“FIERCE” WILD BEASTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19717, 18 February 1926, Page 15

“FIERCE” WILD BEASTS.

THE TRUTH OE THE MATTER NOT ANXIOUS TO DEVOOK. T liiiv© been reading of several cases tho bush (writes “A Traveller in tno Daily Mail). Aio lions becoming effete. Have Siberian wolf-packs lost their taste for devourinn- fleeing sledge-loads of moujiks. Tk“ n.ll, ol Ita matter i. that, practeally all the legends about wild beasts being fiercely hostile to man, eager to attack and devour him, are sheer twaddle. I]l ° P. 00 f r things want nothing better than to bo left alone and to avoid any sort of a fight " Indians'are. highly amused at the dread with which the tiger is regarded in England. Hundreds of villages situated on the fringe of the jungle live cheek by jowl with a tiger or two. who is regarded as a cattle-looting pest, but nothing worse. Only when be has bitten or pounced on and eaten a human being does he become a menace. Tint not one tiger in a thousand ever does become a man-eater. If vou moot a lion in tho course of a morning's walk in Kenya in Khftdesia it will not oat you; it will run nwav. If you meet a hear in the forests of K'issm, Siberia, or Canada it is no more likely io attack vou than is a carthorse in Covent Garden. Wolves are not to be feared. AH one winter's night they followed my slodgo in Siberia, (rotting along the edge of the forest, a few yards nwav. their green eves glinting eerily'in the dark. Hut what they wanted was the horse. The cougar, nr American mountain hon, has the reputation of following its man for days and then “getting him” unawares. Two or three good lies probably started this legend. There is not a single authenticated case. The puma, the leopard, ami the Ivnx are very unnleasant opponents in a fight, but so'would b 0 many a rural dean o'- family grocer if you went after him with a gun. Piich cases as there are of men being attacked are due almost entirely to man being the provoker or approaching a mother with cubs. A fev cases are due in bad temper; a few a r e due to bad eyesight or other infirmity or illness driving the beast to attack a prev it dreads . Hunger drives bard when one is nenrl\ blind or too lame to ebase a fleet-footed dinner. And, of course, manv wild beasts, however timid in their natural environment, will turn on you in a rage. Personally. I would rather meet nnv number of grizzly bears or wolves again than some of the ncstv snarling little Penkinese encumbering Kensington.