HOW ANIMALS DIE.

Thames Star, Volume LX, Issue 16855, 4 August 1926, Page 6

HOW ANIMALS DIE.

How do the birds :uid animals die? asks H. Mortimer Batten in the Boy’s Own Paper. At one time it was customary to believe that the life oi almost every wild creature was one perpetual round of famine hnd bunted terror, terminating in a manner proportionately tragic. It was only natural we should think so, for when he 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 oi the havk; whereas the 99 cases when the bird and the animal die naturally never come before our notice. The truth of the matter is that the majority of wild birds and animals dies quietly and peacefully, amid their natural surroundings. Many of them who sleep through the winter, like squirrels and hedgehogs, do not waken when the spring calls their brothers and sisters hack to the world of activity. If we know where to look for them we should find them curled up comfortably enough, as though they were still asleep and might waken at any moment. Others creep away and hide when old age overcomes them, and thus, if we trouble to look, we can sometimes find skeletons of small animals in all manner of odd places, such as they would never have entered um dea* ordinary conditions. Most animals, indeed seem to be possessed of a desire to hide themselves away when death draws near. Last winter we found one morning that old Bess, tho sheep dog, was missing. Bays 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 r, 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 Jove them and follow their ways soon learn. Some of them make ILtlte caches, where they . store all manner of treasures that take then fancy during their workaday rambles and woe betide the intruder who attemps to discover the secrets of another’s cache. Foxes and coyotes will figlm desperately when discovered by ■one of their own kind in the act of burying some secret treasures—it may be an old dog collar or a medicine born—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 upon them. The ele pliants have recognised burial grounds, situated in the heart of the densest forests, which healthy herds nevei penetrate. When the elephant grows old he leaves his friends, and guided by some strange instinct, makes his way to a 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 the secret jealously, for the price of ivory is. good at till times. Occasionally ..vast, quantities are found

buried deep in the earth, and in the midst of a country where the elephant himself has never been known to exist. This goes to prove that his prehistoric ancestors adhered to recognised burial grounds, and doubtless the elephant lias inherited the habit from them. The wild creatures do riot fear death, for they do not understand it, and thus tliev arc saved the greatest pains of all.