Gordon Grice's Blog, page 34

Urban Coyotes

A local news video with some nice images of coyotes. Thanks to Dee for the tip.

At the Bee Hive

Photos courtesy of Brian Lueck.

The Apocalyptic Giant Squid

Fascinating new article about giant and colossal squids--and why recent sightings of them are not good news. Author Mark Dery touches on some themes I dealt with in Shark Attacks.





The Kraken Awakes: What Architeuthis is Trying to Tell Us - Boing Boing: 

"The tentacle feels hard yet rubbery to the touch, like an overinflated bicycle tire—a bicycle tire studded with suckers the size of quarters, on stalks. Running my thumb around the inside of one, I feel the sawtoothed ring of chitin that gives the creature its fearsome grip. In life, its suckers leave proof of the fabled beast’s existence: ring-shaped scars on the hide of its archnemesis, the Sperm whale. A photo in a 1917 Smithsonian publication bears the poetic caption, “a piece of Sperm whale skin relating a battle with a giant squid, in sucker scar script.”"








The Kraken

A Wildlife Classic by 

Alfred Tennyson







Below the thunders of the upper deep,

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumbered and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

An Encounter with a Great White Shark

Rogue 5m-long great white shark attacks boat off Victoria's coast | News.com.au:



Fishermen pet and film a great white shark, which bites their boat. 

VIDEO: Rogue 5m-long shark attacks boat

Thanks to Croconut for the news tip.

Fungal Interlude #4

Photography by Parker Grice

My Latest Publication: Tarantula and Toad

Photo by Parker Grice



Oklahoma Today - Current Issue



The latest issue of Oklahoma Today (January/February 2013) features possibly the creepiest story ever to run there. It's all about the Great Plains narrowmouth toad, which lives with the Oklahoma brown tarantula in surprising harmony. There's also a guest appearance by Parker's pet Chilean rose tarantula Zodiac, who is less hospitable to frogs--as seen here. Story by me; text by JJ Ritchey.



Gary Lantz's piece in this issue should also interest readers of this blog. It's a moving account of life and death among the bison at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  

Classic Story: The Tortoise

The Tortoise

 A classic tale of terror by 




William Fryer Harvey







One word as to the documentary part of my story.




The letter was written by Tollerton, the butler, five weeks
before his death. Sandys, to whom he addressed it, was, I believe, his brother;
in any case the man was not known at Revelstoke Mansions, and the letter came
back to Baldby Manor unopened.




I read it twice before it dawned upon me that the man was
writing of himself. I then remembered the diary which, with the rest of his
belongings, had never been claimed. Each partly explains the other. Nothing to
my mind will ever explain the tortoise.




Here is the letter—







"Baldby Manor.




"My Dear Tom.—You asked in your last for particulars. I
suppose, as the originator of the story, I am the only person able to supply
them, but the task is rather hard. First as to the safety of the hero. You need
not be alarmed about that; my stories have always ended happily.










"You wonder how it all came about so successfully. Let
me give you the general hang of the plot. To begin with, the man was old, a
miser, and consequently eccentric. The villain of the piece (the same in this
case as the hero, you know) wanted money badly, and moreover knew where the
money was kept.




"Do you remember Oppenheim's Forensic Medicine, and how
we used to laugh over the way they always bungled these jobs? There was no
bungling here, and consequently no use for the luck that attended the hero. (I
still think of him as hero, you see; each man is a hero to himself.)




"The victim occasionally saw the doctor, and the doctor
knew that the old fellow was suffering from a disease which might end suddenly.
The hero knew what the graver symptoms of the disease were, and with diabolical
cunning told the doctor's coachman how his master had begun to complain, but
refused to see any medical man. Three days later that 'intelligent old butler—I
rather think he must have come down in the world, poor fellow'—is stopped in
the village street by Æsculapius.




"'How is your master, John?' 'Very bad, sir.' Then
follows an accurate account of signs and symptoms, carefully cribbed up from
old Banks's Handbook. Æsculapius is alarmed at the gravity of the case, but
delighted at the accuracy of the observations. The butler suggests that an
unofficial visit should be paid on the morrow; he complains of the
responsibility. Æsculapius replies that he was about to suggest the very same
thing himself. 'I fear I can do little,' he adds as he drives away.




