Gerald Durrell - The Bafut Beagles

capturing it. When I had shown a picture of the squirrel to the Bafut Beagles, they identified it immediately, and vociferously maintained that they knew where it was to be found. Questioning them, I discovered that they knew the habits of the creature quite well, for they had hunted it often.

Apparently the squirrels lived in a small patch of mountain forest, but in the very early morning or in the evening they came down from the trees and ventured into the grassland to feed. Then, said the Bafut Beagles, was the time to catch them. What, I asked, did this beef do during the night?

'Ahн Masa, you no fit catch um for night time,' came the reply; 'dis beef 'e de sleep for up dat big stick where no man fit pass. But for evening time, or early-early morning time we fit catch um.'

'Right,' I said, 'we go catch um for early-early morning time.'

We left Bafut at one o'clock in the morning, and after a long and tedious walk over hills, through valleys and grassfields, we reached our destination an hour before dawn. It was a small plateau that lay half-way up a steep mountain-side. The area was comparatively flat, and across it tinkled a wide and shallow stream, along the sides of which grew a thick but narrow strip of forest. Crouching in the lee of a big rock, peering into the gloom and wiping the dew from our faces, we spied out the land and made our plans. The idea was to erect two or three strips of net in the long grass about five hundred yards away from the edge of the trees. This we had to do immediately, before it got so light that the squirrels could see us.

Erecting nets in long grass up to your waist, when it is sodden with dew, is not a soothing pastime, and we were glad when the last one had been tied in place. Then we cautiously approached the forest, and crawled into hiding beneath a large bush. Here we squatted, trying to keep our teeth from chattering, not able to smoke or talk or move, watching the eastern sky grow paler as the darkness of the night was drained out of it. Slowly it turned to a pale opalescent grey, then it flushed to pink, and then, as the sun rose above the horizon, it turned suddenly and blindingly to a brilliant kingfisher blue. This pure and delicate light showed the mountains around us covered in low-lying mist; as the sun rose higher, the mist started to move and slide on the ridges and pour down the hillsides to fill the valleys. For one brief instant we had seen the grasslands quiet and asleep under the blanket of mist; now it seemed as though the mountains were awakening, yawning and stretching under the white coverlet, pushing it aside in some places, gathering it more tightly in others, hoisting itself, dew-misted and sleepy, from the depths of its white bedclothes. On many occasions later I watched this awakening of the mountains, and I never wearied of the sight. Considering that the same thing has been happening each morning since the ancient mountains came into being, it is astonishing how fresh and new the sight appears each time you witness it. Never does it become dull and mechanical; it is always different: sometimes the mist in rising shaped itself into strange animal shapes – dragons, phoenix, wyvern, and milk-white unicorns – sometimes it would form itself into strange, drifting strands of seaweed, trees, or great tumbling bushes of white flowers; occasionally, if there was a breeze to help it, it would startle you by assuming the most severe and complicated geometrical shapes, while all the time, underneath it, in tantalizing glimpses as it shifted, you could see the mountains gleaming in a range of soft colours so delicate and ethereal that it was impossible to put a name to them.

I decided as I squatted there, peering between the branches of the bush we sheltered under, watching the mountains waken, that it was worth feeling tired, cold, and hungry, worth being drenched with dew and suffering cramps, in order to see such a sight. My meditations were interrupted by a loud and aggressive 'Chuck … chuck!' from the trees above us, and one of the hunters gripped my arm and looked at me with glowing eyes. He leant forward slowly and whispered in my ear:

'Masa, dis na de beef Masa want. We go sit softly softly 'e go come down for ground small time.'

I wiped the dew from my face and peered out at the grass-field where we had set the nets. Presently we heard other chucking noises from deeper in the forest as more of the squirrels awoke and glanced at the day with suspicious eyes. We waited for what seemed a long time, and then I suddenly saw something moving in the grassfield between us and the nets: a curious object that at first sight looked like an elongated black-and-white-striped balloon, appearing now and then above the long grass. In that mist-blurred morning haze I could not make out what this strange object could be, so I attracted the hunters' attention and pointed to it silently.

'Dis na de beef, Masa,' said one.

''E done go for ground, 'e done go for ground,' said the other gleefully.

'Na whatee dat ting?' I whispered, for I could not reconcile that strange balloon-like object with any part of a squirrel's anatomy.

'Dis ting na 'e tail, sah,' explained a hunter, and, so that I should be left in no doubt, ' dat ting 'e get for 'e larse.'

Like all tricks, once it had been explained, it became obvious. I could see quite clearly that the black-and-white-striped object was a squirrel's tail, and I wondered why on earth I had thought that it resembled a balloon. Presently the one tail was joined by others, and as the mist lifted and cleared we could see the squirrels themselves.

There were eight of them hopping out into the grassfield. They were large and rather bulky animals, with heavy heads, but the largest and most flamboyant parts of their anatomies were their tails. They hopped cautiously from tussock to tussock, pausing to sit up on their hind legs and sniff carefully in the direction they were travelling. Then they would get down and hop forward a few more feet, flipping their tails as they moved. Sometimes they would crouch perfectly still for a few seconds, their tails laid carefully over their backs, the bushy ends hanging down and almost obscuring their faces. The ones in the grassfield were silent, but in the trees behind us we could still hear an occasional suspicious 'chuck' from those that had not yet plucked up the courage to descend. I decided that eight would be quite enough for us to try to catch, so I signalled the hunters and we rose from our hide-out. We spread out in a line through the trees, and then the hunters paused and waited for the signal to advance.

The squirrels were now about a hundred and fifty yards from the forest's edge, and I decided that this was far enough for our purposes. I waved my hand, and then we walked out from the shelter of the trees into the long grass. The squirrels in the forest gave loud chucks of alarm, and the squirrels in the grassfield sat up on their hind legs to see what was the matter. They saw us and all froze instantly; then, as we moved slowly forward, they hopped off into the grass, farther and farther from the trees. I do not think they could quite make out what we were, for we advanced very slowly and with the minimum of movement. They felt we were something hostile, but they were not certain; they would run a few yards and then stop and sit up to survey us, sniffing vigorously. This was really the most tricky part of the whole proceeding, for the animals were not yet within the half-circle of the nets, and by breaking away to left or right they could easily escape into the grassfields. We drifted towards them cautiously, the only sounds being the swish of our feet in the grass and faint and frantic chucks from the forest behind us.

Quite suddenly one squirrel more quick-witted than the rest realized what was happening. He could not see the nets ahead, for they were hidden in the long grass and well camouflaged, but he saw that as we advanced we were driving him farther and farther away from the forest and the safety of the tall trees. He gave a loud chuck of alarm and dashed off through the grass, his long tail streaming out behind him, and then suddenly twisted to the left and galloped through the grass away from the nets. His one ambition was to get round us and back to the trees. The rest of the squirrels sat up and watched him nervously, and I realized that unless something was done they would all pluck up courage and follow his example. I had planned to wait until they were well within the circle of nets before charging down on them and causing a panic that would send them scuttling into the mesh, but it now became obvious that we should have to take a chance and stampede them. I raised my hand, and the hunters and I surged forward, yelling and hooting, waving our arms and trying to appear as fearsome as possible. For a split second the squirrels watched us without movement; then they fled.