The Bafut Beagles

by Gerald Durrell

  The stream fled down the valley, slithering down a series of wide, shallow, boulder-strewn steps; at the edge of each step was a diminutive waterfall, perhaps eight feet high, and here the stream gathered itself into a polished column of water and plunged down into a circular pool gouged out among the rocks, where it swirled round and round in a nest of silver bubbles before diving on among the litter of rocks towards the next fall. The long grass curved over the edge of the stream in an uncombed mane of golden hair, and among the glistening boulders grew delicate ferns and tiny plants embedded in thick moss that spread everywhere like a layer of green velvet. On the bank, walking delicately on tip-toe, were numbers of small pink and chocolate crabs, and as our torch beams picked them out they raised their claws menacingly and backed, with infinite caution, down the holes in the red clay that they had dug for themselves. Dozens of minute white moths rose from the long grass as we walked through it, and drifted out across the stream like a cloud of snowflakes. We squatted on the bank to have a smoke and discuss our plan of campaign. The hunters explained that the best place to search for frogs was in the pools at the base of the small waterfalls, but that you also found them under flat rocks in the shallower parts of the stream. I decided that we had better spread out in a line across the stream, and wade up it turning over every movable stone and searching every nook and cranny that might harbour a Hairy Frog. This we did, and for an hour we worked our way steadily uphill towards the source of the stream, splashing through the shallow icy water, slipping on the wet rocks, shining our torches into every hiding-place, and turning over the loose rocks with infinite care.

  There were plenty of crabs, scuttling and clicking among the stones, bullet-shaped frogs of bright grass green that leapt into the water with loud plops and startled us; there was a wavering curtain of small moths fluttering everywhere, small bats that flicked in and out of our torch-beams, but no Hairy Frogs. We walked, for the most part, in silence; there were the hundred different voices of the stream as it moved in its bed, the zinging of crickets in the long grass, the occasional cry of a startled bird disturbed by our torch-beams, or the sucking gurgle, followed by a splash, as one of us turned a stone over in deep water. Once when we were negotiating a small cliff over which, like a pulsating lace curtain, hung a waterfall, we were startled by a loud scream and a splash. Directing our battery of lights down to the base of the fall we found that Jacob, who had been last to scale the cliff, had put his foot on a water-snake which lay coiled up in a hollow. In his fright he had attempted to leap in the air, but without much success, for he was clinging precariously to the cliff face some five feet from the ground. He fell into the pool at the base of the falls, and emerged unhurt – but soaking wet and with his teeth chattering from his immersion in the freezing waters.

  The eastern skies were turning slowly from black to pale green with the coming of dawn, and still we had not found our elusive amphibian. The hunters, who were acutely depressed by our failure, explained that it was useless continuing the search once it was light, for then the frog would not show itself. This meant that we had some two hours left in which to track down the beast and capture it, and, though we continued on our way up the stream, I was convinced that our luck was out and that we would not be successful. At last, damp, cold, and dispirited, we came to a broad, flat valley filled with great boulders through which the stream picked its way like a snake. At certain points it had formed deep, quiet pools among the rocks, and, as the ground was flat, the movement of the waters was slow and even, and the stream had doubled its width. The boulders were strewn haphazardly about, all tilted at peculiar angles like giant archaic gravestones, black under the starry sky. Each one was tapestried with moss, and hung with the sprawling plants of wild begonias.

  We had moved about half-way up this valley when I decided to break off for a cigarette. I came to a small pool that lay like a black mirror ringed round with tall rocks, and choosing a smooth dry stone to sit on I switched off my torch and sat down to enjoy my smoke. The torch-beams of my retinue twinkled and flashed among the rocks as they continued up the valley, and the splashing of their feet in the water was soon lost among the many night sounds around me. When I had finished my cigarette, I flipped the butt into the air so that it swooped like a glowing firefly and fell into the pool, where it extinguished itself with a hiss. Almost immediately afterwards something jumped into the pool with a loud plop, and the smooth black waters were netted with a thousand silver ripples. I switched on my torch quickly and shone it on the surface of the water, but there was nothing to be seen. Then I flashed the beam along the moss-covered rocks which formed the lip of the pool. There, not a yard from where I was sitting, squatting on the extreme edge of a rock, sat a great, gleaming, chocolate-coloured frog, his fat thighs and the sides of his body covered with a tangled pelt of something that looked like hair.