"The old man sleeps soundly at night. The butler goes
his usual round at twelve, and enters his master's room to make up the fire,
and then—well, after all the rest can be imagined. De Quincey himself would
have approved of the tooling, cotton-wool wrapped in a silk handkerchief. There
was no subsequent bleeding, no fracture of the hyoid or thyroid, and this
because the operator remembered that aphorism in Oppenheim, that murderers use
unnecessary violence. Only gold is taken, and only a relatively small quantity.
I have invented another aphorism: The temperate man is never caught.




"Next day the butler enters the bedroom with his
master's breakfast. The tray drops to the floor with a crash, he tugs
frantically at the bell-rope, and the servants rush into the room. The groom is
sent off post haste for help. The doctor comes, shakes his head, and says, 'I
told you so; I always feared the end would be this!'




"Even if there had been an inquest, nothing would have
been discovered. The only thing at all suspicious was a slight hemorrhage into
the right conjunctiva, and that would be at best a very doubtful sign.




"The butler stays on; he is re-engaged by the new
occupier, a half-pay captain, who has the sincerity not to bemoan his cousin's
death.




"And here comes a little touch of tragedy. When the
will is read, a sum of two hundred pounds is left to John the butler, as 'some
slight reward for faithful service rendered.' Question for debate: 'Would a
knowledge of the will have induced a different course of action?' It is
difficult to decide. The man was seventy-seven and almost in his dotage, and,
as you say, the option of taking up those copper shares is not a thing to be
lightly laid aside.




"It's not a bad story, is it? But I am surprised at
your wanting to hear more than I told you at first. One of the captain's
friends—I have forgotten his name—met you last winter in Nice; he described you
as 'respectability embalmed.' We hear all these things in the servants' hall.
That I got from the parlour maid, who was uncertain of the meaning of the
phrase. Well, so long. I shall probably chuck this job at the end of the year.




"P.S.—Invest anything that is over in Arbutos Rubbers.
They are somewhere about 67 at present, but from a straight tip I overheard in
the smoke-room, they are bound to rise."










That is the letter. What follows are extracts from
Tollerton's diary.




"Kingsett came in this morning with a large tortoise
they had found in the kitchen-garden. I suppose it is one of the half-dozen Sir
James let loose a few years ago. The gardeners are always turning them out,
like the ploughshares did the skulls in that rotten poem we used to learn at
school about the battle of Blenheim. This one I haven't seen before. He's much
bigger than the others, a magnificent specimen of Chelonia what's-its-name.




"They brought it into the conservatory and gave it some
milk, but the beast was not thirsty. It crawled to the back of the hot-water
pipes, and there it will remain until the children come back from their aunt's.
They are rather jolly little specimens, and like me are fond of animals.




*




"The warmth must have aroused the tortoise from its
lethargy, for this morning I found it waddling across the floor of the hall. I
took it with me into my pantry; it can sleep very well with the cockroaches in
the bottom cupboard. I rather think tortoises are vegetable feeders, but I must
look the matter up.




*




"There is something fascinating in a tortoise. This one
reminds one of a cat in a kennel. Its neck muscles are wonderfully active,
especially the ones that withdraw the head. There is something quite feline in
the eyes—wise eyes, unlike a dog's in never for a moment betraying the purpose
of the brain behind them.




*




"The temperature of the pantry is exactly suited to the
tortoise. He keeps awake and entertains me vastly, but has apparently no wish
to try the draughty passages again. A cat in a kennel is a bad simile; he is
more like a god in a shrine. The shrine is old, roofed with a great ivory dome.
Only occasionally do the faithful see the dweller in the shrine, and then
nothing but two eyes, all-seeing and all-knowing. The tortoise should have been
worshipped by the Egyptians.




