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AITKEN "EHA" AUTHOR OF "FIVE WINDOWS OFTHE SOUL," "TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER," ETC... Forwhen plague first invaded India in 1896,the writer was one of those sent toBombay to work at the prob

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Title: Concerning Animals and Other

Matters

Author: E.H Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

Release Date: February 6, 2004 [EBook

#10962]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCERNING ANIMALS ***

Produced by Garrett Alley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

CONCERNING ANIMALS AND

OTHER

MATTERS

BY E.H AITKEN ("EHA")

AUTHOR OF "FIVE WINDOWS OFTHE SOUL," "TRIBES ON MY

FRONTIER," ETC

WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR

BYSURGEON-GENERAL W.B.BANNERMAN I.M.S., C.S.I.WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J A

SHEPHERD AND A PORTRAIT

LONDONJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE

STREET, W

1914

VII THE BARN OWL

VIII DOMESTIC ANIMALS

IX SNAKES

X THE INDIAN SNAKE-CHARMER

XI CURES FOR SNAKE-BITE

XII THE COBRA BUNGALOW

XIII THE PANTHER I DID NOT SHOOT XIV THE PURBHOO

XV THE COCONUT TREE

XVI THE BETEL NUT

XVII A HINDU FESTIVAL

XVIII INDIAN POVERTY

XIX BORROWED INDIAN WORDS

Special thanks are due to the Editors

and Proprietors of the Strand Magazine,

Pall Mall Magazine and Times of India

for their courtesy in permitting thereprinting of the articles in this bookwhich originally appeared in theircolumns

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HALF-TONES

1 Portrait of 'Eha.'

2 The Nose of the Elephant Becoming

a Hand Has Redeemed Its Mind

3 Good for any Rough Job

4 Here the Competition Has Been VeryKeen indeed

5 A Blackbird and a Starling—the oneLifts Its Skirts, While the Other Wears a

8 An Authentic Standard Foot.

9 These Beasts Are All Clodhoppers,and their Feet Are Hobnailed Boots

1 0 It Has to Double them Under andHobble About Like a Chinese Lady

11 No Doubt Each Bird Swears by ItsOwn Pattern

12 Its Bill Deserves Study

13 As Wonderful As the Pelican, ButHow Opposite!

1 4 There Are Some Eccentrics, Such

As Jenny Wren, Which Have Despisedtheir Tails

1 5 At the Sight of a Rival the DogHolds Its Tail up Stiffly

16 A Shrew Can Do It, But Not a Man

17 A Bold attempt to Grow in the Case

of a Tapir

1 8 I Have Seen Human Noses of aPattern Not Unlike This, But they Are NotConsidered Aristocratic

1 9 Who Can Consider That NoseSeriously?

20 Or Perhaps when It Wants to Listen

It Raises a Flipper to Its Ear

21 'Tear out the House Like the DogsWuz atter Him.'

2 2 A Great Catholic Congress ofDistinguished Ears

23 The Curls of a Mother's Darling

"EHA"

Edward Hamilton Aitken, the author ofthe following sketches, was well known tothe present generation of Anglo-Indians,

by his pen-name of Eha, as an accurateand amusing writer on natural historysubjects Those who were privileged toknow him intimately, as the writer of thissketch did, knew him as a Christiangentleman of singular simplicity andmodesty and great charm of manner Hewas always ready to help a fellow-worker

in science or philanthropy if it werepossible for him to do so Thus, indeed,

began the friendship between us Forwhen plague first invaded India in 1896,the writer was one of those sent toBombay to work at the problem of itscausation from the scientific side, therebybecoming interested in the life history ofrats, which were shown to be intimatelyconnected with the spread of this diredisease Having for years admired Eha's

books on natural history—The Tribes on

my Frontier, An Indian Naturalist's Foreign Policy, and The Naturalist on the Prowl, I ventured to write to him on

the subject of rats and their habits, andasked him whether he could not throwsome light on the problem of plague andits spread, from the naturalist's point ofview

In response to this appeal he wrote amost informing and characteristic article

for The Times of India (July 19, 1899),

which threw a flood of light on the subject

of the habits and characteristics of theIndian rat as found in town and country

He was the first to show that Mus rattus,

the old English black rat, which is thecommon house rat of India outside thelarge seaports, has become, throughcenturies of contact with the Indianpeople, a domestic animal like the cat inBritain When one realises the fact thatthis same rat is responsible for the spread

of plague in India, and that every house isfull of them, the value of this naturalist'sobservation is plain Thus began anintimacy which lasted till Eha's death in1909

The first time I met Mr Aitken was at ameeting of the Free Church of ScotlandLiterary Society in 1899, when he read apaper on the early experiences, of theEnglish in Bombay The minute he enteredthe room I recognised him from the

caricatures of himself in the Tribes The

long, thin, erect, bearded man wasunmistakable, with a typically Scots facelit up with the humorous twinkle one came

to know so well Many a time in years has that look been seen as hediscoursed, as only he could, on the ways

after-of man and beast, bird or insect, as onetramped with him through the jungles onthe hills around Bombay during week-ends spent with him at Vehar orelsewhere He was an ideal companion onsuch occasions, always at his best when

acting the part of The Naturalist on the

Prowl.

