REARED BY ANIMALS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 February 1939, Page 4

REARED BY ANIMALS

CHILDREN STOLEN. Every year hundreds of children are carried off by wild animals from the lields in Russia and India while their parents are at work, seldom to be seen again. There have been, however, a number of instances in which the animals have reared the stolen baby instead of killing it. Most of the stories of the almost unbelievable action of savage animals acting as foster-parents refer to wolves, but there are well authenticated eases of children being reared by baboons, and even by bears. In one case, some years ago, soldiers on the march in Cape Province, fired on a troop of baboons, hitting one, which, to their complete amazement, turned out to be a native boy! The boy, who had apparently been stolen when still a baby, had all the characteristics of the baboon, including the curious hopping gait, and he made precisely tjie same guttural noises in plac* of speech. Even after being kept in a mental home for a period, the boy retained a marked dislike for all cooked foods, and showed an equally strong partiality for every kind of fruit and vegetable.

Great trouble, too, was experienced in teaching the boy to walk upright instead of hopping on all fours, but eventually he recovered normality to such an extent that he was employed as a labourer on a farm, where his unusual physical strength made him a welcome employee. An even more remarkable case was reported last year, from Turkey, when a girl of nine years was captured by hunters in a bear’s den in the Uludagh Mountains.

The girl growled in the manner of a young bear and fiercely attacked with teeth and nails all who went near her. She was secured, however, and later taken to a mental clinic in Istanbul for special treatment. Inquiries revealed that a baby girl three months old had been carried off by a bear from the village of Brussa. near the mountains, in 1928, and it seems probable that it was this child that was rescued by the hunters last year. AMONG THE WOLVES

Stories of wolves bringing up children they have stolen are more common. One of the earliest was reported as long ago as 1843 at Chupra, India. In this instance the parents went to cut wheat, and while they were at work their baby boy was carried off by a wolf. Six years later, a wolf with three cubs and a small native boy were observed at a spot some 10 miles away. The boy was caught, and was afterward identified by the mother by means of the mark of a scald on one knee.

Usually it has been found to be possible, though exceedingly difficult, to teach the recovered children to walk in the human manner, but, generally, the unnatural alterations in growth are too great to be overcome, for the arms have become unduly lengthened ami the feet flat, with the toenails turned downward, and the fingernails take on the appearance of claws. The power of speech also vanishes, and there is no reliable record of a child 1 acquiring anything approaching the

normal vocabulary for its age. It is, perhaps, merciful that the unfortunate children very rarely live long when restored to civilised life, though in a case reported in Secundra, many years ago, a boy was reared to the age of 30. Though he was taught to wear clothes and to cat with his lingers, all attempts to teach him to speak proved unsuccessful. Nothing definite is known of the reasons which prompt a wild animal to refrain from killing a captured child, but it is generally assumed that the animal takes the child in substitution for its own dead cubs. Another theory is that animals have no animosity toward an unclothed human being, and, as native children of tender years are seldom clothed, this may account for their occasional escape. In support of the theory is

the boast of the Rajputs that for a wager they will readily enter, unclothed, the den of a tiger with cubs and remain unharmed. They say. however, that any vestige of clothing would result in instant attack. Whatever the reason may be. it is certain (hat flic cases of children being cared for by their wild fosterparents form only an infinitesimal proportion of those which are cither killed by the animals themselves or succumb to the rigorous conditions of life and the unnatural food.