ANIMALS AND SICKNESS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 17, 4 March 1913, Page 2

ANIMALS AND SICKNESS.

HOW THEY PRESERVE THEIR _ HEALTH. Animals will do anything to keep themselves in perfect condition, and they have learned in the course of ages that cleanliness is one of the conditions of health. It is wonderful what care all creatures will take to keep themselves clean, and a bird’s nest even when the parents are most busy feeding their ravenous young ones is usually beautifully clean. The care they will take of their skins and coats, or in the case of lards of their plumage, is wonderful.

Many ages before mud-baths came inlo fashion among humans, the curative value of mud was known to many animals, and animals in tropical countries frequently take mudbaths ; indeed, wounded elephants and other large quadrupeds will roll themselves 'in the mud of a riverbank, and will fill up the wound with mud if they possibly can, while wo. n led birds will sometimes also fill up a wound to prevent foreign matter getting into the vo.ind, which they seem to know from experience will do mischief. Lucidly perhaps for themselves, the vast number of drugs and medicines wherewith poor humanity is dosed are unknown ; but there are several plants which animals use as medicine, and it has been said that we have learned tbs value of some such by watching the use made of them by animals and birds. Thus it has been told that the healing value of the springs of Bath became known by watching a sick pig which drank the water ; and though we no longer believe that snakes rub their eyes with fennel to improve their eyesight, yet certain, plants are certainly eaten by animals to produce certain results. Thus in tropical countries capsicums are eaten by various birds when these feel they need a stimulant ; while in our colder climates the wild arum and other plants with biting flavours are eaten for the same reason. Mammals, too, will eat grass, the sharp blades of thei sword grass being in demand among dogs and cats when they require an emetic ; while grass-eaters will travel long distances to procure salt ; indeed, their extreme desire for salt has been the means of bringing many of them to destruction, for hunters take up their position near the •"salt-licks” in the same way as they do near the drinking-places in hot countries. Digestion is a thing carefully looked after by wild creatures ; they seem to know bow important it is to their life that this should be kept fn perfect order. Thus dogs cats will eat ashes now and then and birds and even snakes will swallow stones to aid their digestive powers. When hens are laying, of course, they require lime to form the shells, and the amount of grit and fragments of stone they then eat is incredible; if they have been confined in a small place for some time and suddenly turned loose upon a heap of gravel or where they can obtain small stones and grit, they will be seen devouring them as if the heap had been formed of corn. When the last stage comes, as it must come to all things, wild or tame, the end is usually merciful in its' speed. To die a violent death is the fate of most wild animals, and surely this is preferable to the wasting plague or slow decay which awaits so many of us ; added to which they have not the anticipation of evil we possess, and which is the worst part of suffering. Now and then one may linger on into old age, but as a rule, when a wild thing can no longer maintain its high standard of activity, it perishes at once. When the last hour comes it will separate itself from its fellows and get into the most private place it can find, so that it is seldom anyone has watched a wild animal die. It seems that the first requirement of a stricken animal is to be at peace from friends and foes alike.—’"Giobe.”