TRESPASSING ANIMALS.
AT a Parish Council recently held to consider the Jubilee bonfires, it was suggested that there should also be a Jubilee restoration of the parish pound. It was successfully urged against this that, since the Inclosure Act, animals have ceased to trespass, and that the proposal was as retrograde as one to renew the parish stocks. This view is incorrect both in fact and theory ; for inclosure really tempts to trespass, and the desire to do so is as deeply rooted in animals as in human nature. When people trespass in order to kill some one else's game, or to take apples, or birds' eggs, or flowers which do not belong to them, the act is naturally regarded with severity. But most human trespassing is done in order to enjoy nice places which are the property of other people, to luxuriate in open spaces instead of keeping to the road, and to gratify a lawless desire for msthetic and physical expansion. Children trespass in order to run about and pick flowers; older people usually allege that "they only wanted to look,"—which is partly true, and is in some degree an apology for intrusion. It is this which tempts people to invade the nice shady lawns of riverside houses, to stray off footpaths into the mowing grass, and to walk into cool college quads, where they imagine (wrongly) that they are trespassing. it even led to Mr. Pickwick being wheeled to the pound. There are those who say that the knowledge that the invader has no right to be there adds to the pleasure of trespass. We doubt it greatly. But we have no doubt at all that many animals are perfectly aware of the illegal side of trespass, that they know that it is naughty and disallowed, and that in doing so they are contravening the rights of property. This, of course, involves the supposition that animals understand property not only in things but land. There are many "leading cases" to prove this, the commonest being the vigour with which dogs drive any strange animal out of their master's garden. Dogs are so well aware of the whole moral and legal aspects of trespass, that when once they have made up their minds to it they actually trade on the knowledge that their owner has a conscience though they have not. We have noticed this in great perfection in the case of canine trespass on the grass .circles in the front of a semi-public building in London. This delectable piece of grass is divided from the road by a high Tailing, but the gate usually stands open. Dogs, passing with maids on their way to do shopping or with children out for a walk, after some reconnoitring, dash in and have delightful games on these grass-plots, with rolling over, racing round, and general high jinks. The maids and .children, being shy, and not liking to trespass, stand at the gate, call, whistle, and implore. But the dogs go on just the same. This is a common form of dog trespass. Its meaner side was painfully shown in the following case. Most well- brought-up small boys, who are naturally much tempted to trespass, are so lectured and frightened with stories of policemen that they are quite nervous on the subject. 'One such small boy, attended by a collie - dog, was passing, when the dog ran in at the gate, and, being instantly joined by a friend, proceeded to race and play on the grass. The good little boy stood at the gate and whistled till the tears ran down his cheeks with anxiety. But his dog took not the slightest notice. He only played harder with his friend. At last the boy walked gingerly in, on the path, and came up to the edge of the turf on which the dog was playing. To trespass further than that was more than the boy's conscience would permit ; so he stood by the edge of this grass as if it were a pond of water too deep to venture into. The dog saw, and took instant advantage of his scruples. He played on in his grass circle just as boldly as before, while the poor boy drifted round the edge, holding out his hand, calling, whistling, and imploring, but in vain. Then the door of a lodge opened, and a pitying porter came to the rescue. He bad hardly stepped out of his lodge when the two dogs grasped the situation and bolted, leaving the boy to any fate which their wickedness had laid up for him.
Such shocking examples of animal law-breaking must not be confounded with the wish to obtain liberty which prompts donkeys to undo knots on gates with their teeth, or horses to open the latch of their stable with their lips and noses. Cats also invade all gardens and roofs at will; but that is because they feel they have a right to go where they please. Pigs, on the other hand, are inveterate trespassers from their earliest infancy. They inherit this from the wild pigs, which will travel many miles every night to explore new feeding-grounds, and return by dawn to their day haunt. Little pigs tres- pass mainly from a spirit of adventure and inquiry. That is what makes it almost impossible to keep a litter of Pigs anywhere near a country house. They organise trespassing parties, which grow bolder daily. One day they come round and look at the back-door. The next day one runs into the passage, and pokes his nose into the kitchen. In time they find some open door, and turn up un- expectedly on the tennis-lawn, or raid the bulbs in the crocus- beds. In the course of their travels they eat all they find which is edible, though this is an incident, not a motive, of their trespass. Here we must tell a story which should be added to the many moral tales for children of which good and bad pigs are the heroes. A litter of small pigs escaped from their yard by squeezing through the gap left by a roken paling. In the coarse of a delightful ramble they found much food, of which they ate immoderately. Being discovered, they fled for refuge to their sty, but their greedi- ness had, for the time, so increased the girth of their bodies, that only the smallest could squeeze back again into the sty, and the rest, after making most painful efforts to do so, were obliged to remain outside. Older pigs trespass to obtain food, and are expert at breaking through fences; but their omnivorous taste in food makes them, as a rule, contented to roam round the farmyard and buildings. Cattle, feeding entirely on grass, are much given to raiding neighbouring fields in which the herbage is better than in their own, and, in addition, often trespass from some innate liking for the act. Their ingenuity and perseverance in effecting an entry to the ground they propose to trespass on is remarkable.
They will wait for hours and watch a gate, until some one passes through it, when they at once walk up and try it to see if the latch has been left unfastened. As might be ex-
pected, Irish cows have this "land hunger " and trespassing instinct developed in a high degree. We have seen little black Kerry cows go down on their knees, that being the first move- ment when a cow lies down, and therefore quite familiar to them as a means of " stooping," and literally creep under the chains suspended between a row of posts which divided them from a lawn on which they desired to walk. Bulls are even greater trespassers, though rougher in their methods. Some bulls always smash the gate of any field they are kept in. Others use gentler methods, and turn up in most unlikely places. A young bull and heifer in the Isle of Wight got out of a field, and were found together next morning in a ground-floor room of an empty house. This bull had a taste for midnight trespassing, and on one occasion found its way into a field, where it bellowed loudly. Its owner, thinking that a cow was ill, went with a lamp to see what was the matter. The lamp was extinguished with some haste when he discovered. who the visitor was.
Trespass by birds sounds like a paradox, for it suggests an exclusive claim to the use of the air above the owner's pro- perty. As a fact, certain birds are inveterate and wilful trespassers, but they nearly always trespass on foot. The greatest offenders are ducks, geese, and guinea-fowls and chickens, all of which are quite aware, or very soon learn, when they are on forbidden ground, but are only too eager to go there when there is anything to be got by it. A country rector, on seeing his neighbour's ducks and a couple of geese walking for the tenth day in succession through his meadow- grass on their way to his strawberry-beds, remarked with resignation that he supposed he must have a wooden fence put up. "No, Sir, no," replied his gardener bitterly ; "you aren't obliged to keep no fence against them things as flies." The force of this remark on the futility of building a wall to keep out birds was unanswerable, and sounded. like the basis of natural law as to bird trespass. Instances in which animals recognise or maintain rights to certain ground against other animals are not common. A dog will turn trespassing cattle out of his master's corn without orders, but he seldom asserts a personal right to more than his own bed or kennel. This he defends vigorously. The keenness with which the Constantinople street-dogs reserve their own particular quarter, sometimes limited by an arbitrary boundary, such as the centre of a street, one side of which belongs to one set of dogs, and another to another, is an instance to the contrary. But except in the case of the large carnivora, both beasts and birds, there is little disposition to assert a right to definite areas, and " carefulness being least in that which is common to most," there can be no resentment of trespass where there is no feeling for property.
Previous page
