Gerald Durrell - A Zoo in My Luggage

‘Na whatee dis beef squill-lill?’

‘Na small beef, sah.’

‘Na, bad beef? ’E go chop man?’

‘No, sah, at all. Dis one na squill-lill small, sah … na picken.’

Fortified with this knowledge I opened the bag and peered into its depths. At the bottom, squirming and twitching in a nest of grass, lay a tiny squirrel about three and a half inches long. It couldn’t have been more than a few days old, for it was still covered in the neat, shining plush-like fur of an infant, and it was still blind. I lifted it out carefully and it lay in my hand making faint squeaking noises like something out of a Christmas cracker, pink mouth open in an O like a choirboy’s, minute paws making paddling motions against my fingers. I waited patiently for the flood of anthropomorphism to die down from my wife.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you want it, keep it. But I warn you it will be hell to feed. The only reason I can see for trying is because it’s a baby black-eared, and they’re quite rare.’

‘Oh, it’ll be all right,’ said Jacquie optimistically. ‘It’s strong and that’s half the battle.’

I sighed. I remembered the innumerable baby squirrels I had struggled with in various parts of the world, and how each one had seemed more imbecile and more bent on self-destruction than the last. I turned to the hunter. ‘Dis beef, my friend. Na fine beef dis, I like um too much. But ’e be picken, eh? Sometime ’e go die-o, eh?’

‘Yes, sah,’ agreed the hunter gloomily.

‘So I go pay you two two shilling now, and I go give you book. You go come back for two week time, eh, and if dis picken ’e alive I go pay you five five shilling more, eh? You agree?’

‘Yes, sah, I agree,’ said the hunter, grinning delightedly.

I paid him the two shillings, and then wrote out a promissory note for the other five shillings, and watched him tuck it carefully into a fold of his sarong.

‘You no go lose um,’ I said. ‘If you go lose um I no go pay you.’

‘No, Masa, I no go lose um,’ he assured me, grinning.

‘You know, it’s the most beautiful colour,’ said Jacquie, peering at the squirrel in her cupped hands. On that point I agreed with her. The diminutive head was bright orange, with a neat black rim behind each ear, as though its mother had not washed it properly. The body was brindled green on the back and pale yellow on the tummy, while the ridiculous tail was darkish green above and flame orange below.

‘What shall I call it?’ asked Jacquie.

I glanced at the quivering scrap, still doing choral practice in her palm.

‘Call it what the hunter called it: Squill-lill Small,’ I suggested. So Squill-lill Small she became, later to be abbreviated to Small for convenience.

While engaged in this problem of nomenclature I had been busy untying another raffia basket, without having taken the precaution of asking the hunter what it contained. So, when I incautiously opened it, a small, pointed, rat-like face appeared, bit me sharply on the finger, uttered a piercing shriek of rage and disappeared into the depths of the basket again.

‘What on earth was that?’ asked Jacquie, as I sucked my finger and cursed, while all the hunters chorused ‘Sorry, sah, sorry, sah,’ as though they had been collectively responsible for my stupidity.

‘That fiendish little darling is a pigmy mongoose,’ I said. ‘For their size they’re probably the fiercest creatures in Bafut, and they’ve got the most penetrating scream of any small animal I know, except a marmoset.’

‘What are we going to keep it in?’

‘We’ll have to unpack some cages. I’ll leave it in the bag until I’ve dealt with the rest of the stuff,’ I said, carefully tying the bag up again.

‘It’s nice to have two different species of mongoose,’ said Jacquie.

‘Yes,’ I agreed, sucking my finger. ‘Delightful.’

The rest of the containers, when examined, yielded nothing more exciting than three common toads, a small green viper and four weaver-birds which I did not want. So, having disposed of them and the hunters, I turned my attention to the task of housing the pigmy mongoose. One of the worst things you can do on a collecting trip is to be unprepared with your caging. I had made this mistake on my first expedition; although we had taken a lot of various equipment, I had failed to include any ready-made cages, thinking there would be plenty of time to build them on the spot. The result was that the first flood of animals caught us unprepared and by the time we had struggled night and day to house them all adequately, the second wave of creatures had arrived and we were back where we started. At one point I had as many as six different creatures tied to my camp-bed on strings. After this experience I have always taken the precaution of bringing some collapsible cages with me on a trip so that, whatever else happens, I am certain I can accommodate at least the first forty or fifty specimens.

I now erected one of our specially built cages, filled it with dry banana leaves and eased the pigmy mongoose into it without getting bitten. It stood in the centre of the cage, regarding me with small, bright eyes, one dainty paw held up, and proceeded to utter shriek upon shriek of fury until our ears throbbed. The noise was so penetrating and painful that, in desperation, I threw a large lump of meat into the cage. The pigmy leaped on it, shook it vigorously to make sure it was dead and then carried it off to a corner where it settled down to eat. Though it still continued to shriek at us, the sounds were now mercifully muffled by the food. I placed the cage next to the one occupied by Ticky, the black-footed mongoose, and sat down to watch.

At a casual glance no one would think that the two animals were even remotely related. The black-footed mongoose, although still only a baby, measured two feet in length and stood about eight inches in height. She had a blunt, rather dog-like face with dark, round and somewhat protuberant eyes. Her body, head and tail were a rich creamy-white, while her slender legs were a rich brown that was almost black. She was sleek, sinuous and svelte and reminded me of a soft-skinned Parisienne belleamie clad in nothing more than two pairs of black silk stockings. In contrast the pigmy mongoose looked anything but Parisienne. It measured, including tail, about ten inches in length. It had a tiny, sharply pointed face with a small, circular pink nose and a pair of small, glittering, sherry-coloured eyes. The fur, which was rather long and thick, was a deep chocolate brown with a faint ginger tinge here and there.

Ticky, who was very much the grande dame , peered out of her cage at the newcomer with something akin to horror on her face, watching it fascinated as it shrieked and grumbled over its gory hunk of meat. Ticky was herself a very dainty and fastidious feeder and would never have dreamt of behaving in this uncouth way, yelling and screaming with your mouth full and generally carrying on as though you had never had a square meal in your life. She watched the pigmy for a moment or so and then gave a sniff of scorn, turned round elegantly two or three times and then lay down and went to sleep. The pigmy, undeterred by this comment on its behaviour, continued to champ and shrill over the last bloody remnants of its food. When the last morsel had been gulped down, and the ground around carefully inspected for any bits that might have been overlooked, it sat down and scratched itself vigorously for a while and then curled up and went to sleep as well. When we woke it up about an hour later to record its voice for posterity, it produced such screams of rage and indignation that we were forced to move the microphone to the other end of the verandah. But by the time evening came we had not only successfully recorded the pigmy mongoose but Ticky as well, and had unpacked ninety per cent of our equipment into the bargain. So we bathed, changed and dined feeling well satisfied with ourselves.