VON SEYFFERTITZ'S POLITICAL CRANE.
IN the delightful book about birds which Messrs. Laboucbere and Jesse are translating from the German of Dr. A. E. Brehm* there is a story of a tame crane which differs from the many stories which prove unanswerably the existence of reason in animals in the peculiar character of the motive by which this reason was chiefly governed. Von Seyffertitz, another great German natural- ist, had himself possessed this remarkable crane, and sent the account of it to Dr. Brehm's father. The peculiarity of the bird was his remarkable love of influence, the ingenuity of the methods by which he gained his ambition, and the thoroughly rational and even sober character of the government in which he used his influence when gained. Having lost his mate by an accident, the crane, instead of attaching himself exclusively to his human friends and superiors, found it necessary apparently to choose associates amongst whom his intelligence would give him a certain superiority, where his mind would be the directing mind instead of the directed. And yet the idealism of the bird would not apparently allow him to condescend to busy himself about races so completely his inferior in intelligence as to dissipate all 'illusions' about them. Ile found it necessary, so we infer from the curious story, not only to select for the exercise of his political capacity creatures whom he could really manage, but to indulge himself with a little hero-worship (entirely of his own making) in relation to one of them. What he decided to do in life was to act as a kind of amateur overseer to the vari- ous animals on Herr von Seyffertitz's farm, but in order to invest this sober calling with a sufficient aureole of imaginative interest, the crane began by setting up one of the bulls on the farm on a moral pedestal quite of his own creation,—inventing a hero, in short, to whom he attributed, exactly as a romantic girl sometimes will to the most stolid man amongst her acquaintances, the utmost grandeur of courage, strength, magnanimity, and equanimity, not because the idol showed any of these qualities, but because it was an intellectual necessity for the bird to make a hero among its com- panions, if it could not find one. "How and from what reason," says Von Seyffertitz, "this friendship sprang, I cannot exactly make out, though it appears to me that the bull's loud bass voice produced some special effect,"—which is not at all unlikely, but evidently this was the mere accident which determimed the crane's selection, while the operating cause was his own necessity for idealizing the sphere of his political activity.
" The crane accompanies his horned favourite to the pastures, and often visits him in the stable. In his stable he stands respectful and erect by his friend, as though obliged to await his orders ; keeps the flies off him ; answers when he roars, and takes every possible means to pacify his friend when enraged. When the bull is among the cattle in the yard he plays the part of adjutant,—generally walking about two paces in his rear, often dancing round him, bowing respectfully, and in fact behaving in so droll and comical a manner that no one could look on without laughing. In the afternoon ho follows the bull and the whole herd to the meadows, a distance of more than two miles, and returns with them in the evening. The bird generally follows some few paces in the rear of his friend, or walks alongside of him, or suddenly pre- cedes him, and runs on twenty yards or more, and then turning round, bows down before his august companion until the latter Las come up with him. These proceedings are carried on through the whole village, to the intense amusement of the inhabitants, till the farm-yard is reached, when, after repeated bows and demonstrations of affection, he takes leave of his respected companion."
The bull is his hero,—a hero made by his own fancy, —but over all the other creatures of the farm-yard he asserts the superiority to which his intelligence and political capacity really entitle him. He plays " the overseer, and is a great stickler for order;" he quells disturbances among the fowls, separating and chastising all those which fight ; he drives-in herds of cattle which are inclined to stray, like a sheep-dog ; be chastises horses in harness which grow restive while waiting, but with true delicacy of mind, he strives to make them forget his superiority and severity directly they show that they comprehend and will obey him, by obediences and signs of reverence ; he is very stern with the foals, giving them to under- stand when they first appear in the yard " what they may be led to expect if they do not conduct themselves with propriety." "Should they be too merry and jump about, he immediately pur- sues them with loud cries and punishes them all round." " One " Published by Van Voo: et. Two parts of the translation have already appeared evening he brought home unaided a whole herd of heifers and drove them into the stall." On another occasion he had to drive out two unmannerly oxen which broke into the garden, and which, instead of obeying his directions, charged h. tm with their horns. He screamed his orders, which he accompanied by sharp blows of the beak, and when they charged him, avoided their blows by springing into the air, and at last punished them so severely that they retreated from the garden, leaving him completely master of
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the field. In a word, the bird's whole function in life is orderly organization,—the suppression of every sort of anarchy ; —he is a crane after Mr. Carlyle's own heart. And yet his motive is evi- dently in great measure love of influence, such as many a woman
shows in setting other people's concerns in order, but love of influ- ,ence so far idealized that he cannot bear to think lightly of the ,sphere within which be works, and so has made himself a Guy- ,Livingetone sort of hero in it,—who, like most such heroes, is a bit of a sham, with that imposing deep bass voice of his,—in order that his work in the world may be a little more important and interesting.
