounded wolf must have known where the meat was
by the howling of the pack when they killed, I grant that may be true in one
case, but certainly not in the other. For by great good luck I was near the
pack, following a fresh trail in the gray, breathless dawn, when the wolves
killed the second deer; and there was not a sound for mortal ears to hear, not
a howl or a trail cry or even a growl of any kind. They followed, killed and ate
in silence, as wolves commonly do, their howling being a thing apart from their
hunting. The wounded wolf was then far away, with miles of densely wooded
hills and valleys between him and his pack.
Do you ask, “How was it possible to know all this?” From the story the snow
told. At daybreak I had found the trail of a hunting pack, and was following it
stealthily, with many a cautious détour and look ahead, for they are
unbelievably shy brutes; and so it happened that I came upon the carcass of
the deer only a few minutes after the wolves had fed and roamed lazily off
toward their day-bed. I followed them too eagerly, and alarmed them before I
could pick the big one I wanted; whereupon they took to rough country,
[98]traveling a pace that left me hopelessly far behind. When I returned to the
deer, to read how the wolves had surprised and killed their game, I noticed the
fresh trail of a solitary wolf coming in at right angles to the trail of the hunting
pack. It was the limper again, who had just eaten what he wanted and trailed
off by himself. I followed and soon jumped him, and took after him on the
lope, thinking I could run him down or at least come near enough for a
revolver-shot; but that was a foolish notion. Even on three legs he whisked
through the thick timber so much easier than I could run on snow-shoes that I
never got a second glimpse of him.
By that time I was bound to know, if possible, how the limper happened to
find this second deer for his comfort; so I picked up his incoming trail and ran
it clear back to his den under the windfall, from which he had come as straight
as if he knew exactly where he was heading. His trail was from eastward;
what little air was stirring came from the south; so that it was impossible for
his nose to guide him to the meat even had he been within smelling distance,
as he certainly was not. The record in the snow was as plain as any other
print, and from it one might reasonably conclude that either the wolves can
send forth a silent food-call, with some added information, or [99]else that a
solitary wolf may be so in touch with his pack-mates that he knows not only
where they are, but also, in a general way, what they are doing.
In comparison with timber-wolves the caribou is rather a witless brute; but he,
too, has his “uncanny” moods, and one who patiently follows him, with deeper
interest in his anima than in his antlered head, finds him frequently doing
some odd or puzzling thing which may indicate a perception more subtle than
that of his dull eyes or keen ears or almost perfect nose. Here is one example
of Megaleep’s peculiar way:
I was trailing a herd of caribou one winter day on the barrens (treeless plains
or bogs) of the Renous River in New Brunswick. For hours I had followed
through alternate thick timber and open bog without alarming or even seeing
my game. The animals were plainly on the move, perhaps changing their
feeding-ground; and when Megaleep begins to wander no man can say where
he will go, or where stop, or what he is likely to do next. Once, after trailing
him eight or ten miles, twice jumping him, I met him head-on, coming briskly
back in his own tracks, as if to see what was following him. From the trail I
read that there were a dozen animals in the herd, and that one poor wounded
brute lagged continually behind the others. He was going on three legs;
[100]his right forefoot, the bone above it shattered by some blundering hunter’s
bullet, swung helplessly as he hobbled along, leaving its pathetic record in the
snow.
On a wooded slope which fell away to a chain of barrens, halting to search the
trail ahead, my eye caught a motion far across the open, and through the
field-glass I saw my herd for the first time, resting unsuspiciously on the
farther edge of the barren, a full mile or more away. From my feet the trail led
down through a dense fringe of evergreen, and then straight out across the
level plain. A few of the caribou were lying down; others moved lazily in or out
of the forest that shut in the barren on that side; and as I watched them two
animals, yearlings undoubtedly, put their heads together for a pushing match,
like domestic calves at play.
Hardly had I begun to circle the barren, keeping near the edge of it but always
out of sight in the evergreens, when I ran upon a solitary caribou trail, the trail
of the cripple, who had evidently wearied and turned aside to rest, perhaps
knowing that his herd was near the end of its journey. A little farther on I
jumped him out of a fir thicket, and watched him a moment as he hobbled
deeper into the woods, heading away to the west. The course surprised me a
little, for his mates [101]were northward; and at the thought I quickly found an
opening in the cover and turned my glass upon the other caribou. Already they
were in wild alarm. For a brief interval they ran about confusedly, or stood
tense as they searched the plain and the surrounding woods for the source of
danger; then they pushed their noses out and racked away at a marvelous
pace, crossing the barren diagonally toward me and smashing into the woods
a short distance ahead, following a course which must soon bring them and
their wounded mate together. If I were dealing with people, I might say
confidently that they were bent on finding out what the alarm was about; but
as I have no means of knowing the caribou motive, I can only say that the two
trails ran straight as a string through the timber to a meeting-point on the
edge of another barren to the westward.
