HOW ANIMALS DIE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19906, 28 September 1926, Page 13

HOW ANIMALS DIE.

IN THE MIDST OF NATURAL SURROUNDINGS. How do the birds and animals die? asks 11. Mortimer Batten in the Boys Own Taper. At one time it was customary to believe that the lile of almost every wild creature was one perpetual round of famine and hunted terror, terminating in a manner proportionately tragic. It is only natural we should think so, for when we see death in the woods it is usually in a tragic form—the young rabbit screaming helpless in the grip of the stoat, the lark carried away in the talons of the hawk; whereas the 99 cases when the bird and the animal die naturally never come before ou. notice. The truth of the matter is that the majority of wild birds and animals die quietly and peacefully, amid their natural surroundings. Many of them who sleep through the winter, like the squirrels and hedgehogs, do not waken when the spring calls their brothers and sisters back to the world of activity. If we knew where to look for them we should find them curled up comfortably enough, as though they were still asleep and might awaken at any moment. Others creep away and hide when old age overcomes them, and thus, if we trouble to look, we can sometimes find the skeletons of small animals in all manner of odd places, such as thev would never have entered under ordinary conditions. Most animals, indeed, seem to be P° 3 ’ sessed with a desire to hide themselves away when death draws near. Last winter we found one morning that old Bess the sheep dog, was missing. Days slipped by and she did not return, and it was some months later when at length one of the farm hands found her remains hidden away in a cosy little nest at the back of the wood pile. Most of us, I suppose, have secret lairs of our own, and sometimes we steal away to them when not feeling quite up to the mark. The wild creatures have secret places, too, as those who love them and follow their ways soon learn. Some of them make little caches, where they store all manner of treasures that take their whimsical fancy during their workaday rambles, and woe betide the mtruder who attempts to discover the secrets of another cache. Foxes and coyotes will fight desperately when discovered by one of their own kind in the act of burying some secret treasure—it may be an old dog collar or a medicine horn -while jackdaws and magpies will move their treasures to a new hiding-place upon finding the old one threatened. No doubt the birds and animals, like ourselves feel a sense of security in the neighbourhood of these secret lairs, for there they often hide themselves away when the strange lassitude_of death first steals down upon them. The elephants have recognised burial grounds, situated in the heart of the densest forests, which the healthy herds never penetrate. When an elephant grows old he leaves his friends, and, guided by some strange instinct, makes his way to far-off jungle where one of these burial grounds is situated, haunting the place week after week till his turn comes. Here and there these elephant cemeteries are known to the natives, who guard their secret jealously, for the price of ivory is good at times. Occasionally vast quantities are found buried deep in the earth, and in the midst ot a country where the elephant himself has never been known to exist. This gees to prove that his prehistoric ancestors adhered to recognised burial grounds, and doubtless the elephant has inherited the habit from them- The wild creatures do not fear death, for they do not understand it, and thus they are so* ea the greatest pain of all.