  I sat there hardly daring to breathe, for the frog was perched on the extreme edge of the rock, overhanging the pool; he was alert and suspicious, his legs bunched ready to jump. If he was frightened, he would leap straight off the rock and into the dark waters, and then there would be no hope of catching him. For perhaps five minutes I remained as immobile as the rocks around me, and gradually, as he got used to the light, the Hairy Frog relaxed. Once he shifted his position slightly, blinking his moist eyes, and I was filled with panic thinking that he was going to jump. But he settled down again and I sighed with relief. As I sat there I was busy working out a plan: first, I had to switch the torch from my right to my left hand without disturbing him; then I had to lean forward until my hand was near enough to his fat body to risk grabbing at him. Shifting the torch caused me acute anguish, for he watched the manoeuvre with an alert and suspicious eye; when I had achieved the change I sat quietly for a few minutes to allow him to settle down again, then, with great caution, I moved my cupped hand slowly towards him. Inch by inch I moved until my hand was hanging just above him; then I took a deep breath and grabbed. As my hand swooped downwards the frog jumped, but he was not quite quick enough and my grasping fingers caught him by one slippery hind leg. But he was not going to give up his liberty without a fight, and he uttered a loud screaming gurk, and kicked out frantically with his free hind leg, scraping his toes across the back of my hand. As he did so, I felt as though it had been scratched with several needles, and on the skin of the back of my hand appeared several deep grooves which turned red with the welling blood. I was so astonished at this unexpected attack from a creature which I had thought to be completely harmless, that I must have relaxed my hold slightly. The frog gave an extra hard kick and a wriggle, his moist leg slid through my fingers, there was a plop as he hit the water and the ripples danced. My Hairy Frog had escaped.

  My heart, if I can so describe it, was too full for words. An extensive collection of lurid descriptive phrases which I had accumulated over the years seemed anaemic and inadequate to describe this catastrophe. I tried one or two, but they were a very weak indication of how I felt. After all this time I had come face to face with a Hairy Frog, after being told that it did not exist; after many hours of fruitless search, I had actually had the beast in my grasp, and then, through my own stupidity, had let it get away. I clambered on to a tall rock to see where my hunters had got to; I could see their lights flashing a quarter of a mile away down the valley, and I uttered the prolonged yodelling call that the hunters use to communicate with each other. When they answered me, I shouted that they were to hurry back, as I had found the beef we were looking for. Then I climbed down and examined the pool carefully. It was perhaps ten feet long and about five feet across at the widest point. It was fed and emptied through two very narrow channels among the rocks, and I decided that if we blocked these, and the frog was still in the pool, we stood a fair chance of recapturing him. When my panting hunters arrived I explained what had happened, and they clicked their fingers and groaned with annoyance upon learning that the frog had escaped. However, we set to work, and soon we had blocked t
he entrance and exit channels of the pool with piles of flat stones. Then two of the hunters stood on the rocks and shone our battery of torches into the pool so that we could see what we were doing. First, I tested the depth of the water with the long handle of the butterfly net, and found that it was about two feet deep; the bottom of the pool was of coarse gravel and small stones, a terrain that provided ample hiding-places for the frog. Jacob, myself, and two hunters then removed all the garments we had on and slid into the icy water: Jacob and I at one end of the pool, and the two hunters at the other. Slowly we moved down towards each other, bent double, feeling with our fingers and toes in every crack, turning over every stone. Presently, when we had worked to the centre of the pool, one of the hunters gave a yelp of delight and grabbed wildly at something under the water, almost losing his balance and falling on his face.

  ‘Na whatee, na whatee?’ we all asked excitedly.

  ‘Na flog,’ spluttered the hunter, ‘but ’e done run.’

  ‘You no get hand?’ inquired Jacob wrathfully through chattering teeth.

  ‘’E done run for Masa,’ said the hunter, pointing in my direction.