If you would reasonably explain the matter, remember that these startled
animals were far away from me; that the cripple and myself were both hidden
from their eyes, and that I was moving upwind and silently. It was impossible
that they should hear or see or smell me; yet they were on their toes a
moment after the cripple started up, as if he had rung a bell for them. It was
not the first time I had witnessed a herd of animals break away when, as I
suspected, they had received some [102]silent, incomprehensible warning, nor
was it the last; but it was the only time when I could trace the whole process
without break or question from beginning to end. And when, to test the matter
to the bottom, I ran the trail of the herd back to where they had been resting,
there was no track of man or beast in the surrounding woods to account for
their flight.
[102]
It is true that the event often befalls otherwise, since you may jump one
animal without alarming others of the same herd; and it is possible that the
degree or quality of the alarm has something to do with its carrying power, as
we feel the intense emotion of a friend more quickly than his ordinary
[103]moods. In this case the solitary caribou was tremendously startled; for I
was very near, and the first intimation he had of me, or I of him, was when my
snow-shoe caught on a snag and I pitched over a log almost on top of him.
Yet the difficulty of drawing a conclusion from any single instance appears in
this: that I have more than once stalked, killed and dressed an animal without
disturbing others of his kind near at hand (it may be that no alarm was sent
out, for the animal was shot before he knew the danger, and in the deep
woods animals pay little attention to the sound of a rifle); and again, when I
have been trying to approach a herd from leeward, I have seen them move
away hurriedly, silently, suspiciously, in obedience to some warning which
seemed to spread through the woods like a contagion.
The latter experience is common enough among hunters of big game, who are
often at a loss to explain the sudden flight of animals that a moment ago,
under precisely the same outward influences, were feeding or resting without
suspicion. Thus, you may be stalking a big herd of elk, or wapiti, which are
spread out loosely over half a mountainside. You are keen for the master bull
with the noble antlers; nothing else interests you, more’s the pity; but you
soon learn that the cunning old [104]brute is hidden somewhere in the midst of
the herd, depending on the screen of cow-elk to warn him of danger to his
precious skin. Waiting impatiently till this vanguard has moved aside, you
attempt to worm your way nearer to the hidden bull. You are succeeding
beautifully, you think, when a single cow that you overlooked begins to act
uneasily. She has not seen or heard you, certainly, and the wind is still in your
favor; but there she stands, like an image of suspicion, head up, looking,
listening, testing the air, till she makes up her mind she would as lief be
somewhere else, when without cry or grunt or warning of any kind that ears
can hear she turns and glides rapidly away.
Now if you value animal lore above stuffed skins, or experience above the
babble of hunting naturalists, forget the big bull and his greed-stirring antlers;
scramble quickly to the highest outlook at hand, and use your eyes. No alarm
has been sounded; the vast silence is unbroken; yet for some mysterious
reason the whole herd is suddenly on the move. To your right, to your left,
near at hand or far away, bushes quiver or jump; alert brown forms appear or
vanish like shadows, all silent and all heading in the direction taken by the first
sentinel. One moment there are scores of elk in sight, feeding or resting
[105]quietly; the next they are gone and the great hillside is lifeless. The thrill
of that silent, moving drama has more wisdom in it, yes, and more pleasure,
than the crash of your barbarous rifle or the convulsive kicking of a stricken
beast that knows not why you should kill him.
Such is the experience, known to almost every elk-hunter who has learned
that life is more interesting than death; and I know nothing of deer nature to
explain it save this—that the whole herd has suddenly felt and understood the
silent impulse to go, and has obeyed it without a question, as the young wolf
or fox cub obeys the silent return call of his watchful mother.
Such impulses seem to be more common and more dependable among the
whales, which have rudimentary or imperfect sense-organs, but which are
nevertheless delicately sensitive to external impressions, to the approach of
unseen danger, to the movements of the tiny creatures on which they feed, to
changes of wind or tide and to a falling barometer, as if nature had given them
a first-class feeling apparatus of some kind to make up for their poor eyes and
ears. Repeatedly have I been struck by this extraordinary sensitiveness when
watching the monstrous creatures feeding with the tide in one of the great
bays of the Newfoundland or the Labrador coast. If I lowered a [106]boat to
approach one of them, he would disappear silently before I could ever get
near enough to see clearly what he was doing. That seemed odd to me; but
presently I began to notice a more puzzling thing: at the instant my whale
took alarm every other whale of the same species seemed to be moved by the
same impulse, sounding when the first sounded, or else turning with him to
head for the open sea.