Mr Aitken was born at Satara in theBombay Presidency on August 16, 1851.His father was the Rev James Aitken,missionary of the Free Church ofScotland His mother was a sister of theRev Daniel Edward, missionary to theJews at Breslau for some fifty years Hewas educated by his father in India, andone can well realise the sort of education

he got from such parents from the manyallusions to the Bible and its oldTestament characters that one constantlyfinds used with such effect in his books.His farther education was obtained atBombay and Poona He passed M.A andB.A of Bombay University first on the

list, and won the Homejee Cursetjee prizewith a poem in 1880 From 1870 to 1876

he was Latin Reader in the DeccanCollege at Poona, which accounts for theextensive acquaintance with the Latinclassics so charmingly manifest in hiswritings That he was well grounded inGreek is also certain, for the writer, whileliving in a chummery with him in Bombay

in 1902, saw him constantly reading theGreek Testament in the mornings withoutthe aid of a dictionary

He entered the Customs and SaltDepartment of the Government of Bombay

in April 1876, and served in Kharaghoda

(the Dustypore of the Tribes), Uran, North

Kanara and Goa Frontier, Ratnagiri, andBombay itself In May, 1903, he was

appointed Chief Collector of Customs andSalt Revenue at Karachi, and in

Superintendent in charge of the DistrictGazetteer of Sind He retired from theservice in August 1906

He married in 1883 the daughter of theRev J Chalmers Blake, and left a family

of two sons and three daughters

In 1902 he was deputed, on specialduty, to investigate the prevalence ofmalaria at the Customs stations along thefrontier of Goa, and to devise means forremoving the Salt Peons at these posts,from the neighbourhood of the anophelesmosquito, by that time recognised as thecause of the deadly malaria, which madeservice on that frontier dreaded by all

It was during this expedition that hediscovered a new species of anophelinemosquito, which after identification byMajor James, I.M.S., was named after him

Anopheles aitkeni During his long

service there are to be found in the AnnualReports of the Customs Departmentfrequent mention of Mr Aitken's goodwork, but it is doubtful whether theGovernment ever fully realised what anable literary man they had in their service,wasting his talent in the Salt Department

On two occasions only did congenialwork come to him in the course of hispublic duty—namely, when he was sent tostudy, from the naturalist's point of view,the malarial conditions prevailing on thefrontier of Goa; and when during the lasttwo years of his service he was put in

literary charge of The Sind Gazetteer In

this book one can see the light andgraceful literary touch of Eha frequentlycropping up amidst the dry bones ofpublic health and commercial statistics,and the book is enlivened by innumerablewitty and philosophic touches appearing

in the most unlikely places, such as healone could enliven a dull subject with.Would that all Government gazetteerswere similarly adorned! But there are notmany "Ehas" in Government employ inIndia

On completion of this work he retired

to Edinburgh, where most of the sketchescontained in this volume were written Hewas very happy with his family in hishome at Morningside, and was beginning

to surround himself with pets and flowers,

as was his wont all his life, and to get agood connection with the homenewspapers and magazines, when, alas!death stepped in, and he died after a shortillness on April 25, 1909

He was interested in the home birds andbeasts as he had been with those in India,and the last time the writer met him hewas taking home some gold-fish for hisaquarium A few days before his death hehad found his way down to theMorningside cemetery, where he had beenenjoying the sunshine and flowers ofSpring, and he remarked to his wife that

he would often go there in future to watchthe birds building their nests

Before that time came, he was himself

laid to rest in that very spot in sure andcertain hope of a blessed resurrection.

The above imperfect sketch fails to givethe charm and magnetic attraction of theman, and for this one must go to his works,which for those who knew him are veryilluminating in this respect In them onecatches a glimpse of his plan for keepingyoung and cheerful in "the land of regrets,"for one of his charms was his youthfulnessand interest in life He refused to bedepressed by his lonely life "I am only anexile," he remarks, "endeavouring to work

a successful existence in Dustypore, andnot to let my environment shape me as apudding takes the shape of its mould, but

to make it tributary to my own happiness."

He therefore urges his readers to cultivate

a hobby.