  As he spoke, I felt something moving near my bare foot, and I bent down and groped frantically under the water. At the same moment, Jacob uttered a shrill scream and dived under the water, and one of the hunters was frantically grabbing at something between his legs. My hand felt a smooth, fat body burrowing in the gravel near my toes, and I grabbed at it; at the same moment, Jacob reappeared above the water, spitting and gasping and waving one arm triumphantly, his hand clasped firmly round a fat frog. He splashed through the water towards me to show me his capture, and as he reached me I straightened up with my own prize caught in my cupped hands. I glanced hurriedly between my fingers and had a quick glimpse of the frog’s thick thighs covered with a mat of the hair-like substance; it was a Hairy Frog. Then I looked at Jacob’s capture, and found that he had caught one also. After congratulating each other, we cautiously placed out frogs in a deep, soft cloth bag, and tied up the mouth of it carefully. Just as we had done this, the hunter who had been groping wildly between his legs straightened up with a roar of delight, swinging yet another Hairy Frog by the leg.

  Warmed and encouraged by our success, we plunged back into the pool once again and searched it carefully, but we found no more frogs. By now the rim of the eastern horizon was a pale powder blue, flecked with gold, and in the sky above us the remaining stars were flickering and dying as stripes of jade green spread across the sky. It was obviously too late to continue with our hunt, but I was well pleased with the results. As the Africans crouched on the rocks, laughing and chattering, smoking the cigarettes I had distributed, I dried myself, rather inadequately, with my handkerchief and put on my dew-soaked clothes. My head was aching savagely, partly, I think, because of the excitement of the capture, but principally owing to the party I had had with the Fon. However, with the glow of triumph enveloping me I cared not for the cold dampness of my clothes, nor for my aching head. The bag with the Hairy Frogs inside I dipped into the pool until it was sodden and cool, then I wrapped it in wet grass and placed it in the bottom of the basket.

  As we reached the top of the hill, the sun rose above the distant mountains and flooded the world with a brittle, golden light. The long grass was bent and heavy with dampness, and a thousand tiny spiders had spun their nets among the stalks, and the nets had dredged up from the night a rich haul of dewdrops that shone white and ice blue in the sun. Dozens of great locusts leapt up from under our feet and sped over the grass in a whirring glitter of magenta wings; and some fat bumble bees, electric blue and as furry as bears, formed a humming choir over a group of pale yellow orchids growing in the shelter of a large rock. The air was fresh and cool, full of the scent of flowers, grass, earth, and dew. The hunters, happy in the knowledge that the night’s activities had been successful, broke into song as they picked their way down the path in single file; a lilting Bafutian melody that they rendered with great verve; the staff joined in, and Jacob beat a gentle tattoo on a collecting tin by way of accompaniment. Thus we marched back to Bafut, singing loudly, Jacob working out more and more complicated rhythms on his improvised drum.

  My first job, when we at last reached home, was to prepare a deep tin to house the frogs; this I filled with fresh water, and placed a number of stones at the bottom to act as cover for them. I put two of them into this tin, but the third I placed in a large jam jar. While I had my breakfast, the jam jar rested on the table, and between mouthfuls I contemplated my capture with adoring eyes.

  My Hairy Frog was, as frogs go, quite large: with his legs tucked neatly in he would have fitted on to a saucer without very much room left over. His head was broad and rather flat, with very protuberant eyes and a mouth with an extraordinarily wide gape. The ground colour of the upper parts was a deep chocolate brown, mottled dimly in places with darker brown, almost black markings; the underside was white, flushed with pink on the lower belly and the inside of the thighs. The eyes were very large, jet black netted with a fine filigree of golden marks. The most astonishing thing about the creature – the hair – was confined to the sides of the body and the thighs, where it grew thick and black, about a quarter of an inch long. This adornment is not really hair at all, but consists of fine, elongated filaments of skin, which on close examination resemble the tentacles of a sea anemone. Until you examine the creature closely, however, the illusion that its hindquarters are clothed in a thick layer of fur is complete. In the water the hair stands out, floating like weed, and so is seen to the best advantage; when the frog is out of water the hair takes on a tangled, jelly-like look.