A score of times I tried the experiment, and commonly, but not invariably, with
the same result. I would sight a few leviathans playing or feeding, shooting up
from the deep, breaching half their length out of water to fall back with a
tremendous souse; and through my glasses I would pick up others here or
there in the same bay. Selecting a certain whale, I would glide rapidly toward
him, crouching low in the dory and sculling silently by means of an oar over
the stern. By some odd channel of perception (not by sight, certainly, for I
kept out of the narrow range of his eye, and a whale is not supposed to smell
or hear) he would invariably get wind of me and go down; and then, jumping
to my feet, I would see other whales in the distance catch the instant alarm,
some upending as they plunged to the deeps, others whirling seaward and
forging full speed ahead. [107]
Wolves and caribou and whales are far from the observation of most folk; but
the winter birds in your own yard may some time give you a hint, at least, of
the same mysterious transference of an impulse over wide distances. When
you scatter food for them during a cold snap or after a storm (it is better not
to feed them regularly, I think, especially in mild weather when their proper
food is not covered with snow) your bounty is at first neglected except by the
house sparrows and starlings. Unlike our native birds, these imported
foreigners are easily “pauperized,” seeking [108]no food for themselves so long
as you take care of them. They keep tabs on you, also, waiting patiently about
the house, and soon learn what it means when you emerge from your back
door on a snowy morning with a broom in one hand and a pan in the other.
They are feeding greedily the moment your back is turned, and for a time they
are the only birds at the table. When they have gorged themselves, for they
have no manners, a few tree-sparrows and juncos flit in to eat daintily. Then
suddenly the wilder birds appear—jays, chickadees, siskins, kinglets and, oh,
welcome! a flock of bob-whites—coming from you know not where, in
obedience to a summons which you have not heard. Some of these may have
visited the yard in time past, and are returning to it now, hunger driven; but
others you have never before met within the city limits, and a few have their
accustomed dwelling in the pine woods, which are miles away. How did these
hungry hermits suddenly learn that food was here?
The answer to that question is simple, and entirely “sensible” if you think only
of birds that live or habitually glean in your neighborhood. Some of them saw
you scatter the food, or else found it by searching, while others spied these
lucky ones feeding and came quickly to join the feast. For birds that live wider
afield there is also [109]an explanation that your senses can approve, though it
is probably wrong or only half right: from a distance they chanced to see
wings speeding in the direction of your yard, and followed them expectantly
because wings may be as eloquent as voices, the flight of a bird when he is
heading for food being very different from the flight of the same bird when he
is merely looking for food. But these most rare visitors, kinglets or pine-finches
or grosbeaks or bob-whites, that never before entered your yard, and that
would not be here now had you not thought to scatter food this morning,—at
these you shake your head, calling it chance or Providence or mystery,
according to your mood or disposition. To me, after observing the matter
closely many times, the reasonable explanation of these rare visitors is that
either wild birds know how to send forth a silent food-call or, more likely, that
the excitement of feeding birds spreads powerfully outward, and is felt by
other starving birds, alert and sensitive, at a distance beyond all possible
range of sight or hearing. By no other hypothesis can I account for the fact
that certain wild birds make their appearance in my yard at a moment when a
number of other birds are eagerly feeding, and at no other time, though I
watch for them from one year’s end to another.
Like every other explanation, whether of stars [110]or starlings, this also leads
to a greater mystery. The distance at which such a summoning call can be felt
by others must be straitly limited, else would all the starving birds of a state
be flocking to my yard on certain mornings; and the force by which the silent
call is projected is as unknown as the rare mental ether which bears its waves
or vibrations in all directions. Yet the problem need not greatly trouble us,
since the answer, when it comes, will be as natural as breathing. If silent or
telepathic communication exists in nature, and I think it surely does, the
mystery before us is no greater than that which daily confronts the astronomer
or the wireless operator. One measures the speed of light from Orion; the
other projects his finger-touch across an ocean; but neither can tell or even
guess the quality of the medium by which the light or the electric wave is
carried to its destination.