"It is strange," he says, "that Europeans

in India know so little, see so little, care

so little, about all the intense life thatsurrounds them The boy who was themost ardent of bug-hunters, or the mostenthusiastic of bird-nesters in England,where one shilling will buy nearly all that

is known, or can be known, about birds orbutterflies, maintains in this country, aided

by Messrs B & S., an unequal strife with

the insupportableness of an ennui-smitten

life Why, if he would stir up for one daythe embers of the old flame, he could notquench it again with such a prairie of fuelaround him I am not speaking of Bombaypeople, with their clubs and gymkhanasand other devices for oiling the wheels of

existence, but of the dreary up-countryexile, whose life is a blank, a moralSahara, a catechism of the Nihilist creed.What such a one needs is a hobby Everyhobby is good—a sign of good and aninfluence for good Any hobby will drawout the mind, but the one I plead fortouches the soul too, keeps the milk ofhuman kindness from souring, puts a gentlepoetry into the prosiest life That all myown finer feelings have not long sincewithered in this land of separation from'old familiar faces,' I attribute partly to apair of rabbits All rabbits are idioticthings, but these come in and sit up meeklyand beg a crust of bread, and even a

perennial fare of village moorgee cannot

induce me to issue the order for theirexecution and conversion into pie But if

such considerations cannot lead, thestruggle for existence should drive a man

in this country to learn the ways of hisborder tribes For no one, I take it, whoreflects for an instant will deny that asmall mosquito, with black rings upon awhite ground, or a sparrow that has finallymade up its mind to rear a family in yourceiling, exercises an influence on yourpersonal happiness far beyond the Czar ofthe Russias It is not a question ofscientific frontiers—the enemy invades us

on all, sides We are plundered, insulted,phlebotomised under our own vine andfig-tree We might make head against thefoe if we laid to heart the lesson ournational history in India teaches—namely,that the way to fight uncivilised enemies is

to encourage them to cut one another's

throats, and then step in and inherit thespoil But we murder our friends,exterminate our allies, and then groanunder the oppression of the enemy I mightillustrate this by the case of the meek andlong-suffering musk-rat, by spiders orants, but these must wait another day."

Again he says, "The 'poor dumbanimals' can give each other a bit of theirminds like their betters, and to me theirfierce and tender little passions, theirloves and hates, their envies andjealousies, and their small vanities beget asense of fellow-feeling which makes theirpresence society The touch of Naturewhich makes the whole world kin isinfirmity A man without a weakness isinsupportable company, and so is a man

who does not feel the heat There is alarge grey ring-dove that sits in the blazingsun all through the hottest hours of the day,and says coo-coo, coo, coo-coo, coo untilthe melancholy sweet monotony of thatsound is as thoroughly mixed up in mybrain with 110° in the shade as physic in

my infantile memories with thepeppermint lozenges which used to 'putaway the taste,' But as for these creatures,which confess the heat and come into thehouse and gasp, I feel drawn to them Ishould like to offer them cooling drinks.Not that all my midday guests are equallywelcome: I could dispense, for instance,with the grey-ringed bee which has justreconnoitred my ear for the third time, andguesses it is a key-hole—she is away justnow, but only, I fancy, for clay to stop it

up with There are others also to which I

would give their congé if they would take

it But good, bad, or indifferent they give

us their company whether we want it ornot."

Eha certainly found company in beastsall his life, and kept the charm of youthabout him in consequence to the end If hislot were cast, as it often was, in lonelyplaces, he kept pets, and made friendsbesides of many of the members of thetribes on his frontier; if in Bombay city heconsoled himself with his aquarium andthe museum of the Bombay NaturalHistory Society When the present writerchummed with him in a flat on the ApolloBunder in Bombay, he remembers wellthat aquarium and the Sunday-morning

expeditions to the malarious ravines at theback of Malabar Hill to search formosquito larvae to feed its inmates For atthat time Mr Aitken was investigating thecapabilities for the destruction of larvae,

of a small surface-feeding fish with anivory-white spot on the top of its head,which he had found at Vehar in the streambelow the bund It took him some time toidentify these particular fishes

(Haplochilus lineatus), and in the

meantime he dubbed them "Scooties" fromthe lightning rapidity of their movements,and in his own admirable manner madehimself a sharer of their joys and sorrows,their cares and interests With these hestocked the ornamental fountains ofBombay to keep them from becomingbreeding-grounds for mosquitoes, and they

are now largely used throughout India forthis very purpose It will be recognised,therefore, that Mr Aitken studied naturalhistory not only for its own sake, but as ameans of benefiting the people of India,whom he had learned to love, as is so

plainly shown in Behind the Bungalow.