*




"I still hear nothing from Tom; he ought to have
replied by now. But he is one of those rare men whom one can trust implicitly.
I often think of the events of the past two months, not at night, for I let
nothing interfere with that excellent habit of sleeping within ten minutes from
the time my head has touched the pillow, but in the daytime when my hands are
busy over their work.




"I do not regret what I have done, though the two
hundred would weigh on my mind if I allowed it to do so. I am thankful to say I
bore my late master no ill-will. I never annoyed him; he always treated me
civilly. If there had been spite or malice on my side I should never have acted
as I did, for death would only have removed him beyond my reach. I have found
out by bitter experience that by fostering malice one forfeits that peaceable
equanimity which to my mind is the crown of life, besides dwarfing one's
nature. As it is, I can look back with content to the years we have spent
together, and if in some future existence we should meet again, I, for my part,
shall bear no grudge.




"Tortoises do not eat cockroaches. Mine has been shut
up in a box for the last half-hour with three of the largest I can find. They
are still undevoured.




*




"Some day I shall write an essay upon tortoises, or has
the thing been already botched by someone else? I should lead off with that
excellent anecdote of Sydney Smith's. A child, if I remember, was found by that
true-hearted divine stroking the back of a tortoise. 'My dear,' he said, 'you
might as well stroke the dome of St. Paul's in order to propitiate the Dean and
Chapter.' Tortoises are not animals to be fondled. They have too much dignity,
they are far too aloof to be turned aside from their purpose by any of our
passing whims.




*




"The pantry has grown too warm, and the tortoise has
taken to perambulating the passages, returning always at night to the cupboard.
He seems to have been tacitly adopted as an indoor fixture, and what is more,
he has been named. I named him. The subject cropped up at lunchtime. The
captain suggested 'Percy' because he was so 'Shelley,' a poor sort of joke with
which to honour the illustrious dead, but one which of course found favour with
a table full of limerick makers. There followed a host of inappropriate
suggestions. I am the last person to deny the right of an animal to a name, but
there is invariably one name, and one name only, that is suitable. The guests
seemed to think as I did, for all agreed that there was some one of whom the
beast was the very image, not the vicar, not Dr. Baddely, not even Mrs.
Gilchrist of the Crown. As they talked, I happened to notice an enlargement of
an old portrait of Sir James, which had just come back from being framed. It
showed him seated in his bath-chair, the hood of which was drawn down. He was
wrapped up in his great sealskin cape; his sealskin cap was on his head, with
the flaps drawn close over his ears. His long, scraggy neck, covered with
shrivelled skin, was bent forward, and his eyes shone dark and penetrating. He
had not a vestige of eyebrow to shade their brilliance. The captain laughingly
turned to me to end their dispute. The old man's name was on my lips. As it
was, I stuttered out 'Jim,' and so Jim he is in the dining-room. He will never
be anything else than Sir James in the butler's pantry.




"Tortoises do not drink milk; or, to avoid arguing from
the particular to the general, Sir James does not drink milk, or indeed
anything at all. If it were not so irreverent I should dearly like to try him
with some of our old port.




*




"The children have come back. The house is full of
their laughter. Sir James, of course, was a favourite at once. They take him
with them everywhere, in spite of his appalling weight. If I would let them
they would be only too glad to keep him upstairs in the dolls'-house: as it is,
the tortoise is in the nursery half the day, unless he is being induced to beat
his own record from the night-nursery door to the end of the passage.




"I still have no news of Tom. I have made up my mind to
give notice next month; I well deserve a holiday.




"Oh, I must not forget. Sir James does, as I thought,
take port. One of the gentlemen drank too deep last night; I think it must have
been the Admiral. Anyhow there was quite a pool of dark liquid on the floor
that exactly suited my purpose. I brought Sir James in. He lapped it up in a
manner that seemed to me uncanny. It is the first time I ever used that word,
which, till now, has never conveyed any meaning to my mind. I must try him some
day with hot rum and water.