[111]
[Contents]
V
The Swarm Spirit
This is a chapter on the wing drill of birds, the swarming of bees, the panics
and unseasonal migrations of larger or smaller beasts, and other curious
phenomena in which the wild creatures of a flock or herd all act in unison,
doing the same thing at the same time, as if governed by a single will rather
than by individual motives. If it should turn out that the single will were
expressed in a voice or cry, or even in a projected impulse, then are we again
face to face with our problem of animal communication.
Now the wonderful wing drill of certain birds has something in it which I
cannot quite fathom or understand, not even with a miracle of collective
impulse to help me; yet I have observed two characteristics of the ordered
flight which may help to dispel the fog of assumption that now envelops it.
The first is, that the drill is seen only when an uncommonly large number of
birds of the same kind are gathered together, on a sunny day of early spring,
as a rule, or in the perfection of autumn weather.
The same characteristic of uncommon numbers holds true of the crows and,
indeed, of all other species of birds, save one, that ever practise the wing drill.
Wild geese when in small companies, each a family unit, have a regular and
beautiful [114]flight in harrow-shaped formation; but I have never witnessed
anything like a wing drill among them save on one occasion, when a thousand
or more of the birds were gathered together for a few days of frolic before
beginning the southern migration. Nor have I ever seen the drill among
thrushes or warblers or sparrows or terns or seagulls, which sometimes gather
in uncounted numbers, but which do not, apparently, have the same motive
that leads crows or starlings to unite in a kind of rhythmic air-dance on
periodic occasions.
You have risen soon after midnight, called by the storm and the shrilling of
passing plover, and long before daylight you are waiting for the birds on the
burnt-over plain. Your “stand” is a hole in the earth, hidden by a few berry-
bushes; and before you, at right angles with the course of the storm (for
plover always wheel to head into the [116]wind when they take the ground),
are some scores of rudely painted decoys. As the day breaks you see against
the east a motion as of wings, and your call rings out wild and clear, to be
echoed on the instant. In response to your whistle the distant motion grows
wildly fantastic; it begins to whirl and eddy, as if a wisp of fog were rolling
swiftly down-wind; only in some mysterious fashion the fog holds together,
and in it are curious flickerings. Those are plover, certainly; no other birds
have that perfect unity of movement; and now, since they are looking for the
source of the call they have just heard, you throw your cap in the air or wave
a handkerchief to attract attention. There is an answering flash of white from
the under side of their wings as the plover catch your signal and turn all at
once to meet it. Here they come, driving in at terrific speed straight at you!
It is better to stop calling now, because the plover will soon see your decoys;
and these birds when on the ground make no sound except a low, pulsating
whistle of welcome or recall. This is uttered but seldom, and unless you can
imitate it, which is not likely, your whistling will do no good. Besides, it could
not possibly be heard. Listen to that musical babel, and let your nerves dance
to it! In all nature there is nothing to compare for utter wildness with the
fluting of incoming plover. [117]
On they come, hundreds of quivering lines, which are the thin edges of wings,
moving as one to a definite goal. Their keen eyes caught the first wave of your
handkerchief in the distance; and now they see their own kind on the ground,
as they think, and their babel changes as they begin to talk to them. Suddenly,
and so instantaneously that it makes you blink, there is a change of some kind
in every quivering pair of wings. At first, in the soft light of dawn, you are sure
that the plover are still coming, for you did not see them turn; but the lines
grow smaller, dimmer, and you know that every bird in the flock has whirled,
as if at command, and is now heading straight away. You put your fingers to
your lips and send out the eery plover call again and again; but it goes
unheeded in that tumult of better whistling. The quivering lines are now all
blurred in one; with a final flicker they disappear below a rise of ground; the
birds are gone, and you cease your vain calling. Then, when you are thinking
you will never see that flock again, a cloud of wings shoot up from the plain
against the horizon; they fall, wheel, rise again in marvelous flight, not as a
thousand individuals but as a unit, and the lines grow larger, clearer, as the
plover come sweeping back to your decoys once more.
The only other explanation of the plovers’ action is the one commonly found in
the bird-books, to which I have already briefly referred, and which we must
now examine more narrowly. It assumes that all the birds of a migrating flock
are moved not by individual wills, but by a collective impulse or instinct, which
affects them all alike at the same instant. In support of this favorite theory we
are told to consider the bees, which are said to have no individual motives,
and no need for them, since they blindly follow a swarm or hive instinct
[119]that makes them all precisely alike in their actions. The same swarm
instinct appears often in the birds, but less strongly, because they are more