He was an indefatigable worker in themuseum of the Bombay Natural HistorySociety, which he helped to found, andmany of his papers and notes arepreserved for us in the pages of its

excellent Journal, of which he was an

original joint-editor He was for longsecretary of the Insect Section, and thenpresident Before his retirement he waselected one of the Vice-Presidents of theSociety

Mr Aitken was a deeply religious man,and was for some twenty years an elder inthe congregation of the United FreeChurch of Scotland in Bombay He wasfor some years Superintendent of theSunday School in connection with thiscongregation, and a member of theCommittee of the Bombay ScottishOrphanage and the Scottish High Schools.His former minister says of him, "He wasdeeply interested in theology, andremained wonderfully orthodox in spiteof" (or, as the present writer would prefer

to say, because of) "his scientific

knowledge He always thought that theevidence for the doctrine of evolution hadbeen pressed for more than it was worth,and he had many criticisms to make uponthe Higher Critics of the Bible Many a

discussion we had, in which, against me,

he took the conservative side."

He lets one see very clearly into theworkings of his mind in this direction inwhat is perhaps the finest, although the

least well known of his books, The Five

Windows of the Soul (John Murray), in

which he discourses in his own inimitableway of the five senses, and how they bringman and beast into contact with theirsurroundings It is a book on perceiving,and shows how according as this faculty

is exercised it makes each man such as he

is The following extract from the bookshows Mr Aitken's style, and mayperhaps induce some to go to the bookitself for more from the same source He

is speaking of the moral sense "And it is

almost a truism to say that, if a man hasany taste, it will show itself in his dressand in his dwelling No doubt, throughindolence and slovenly habits, a man mayallow his surroundings to fall far belowwhat he is capable of approving; but everyone who does so pays the penalty in thegradual deterioration of his perceptions.

"How many times more true is all this

in the case of the moral sense? When theheart is still young and tender, howspontaneously and sweetly and urgentlydoes every vision of goodness andnobleness in the conduct of anotherawaken the impulse to go and do likewise!And if that impulse is not obeyed, howcertainly does the first approvingperception of the beauty of goodness

become duller, until at last we may evencome to hate it where we find it, for itsdiscordance with the 'motions of sins inour members'!

"But not less certainly will everyearnest effort to bring the life into unisonwith what we perceive to be right bring itsown reward in a clearer and more joyfulperception of what is right, and a keenersensitiveness to every discord inourselves How all such discord may beremoved, how the chords of the heart may

be tuned and the life become music,—these are questions of religion, which arequite beyond our scope But I take it thatevery religion which has prevailed amongthe children of Adam is in itself anevidence that, however debased and

perverted the moral sense may havebecome, the painful consciousness that hisheart is 'like sweet bells jangled' stillpresses everywhere and always on thespirit of man; and it is also a conscious orunconscious admission that there is noblessedness for him until his life shallmarch in step with the music of the'Eternal Righteousness.'"

Mr Aitken's name will be kept greenamong Anglo-Indians by the well-knownseries of books published by Messrs.Thacker & Co., of London and Calcutta

They are The Tribes on my Frontier, An

Indian Naturalist's Foreign Policy,

which was published in 1883, and ofwhich a seventh edition appeared in 1910.This book deals with the common birds,

beasts, and insects in and around an Indianbungalow, and it should be put into thehands of every one whose lot is cast inIndia It will open their eyes to the beautyand interests of their surroundings in atruly wonderful way, and may be readagain and again with increasing pleasure

as one's experience of Indian lifeincreases

This was followed in 1889 by Behind

the Bungalow, which describes with

charming insight the strange manners andcustoms of our Indian domestic servants.The witty and yet kindly way in whichtheir excellencies and defects are touchedoff is delightful, and many a harassed

mem-sahib must bless Eha for showing

her the humorous and human side of her

life surrounded as it is by those necessarybut annoying inhabitants of the Godownsbehind the bungalow A tenth edition ofthis book was published in 1911.

The Naturalist on the Prowl was

brought out in 1894, and a third editionwas published in 1905 It contains

sketches on the same lines as those in The

Tribes, but deals more with the jungles,

and not so much with the immediatesurroundings of the bungalow The verysmell of the country is in these chapters,and will vividly recall memories to thosewho know the country along the WestCoast of India southward of Bombay

In 1900 was published The Common

Birds of Bombay, which containsdescriptions of the ordinary birds one sees

about the bungalow or in the country As

is well said by the writer of the obituary

notice in the Journal of the Bombay

Natural History Society, Eha "had aspecial genius for seizing the striking andcharacteristic points in the appearance andbehaviour of individual species and ahappy knack of translating them into print

so as to render his descriptionsunmistakable He looked upon allcreatures in the proper way, as if each had

a soul and character of its own He lovedthem all, and was unwilling to hurt any ofthem." These characteristics are wellshown in this book, for one is able torecognise the birds easily from someprominent feature described therein.[1]

The Five Windows of the Soul,