*




"I was almost forgetting the fable of the hare and the
tortoise. That must certainly figure in my essay; for the steady plod plod of
Sir James as he follows one (I have taught him to do that) would be almost
pathetic if one did not remember that perseverance can never be pathetic, since
perseverance means ultimate success. He reminds me of those old lines, I forget
whose they are, but I think they must be Elizabethan—




'Some think to lose him

By having him confined;

And some do suppose him,

Poor heart, to be blind;

But if ne'er so close ye wall him,

Do the best that ye may,

Blind love, if so ye call him,

He will find out his way.




'There is no striving

To cross his intent;

There is no contriving

His plots to prevent;

But if once the message greet him

That his True Love doth stay,

If Death should come and meet him

Love will find out the way.'




"I have given notice. The captain was exceedingly kind.
Kindness and considerate treatment to servants seem to belong to the family. He
said that he was more than sorry to lose me, but quite understood my wish to
settle down. He asked me if there was any favour he could do me. I told him
yes, I should like to take 'Jim' with me. He seemed amused, but raised no
objection, but I can imagine the stormy scenes in the nursery.




"Mem. important.—There is a broken rail in the
balustrade on the top landing overlooking the hall. The captain has twice asked
me to see to it, as he is afraid one of the children might slip through. Only
the bottom part of the rail is broken, and there should be no fear of any
accidents. I cannot think how with a good memory like mine I have forgotten to
see to this."










These are the only extracts from Tollerton's diary that have
a bearing upon what followed. They are sufficient to show his extraordinary
character, his strong imagination, and his stronger self-control.




I, the negligible half-pay captain of his story, little
dreamed what sort of a man had served me so well as butler; but strange as his
life had been, his death was stranger.




The hall at Baldby Manor is exceedingly lofty, extending the
full height of the three-storied house. It is surrounded by three landings;
from the uppermost a passage leads to the nursery. The day after the last entry
in the diary I was crossing the hall on my way to the study, when I noticed the
gap in the banisters. I could hear distinctly the children's voices as they
played in the corridor. Doubly annoyed at Tollerton's carelessness (he was
usually the promptest and most methodical of servants), I rang the bell. I
could see at once that he was vexed at his own forgetfulness. "I made a
note of it only last night," he said. Then as we looked upward a curious
smile stole across his lips. "Do you see that?" he said, and pointed
to the gap above. His sight was keener than mine, but I saw at last the thing
that attracted his gaze—the two black eyes of the tortoise, the withered head,
the long, protruded neck stretched out from the gap in the rail. "You'll
excuse a liberty, sir, I hope, from an old servant, but don't you see the
extraordinary resemblance between the tortoise and the old master? He's the
very image of Sir James. Look at the portrait behind you." Half
instinctively I turned. I must have passed the picture scores of times in the course
of a day, I must have seen it in sunlight and lamplight, from every point of
view; it was a clever picture, well painted, if the subject was not exactly a
pleasing one, but that was all.




Yes, I knew at once what the butler meant. It was the
eyes—no, the neck—that caused the resemblance, or was it both? together with
the half-open mouth with its absence of teeth.




I had been used to think of the smile as having something
akin to benevolence about it; time had seemed to be sweetening a nature once
sour. Now I saw my mistake—the expression was wholly cynical. The eyes held me
by their discerning power, the lips with their subtle mockery.




Suddenly the silence was broken by a cry of terror, followed
by an awful crash.




I turned round in amazement.




The body of Tollerton lay stretched on the floor, strangely
limp; in falling he had struck the corner of a heavy oak table.




His head lay in a little pool of blood, which the tortoise—I
shudder as I think of it—was lapping greedily.

Green Tree Boa

Photography by Dee Puett

Bill Roorbach Reads in Minneapolis

For readers in the Minneapolis area--Bill Roorbach, one of the world's best nature writers, will be at Magers and Quinn bookstore tomorrow night (Thursday) at 7:30. He's there in support of his new novel Life Among Giants, but I'd bet he'd be happy to also talk about and autograph his nature books, like the flavorful memoir Temple Stream. Hope to see some of you there.

The Morals of Monkeys (and Apes)

Interesting remarks by Frans de Waal, a leading primate researcher. Those Capuchin monkeys remind me of some people I know. 




Thanks to D'Arcy for the tip.