SAFETY WITH WILD CREATURES'

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 19 November 1932, Page 14

SAFETY WITH WILD CREATURES'

Amazing Cases of Infant Humans

of the'richest fields of legend is ■ that which deals with the happy companionship existing between baby humans and the wild life of the jungle. Occasionally instances come to light of a surprising character Avhich show that this type of legendary lore is even today in the making. Babies, of course, as is well recognised, frequently demonstrate their entire absence of fear in the presence of wild animal life in many ways; the astonishing friendly attitude of this wild life towards human infants is not,, perhaps, so easily explained, but is, however, an established fact. An extraordinary example of this nature occurred recently in a rural district in America, where the wife of a farmer one afternoon, wondering why her baby was so quiet, went to the back ,of the house and to her horror discovered the little on happily sitting on the doorstep playing with a snake-—and a deadly poisonous snake at that. The chi'l-d was prattling away blissfully, and it was afterwards recognised that a really definite game was in progress, and that the two strange play.matcs had been so associated for many weeks. The snake presented an extraordinary appearance. It had been decked out with some doll’s clothes and its antics showed that any vicious side to its nature was effectively lulled.

The horrified mother snatched her babe away and the snake was promptly killed. The child’s grief at the loss of her strange playmate, however, was so very real that for "a long time she declined to be comforted.

There is .now living- in an orphanage in India, a little girl who was discovered, in amazing circumstances, living in the jungle lair of some wolves, by a minister in Bengal. This minister had been shown by the inhabitants of an isolated village near Midanpore a jungle path which was generally avoided because of a tradition that it was definitely haunted. To kill the superstition the minister decided to explore this sinister path. Ho accordingly followed until it led him to a cave in which several wolf cubs were at play. Then the minister rubbed his eyes in astonishment, for among the playful cubs, and playing with them, were two little native girls. They were scrambling about on all fours, were uttering fierce growls, and were in all respect behaving like the wolves with whom they were living.

The theory advanced was that the children had at an early age been abandoned by their parents and that a'shewolf inhabiting this cave had adopted ■them and reared them with her own cubs. Beseue was a difficult matter, but eventually the children were taken away and placed in an orphanage. One, unable to accommodate herself to the new environment and way of life, pined away and died. The other presented a problem to the orphanage authorities. Her ways were savage; she neither used nor seemed to understand human speech; nor could she tolerate the society of humans nor human garb. For a long time she preferred the company of the dogs about the compound. Gradually, however, progress has been made in the business of weaning her away from the purely wild life in which she "was brought up in the wolves’ 'eaves. Thus has the famous story of Kipling’s Mowgli, the youth who dwelt since babyhood with the wild beasts of the jungle and later returned to the ways of men, found its counterpart in real life. Another ease on similar lines occurred in Central Europe, where a young boy was one day found by some hunters, wandering along a forest path. He had obviously led a wild life from babyhood and knew nothing of the manners and customs of mankind. To capture him was as difficult as the capturing of a wild animal, but it was eventually accomplished, and definite attempts were then made to regenerate him. It proved a most difficult and disappointing business. At every attempt to civilise him, clothe him and feed him in orthodox fashion he rebelled fiercely, and, it seemed, could not be prevented from constant reversions to the ways of wild animals. Eventually a famous psychologist took the case in hand and laboured for a long time in his efforts to reclaim this youth who had left the world of man. At one time it seemed as though his efforts would be crowned with success, but,the conclusion finally come to was that it would never be possible completely to reclaim him and that the forest-bred boy would never come to normal manhood. That decision was borne out by what happened, for the .youth died within a year or two of being discovered.