ANIMALS AND AIR RAIDS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 187, 27 April 1918, Page 3

ANIMALS AND AIR RAIDS

SENTINELS THAT NEVER SLEEP (By "W." in tho "Daily Mail.") Many observers during tho air raids on Jinglaiid must have noticed the curious difference in the behaviour of animals before and during these attacks. Dogs, for example, behave in the most extraordinary fashion. 'J lie small and nervous dog is usually an extremely good sentinel. One such animal, a toy Yorkshire, always shows uneasiness More a raid. In tho days before jM'oper warnings were given ho was of real service, though now his excitement is a little otiose. It is quite clear that he hears the vibration of engines or of gunfire long before it becomes audible to human ears. This faculty was specially shown in the Zeppelin raids. Thus I find from a diary of the war that he roused a household "on the night of September 23, 1916, quite fifteen minutes before the sound of guns or bombs was heard, in time to witness tho destruction of one of the enemy. On the other hand, another and oldei dog in the same house gave not tho slightest sign of perturbation and slept through tho wliolo business with utter unconcern. More recently a'focker spaniel—a very good sporting dog—took tho gyrations ol a whole licet ul Zeppelins without emotion, and did not turn a hair of his jet black body when three or four heavy uomb.3 ixploiicd within a mile of him. Cats seem to disliko firing, and during raids show an unwonted sociability. . „ , At the front this difference in the behaviour i-S, animals lias been observed. There is an interesting passage in the admirable letters from the front written by the late Lieutenant ft. W. Dcvenisli ("A Subaltern's Share in the War : "I have forgotten to say how the difterent animals take the fighting. Cows usually appear quite indifferent, ana often you see (hem wandering about in between our trenches and the enemj s quite unconcerned. . . • One would persist in getting in front of my gun (an 18-pounder), so we had to drive it off by chucking empty cartridge cases and clods of earth at it. One dog there was in abject terror, and tried to burrow its wav into the ground in a barn. It is quite clear that cows would be useless as sentinels. #

Experience at our air stations shows that birds are on the whole the best sentries, till they get accustomed to bring. Parrots early in the war were tried at the Eiffel Tower, with the result that at first they gave warning fully twenty minutes before the aeroplane or airship could be made out by the eye or heard by the human ear. These birds, however, appear to have grown bored or indifferent, as they cou (1 not be kept indefinitely at the work. Pheasants have been found almost invariably to signal the approach of aircraft at night by their chattering and screaming. When the pheasant begins to talk then the airman.gets ready to lly and the anti-aircraft gunner turns out. The screaming of pheasants often precedes by fifteen minutes to half an hour the approach of a Zeppelin or aeroplane. , ~ , | A good example of the pheasant s acute hearing was given during the first Zeppelin raid of January, 1915, when at Thetford and Bury St. Edmunds, 3o to •10 miles from tho area over which tlie Zeppelins flew, the pheasants shrieked themselves hoarse. Reports from almost tho wholo north of England make it certain in the same way that they heard the firing in tho North Sea which accompanied tho battle of the Dogger Bank that same January. With habit thev lose this peculiar sensitiveness. Nearly all observers in Prance have noticed that birds,' after their first terror, gradually grow accustomed to heavy firing, and, indeed, treat all the rage of man with the utter unconcern of Lieutenant Devenish's philosophic cow. Hares?* partridges, and pheasants could boseen-perliaps can.6nll be seen—near the advanced trenches,' competing with the Tats for any provender that may be obtainablo. -» •