LIFE IN THE JUNGLE

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1931, Page 8

LIFE IN THE JUNGLE

- GRIEF-STRICKEN LIONESS. Remarkable tales of the “family life” of wild animals in the South African desert are told in a Natal newspaper. A lion was shot dead. Its mate, in a paroxysm of grief, threw herself prostrate over his dead body, then rose up, every hair on her back bristling with anger. She had caught the scent of the slayer. Sh© followed it up, and, coming on his camp, lept over the fence to where the man sat. After she had torn him to pieces she returned to mourn beside her dead mate.

A group of lions, male, female and two cubs, were gambolling in a dry river bed. Suddenly the lion threw up its head. The air told him a message. Without turning his head, he emitted a low, purring sound to his family. When they were safely out of sight th© lion followed up the scent. The white hunter, meanwhile, struck by the almost human scene of domesticity, put up hi.s gun, determined not to fire. Just at that moment the lion parted the bushes near .him and stood tail lushing, growling. It offered no injury, simply waited /until the man had disappeared, then returned to its family. Next to the lion comes th e ostiich in the care of its mates aiid young. Thes< great birds will dance along the road ahead of a car, sometimes describing a complete, circle in a few yards, then cut a. caper and hound away, to reappear behind some bush. These antics have a, purpose. While papa ostrich is thus entertaining the visitors, directing their attention to himseli, Ins family is fleeing from sight in the othei direction.

An ostrich hen, sitting on her nest, was shot by a 'marksman in a motor car. As she rolled over the male biru sped to take her place, where, regardless of danger, he remained sitting. When lie was killed, a day-old cnick, tweeting plaintively, was seen. The baboon is probably the most “human” of all the animal kingdom, but the mother baboon is jealous ami spiteful; should her mate anger her she vents her wrath on her offspring, biting its ears and nose, and in some instances battering its head. This is usually when she considers the baby is receiving more attention than herselr. It is amusing to watch a row ot mother baboons sitting nursing their babies. They hold them in their knee, just as human mothers do, so also do they jay them aicross their lap to administer the maternal spanking. There is a pathetic tale of a springbok and a blinded buffalo. A party of hunters, whose car was stuck in the Kallahari Desert, 'while waiting for help, noticed a single springbok, followed by a great buffalo. The strange companionship drew their attention. ~ They watched the buck lead the .buffalo to the waterhole and then bound ;j%iyay. When they found' that the buffalo had been blinded by snake poison and was in great agony, a kindly bullet put it out ol its pain. ,