  There has been much controversy, ever since the frog was first discovered, over the exact use of this curious hirsute decoration, but it is now believed that the filaments act as an aid to respiration. All frogs breathe, to a certain extent, through their skins: that is to say, the skin absorbs oxygen from the moisture on the creature’s body. In this way a frog has, so to speak, two breathing apparatuses – the skin and the lungs. Thus, by breathing through the skin a frog can stay submerged in the water for quite considerable periods. In the case of the Hairy Frog, the great number of filaments give it a much increased skin area, and so must aid its respiration a good deal. There was considerable doubt originally as to the precise function of the Hairy Frog’s hairs, owing to the fact that only the male is hairy; the female is smooth-skinned like any ordinary frog. Thus it appeared as though the hairs were purely ornamental rather than useful, for it seemed ridiculous to suppose that the male was so short-winded that he needed hair to enable him to breathe properly, while the female pursued a hairless and well-aerated existence. This unusual discrepapcy was, however, soon explained: it was found that the male spent his life submerged in water, whereas the female led a purely terrestrial existence for the greater part of the year, only going to water during the mating season. So was the mystery explained – the female on land, using her lungs to breathe with for the most part; whereas her husband in his watery lair found the hairs a very useful addition, for much of his time was spent beneath the water.

  Next to its hairiness, the most curious thing about this frog is that it possesses, in the fleshy toes of each hind foot, a set of long, semi-transparent white claws; these claws, like those of a cat, are retractile, and when not in use disappear back into the sheaths in the toes. That these claws are sharp and useful had been proved to me by the scratches on my hand. I should imagine that the use of these weapons is twofold: first as a means of defence, and secondly as a useful tool which enables the amphibian to cling to the slippery rocks in the fast-running streams which it inhabits. Whenever the frogs were picked up they would kick out frantically with their hind legs, and the claws would appear from their sheaths; they would at the same time utter their curious screaming grunts, a cross between the cries of a contented pig and tortured mouse, a sound astonishingly loud and inclined to be very startling when you were not expecting it.


  My Hairy Frogs settled down very nicely in their large tin, and, after numerous night hunts, I added to their number until I had seven of them, all males with the most luxuriant backsides. For many weeks I searched high and low to try to find some females to go with them, but without success. Then, one day, a dear old lady who looked about ninety-five appeared on the veranda, carrying two calabashes: in one was a pair of shrews, and in the other was a large female Hairy Frog. This was the only female of the species that I ever obtained, and she was accordingly given special care and attention. She was similar to the males in appearance, except that her skin was drier and slightly rougher, and her colouring was a bright brick-red with chocolate flecks. She settled down quite happily with her seven suitors, and even adopted their habits. During the day they all lay in the water, almost completely submerged, ready to dive to the bottom of the tin should anyone approach; at night, however, they grew braver, and climbed out on to the rocks I had put in there for them, where they would sit gulping at each other with vacant expressions. During all the time I had them in Africa, and on the long voyage back to England, the frogs stubbornly refused to eat any of the tempting delicacies I put before them. But as they were extremely fat, this long fast did not unduly worry me, for most reptiles can go forlong periods without food and be none the worse for it.

  When the time came for me to leave Bafut and travel down to the base camp, and then on to the coast, I packed the frogs in a shallow wooden box filled with wet banana leaves. The box had to be shallow, for otherwise the frogs when scared would jump wildly into the air and bang their delicate noses on the wooden top; in a shallow box, however, they got no chance of doing this. They caused me considerable trouble on the way down from Bafut, and many anxious moments: in the highlands the climate is cool and pleasant, but as you descend into the forested lowlands it is like entering a Turkish bath, and the frogs did not like this change at all. When I opened the box, during one of our halts on the way down, I was horrified to find all my Hairy Frogs lying in the bottom, limp and apparently lifeless. I rushed frantically down into a nearby ravine and plunged the box into a stream. The cool waters gradually revived four of the frogs, but three were too far gone and soon died. This left me with three males and the female. I had to stop the lorry every two or three miles for the rest of the journey while I ducked the frog box into a stream to revive its inmates; and it was only in this fashion that I managed to get them to base camp alive. On arrival, however, I discovered another problem: the Hairy Frogs had not been able to jump and damage their noses, but they had tried to burrow into the corners of the box, and had thus managed to rub all the skin off their noses and upper lips. This was most serious, for once the delicate skin on a frog’s nose is damaged it very soon develops a nasty sore on the spot, which spreads like a rodent ulcer, and can eventually eat away the whole nose and lip. Hastily, I had to create a new box for the frogs to live in; this one was also shallow, but it was completely padded inside, top, bottom, and sides, with soft cloth stuffed with cotton wool. The box resembled a small padded cell. In this the Hairy Frogs did very well, since, whether they jumped or burrowed, they could not injure themselves on the soft surface. By keeping them drier than usual I managed to heal up their scraped noses, but they always had faint white scars on the skin afterwards.