Прыгоды з жыцця прыроды
Adventures from the life of nature
Вячаслаў Грамыка
Для сярэдняга школьнага ўзросту
Выдавец: Беларусь
Памер: 263с.
Мінск 2003
Father knew well secret mushroom places. And mushrooms are like people — they hide. Places rich with boletuses and saffron milk caps are not known to everybody and they are located in the most secret corners of the century-old forest.
Rambling about these places known only to him, father once got into the very depth and suddenly came across a wolves' lair. It was located in the place, which was particularly remote and secret — in the virgin forest. The place was densely overgrown with low and dense oak-wood with fleshy dense shoots of fresh .plantain, which impetuously had spread out broad foliage. The lair was arranged in a spacious pit under a reversed stump. From the sides the strip of the dense oak-wood, with the lair in the middle, was surrounded by two deep narrow gullies overgrown with thorny impassable brushwood of dog rose, which interwove with high forest stinging nettle. Who could work his way here even if he accidentally finds himself in this secret forest depth?
A tiny forest river was running not far from the den. It should be mentioned that no matter what place a she-wolf might choose for the moment of whelping, some reservoir must necessarily be nearby, be it a lake, a pond, a well or even simply a watery squelching swamp. It happens that hunters even take advantage of this in their search for wolf dens. Beasts often visit a watering place and pave visibly trampled-down paths towards its banks.
But he was not able to notice such paths there. Everything witnessed that parent wolves were experienced ones and camouflaged their location very successfully. Only near the very den on the wet bare ground, it was possible to make out imprints of their paws. Particularly big ones that belonged to an old wolf stood out noticeably and there was no doubt that it was the same mature wolf, because it would hardly have let another one in the area of its robbery. But it remained a mystery where its female friend had come from.
The general picture of camouflage was to some extent upset by a strong smell that was felt a few dozens of steps from the den. Sloppy beasts of prey gave out their secret place by that, though a man could not always guess what the matter was. He
would sooner think that he had accidentally stumbled on some rotten stuff and leave the place as soon as possible.
Father, too, nearly passed it by, but it was the trait of his character that while collecting mushrooms, he would go too far in the very heart of the forest where he examined every small ditch and every narrow gully. It always permitted him, even when others returned with empty baskets, to collect enough saffron milk caps and boletuses. The strong smell of the rotten stuff made him keep his eyes open.
Father determined at once that it was just a wolf den, not a fox's one, since very often they resembled each other very much, as young cubs of a vixen and a wolf are very much alike. Extra large tracks of the dens hosts testified to that best of all; moreover, father was able, almost unmistakably, to distinguish wolf cubs from fox cubs.
Their skin had a low and rough scalp with dark-grey beards of hair and much lighter fuzz. A long black strip stood out in beauty along the backbone. Tiny ones, they aroused pity and sympathy. Covered with fade yellow scalp small muzzles of wolf cubs trembled intermittently. Very small, pointed and completely black ears swung as if resilient pendulums, very often becoming springy. It seemed that nature itself had provided them with visible white spots on the breast as if for fun. Their abdomens and, particularly, hind paws were almost bare yet, though in certain places hair began to appear already and they were low and smooth, as if pressed down to the skin. Nobody could tell why, but their tails were well formed already, like with adult wolves, being also dark grey, almost black.
On the contrary, scalps of fox cubs are always soft and tender with long and sparse beards at the ends. Their abdomens, paws and breasts are well covered with fuzz, heads are covered with rather long reddish hair and ears of fox cubs are much bigger and differ sharply by their coloring from the sides — from the outer part they are covered with thick and dense black hair and in the middle — with completely light ones. The tail of fox cubs is also noticeably different — wedge-shaped, long and with a white end.
Looking at such quite small young animals, it is hard to believe that in some time they will grow into very strong beasts of prey and become a dreadful threat for man. So it was necessary to urgently undertake measures to prevent that, no matter what plaintive feelings they might arouse. But first of all, it was vitally important to neutralize adult wolves as soon as possible, because within one or two weeks, the whole pack, procuring food for voracious brood, will cause much trouble to farmers' households.
When wolves start teaching their cubs the methods of prey hunt, there will bring about even greater damage. Mature wolves dart about the area without stopping, looking for young animals everywhere. Most often lambs, calves, pigs, geese and hens become victims of wolves. Wolf cubs tear the prey, which had been brought, snarling angrily at one another, and their parents look at this from the distance.
