WHEN THEIR TIME

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1789, 31 July 1926, Page 2

WHEN THEIR TIME

HOW ANIMALS DIE.

How do the birds and animals die? asks H. Mortimer Batten in the “Boys’ Own Paper.” At one time it was customary to believe that the life 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 out 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 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 waken at ’ any moment. Others creep away and hide when Qld age overcomes them, and thus, if we troujble to look, we can ■sometimes find skeletons of small animals in all manner of odd places, sucn as they would never have entered under ordinary conditions. Most animals, indeed seem to he possessed with a desire to hide themselves away when death drawls near. Last winter we .found one morninng that old Bess, the sheep dog, was missing. Day 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 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 felling 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 fancy during their workaday rambles, and woa betide the intruder who attempts to discover the secrets of another’s cache. Foxes and coyotes will fight desperately when discovered by one of their own kind in the act of hurrying some secret treasure—it may be an old dog collar or a medicine horn—while jack daws 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 n iglibourliood of these secret lairs, for 'there they often hide themselves away when the strange lassitude of death first steals upon them. The elephants have recognised burial grounds, situated in the heart of the densest forests, which healthy herds never penetrate. When the elephant grows old

lie 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 crimes. H'ere and there these elephant cemeteries are known to the natives, who guard the secret jealously, for the price of ivory is good at all 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 has inherited the habit from them. The wild creatures do not fear death, for they do not understand it, and thus they are saved the greatest pains of all.