The grotesque story of this crane, with his abundant and spon- taneous activities, the finesse of his fertile and sometimes fantastic expedients for winning obedience or quelling discontents, and with the willing service paid by him to the monarch of the flock, as if voluntarily to illustrate the rule that obedience is the true preparation for command, might recall for a moment Mr. Disraeli's career as overseer of the country party, the fertile and often fantastic ' education' to which he has subjected them, othe ceremonious observances, the political bows and obeisances with which he used to conciliate the deep-voiced chief of that party whose lieutenant he was, the interesting duels in which he so often came off victor with recalcitrant bovine admirers, when he had to parry many a fierce charge,by springing, as it were, into :the air, and showering down blows from above, and the severe discipline he had not unfrequently to administer to the foals of the party,—young Conservatives who kicked up their heels with- . out sufficient regard to propriety, like Mr. Gorst, for instance, in 1867,—in order "to make them acquainted with his superiority." But though the story of this winged overseer's political versa- tility in its self-assumed office would perhaps suggest this among the many other human analogies which The Birds' of a modern Aristophanes might contain, a still more interesting field of sug- gestion is opened in another direction, not the direction in which it supplies a kind of ironic commentary on human life, but that in which it opens a vista of new activity to the sagacity of creatures of lower intelligence than our own. If a crane could be so pro- ifoundly possessed with the love of influence as to undertake :gratuitously, as it were, to act as overseer or prime minister of a farm, though setting up a fiction of constitutional monarchy to divert envy from himself, what may we not expect from the developmeat of such unexpected political impulses in .other creatures of like sagacity ? Of course both the dog and the elephant have often bean trained to do special work of the same :kind,—the sheep-dog especially for sheep, and the elephant for :herds of wild elephants, —but in neither case could we well say that the love of influence had really operated to urge them to a general and spontaneous activity. Their work is of too special a kind, and is too obviously suggested by their human superiors to ;admit of its being attributed to a motive of so political a type. Bat if a spontaneous love of influence should ever develop itself generally in one of the more ingenious and rational races of animals, —and when we have a single specimen of it of so undeniable a kind as this Crane of Von Seyffertitz, it is impossible to deny that it might enter into the springs of action of a whole species,—what might not result ? Supposing such cranes as this were to display the same love of influence, (just as many human beings who are sub- ject to it do) in purposes not of organization, but of disorganization, to sot the oxen grumbling, to sting the draft horses into anarchy, to inspire the foals with wilder insubordination, and to whisper into nto the ears of the farm-yard poultry, where would man's influence be ? A revolutionary crane of abilities such as this displayed, would be as formidable as a score of mad bulls. Why should not a family of such cranes disperse to spread the principles, —say, of an animal 'International'—over the world, to inspire the working horses and yokes of oxen with the great idea of the right of labour to a share of the profits of capital, or even to assert the territorial rights of the creatures which do so much of the work by which the soil is cultivated ? We do not see why, instead of driving the cows to pasture and back, such a crane might not 'organize a cow-strike in the shape of a kicking over of milk-pails by way •of demand for better food and better litter. Or ho might take to organizing, disciplining, and commanding packs of wolves, instead of the battalions of the farm-yard ; nor could any band of assailants be more formidable than a well-organized pack of wolves, commanded by a bird of strong and resolute character. Perhaps it may be said that such qualities as this crane's are only developed by the help of a life of leisure, whose wants are artificially supplied by man, and that qualities so greed are sure to retain the comparatively civilized and humanized stamp of their origin. Let us hope so but it is entirely conceivable that creatures which had gained their experience and capacity for command in this fashion, might yet by subsequent ill-treatment be rendered misanthropes, and so driven to apply in conspiracy the experience which they had gained in council. This very crane is described as having rendered himself most formidable to one person who had incurred his hostility by ill-treatment and contempt, and why should he not have turned his energies against man altogether, if he had once been alienated from his old friends ? The love of in- fluence undirected by the highest reason and conscience is really a very dangerous kind of passion, and if it once assumed great im- portance in the tribes of the animal world beneath us, it is impos- sible to say to what difficulties it might not hied. A squadron of magpie Irregulars well commanded might set a whole group of villages at loggerheads in a very short time ; and a troop of wild dogs with such a leader might be more than the match of a Bedouin tribe. On the whole, the prospect that the love of influence on such a scale as it assumed in the character of this crane, might some day penetrate deep into the constitution of the lower animal races, is tolerable only under the assumption that the sway of reason in these creatures will always tend to subordinate itself to that of man, in other words, to be what we should regard as a conserva- tive, and not a revolutionary power. Such a crane as that of Von Seyffertitz with a genuinely " Red,"—or say only Mazzinian,— political bias, might overturn the balance of power in virtue of which man reigns, in any locality in which he might choose to lay the sphere of his activity.
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