But until wolf cubs still remained helpless, a man could take them. Contrary to the opinions, which are often expressed, wolves do not show aggressiveness toward man near their den and never attack him. They even do not try to “liberate” wolf cubs from a hunter, but if a men visited the den and did not take cubs, wolves, as soon as he is gone, would at once take them to another place. God knows why, but wolves are particularly afraid of a man staying near the den.
Though, fortunately, wolves seemed not to have noticed him since they were somewhere in search of prey. He quickly left the place, because his plan of catching adult wolves near their den was being matured.
He quickly returned home, left the collected mushrooms and, without saying a word, ran to his neighbor Kastus. Just a few days ago father heard that Kastus had gone to the town and obtained there several large framed traps.
In the afternoon father and Kastus came to our hut. They brought three large iron traps, put them into a half-cut metallic barrel, filled it up with water and threw fresh twigs over it. Having fitted the barrel on the stones of the summer bonfire where mother prepared food for piglets, father and Kastus kindled a great fire and kept the traps in boiling water for some hours. The traps were still new, it was necessary to cleanse them from grease,
кШ the smell of wheel lubricant and iron with the help of twig water. Then father and Kastus took the traps out and rubbed them with fresh odorous hay, then put them in to a wet bag, rinsed in the same twig water. They were preparing for a journey hastily. They have put an ax, knives, a short spade, a skein of wire in a big bundle and even added a hank of fishing net.
They reached their destination successfully. Old wolves must have not noticed that a man had visited their den. Wolf cubs were in their place. Father and Kastus began implementing their plan.
First they unpacked the bundle, spreading everything they had brought with them on the grass. Then they put wolf cubs in the same bundle and carefully, because they still pitied them, dragged them about 15 meters to the side along the soft, sandy path. Perhaps, mature wolves used to walk along that narrow path to the water, in some places the path was well trampled down. Thus dragging the wolf cubs along the path father and Kastus wanted the cubs' smell remain on the path, because having felt it the she-wolf would follow it for sure.
After that the wolf cubs were put into the fishing net hanging like a hammock between two branches over the path. They couldn't choke or die in this position. It was planned that when they get hungry, the wolf cubs would start howling and on hearing that their parents would try to save them. And that was just needed: one could set a trap here or wait for the wolves with a gun.
Father and Kastus didn't intend to hunt with guns as they would hardly succeed in that. They had only one gun, but the wolves could appear from either side.
Three heavy steel-made traps were put in the same place. Two were put on both sides of the path some five steps away from the wolf cubs lying in their “cradle”, and the third one — just under the “hammock”. The idea was that if one of the beasts avoided the first trap, it could get into the next one when trying to reach the wolf cubs.
They chose a place where the path was getting narrower and thought that the wolf was sure to get into the trap when walking along it. A small trench was dug under the most treaded place on the path and the trap was carefully put into the prepared pit.
The free end of the chain was pulled through the narrow trench, then they covered it up with earth and added some dry fine shingle on top of it. All this was camouflaged.
On the opposite side of the path the trap was fixed in the same way, being placed near the shrubs, as one couldn't exclude the wolfs appearance on the path right here; by using the prepared “window” it might leap out of the thicket towards the cubs by the shortest way.
The third trap was adjusted right under the “cradle”. Just at the place where the little ones were kept.
Having done this the men went home immediately...
At dawn, Kastus knocked at the window: he, as well as my father, was too impatient to sleep. Father got up from the bed and they headed for the wolf s lair.
Here were the outlines of the familiar path. Only now the men slowed down their pace.
They made several dozens of steps. There was a strong smell of rotten meat. The expressive howling of the little wolves could be heard. Here Kastus and father hastily ran forward having forgotten about caution.
The first trap remained untouched. The middle one was empty as well. They rushed towards the third one with the last hope. In it there was a young but big she-wolf. She got into the trap not with her two forepaws, but with her head. Apparently, before going forward, she had tried to sniff around the broken fern and touched the trigger. The spring snapped into action immediately and the strong iron arcs closed up squeezing the neck just below the head and even pressed down one ear. Sharp and strong spikes wouldn't let go. The she-wolf was already cold and stiff.
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