WHEN THEIR TIME COMES

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5014, 16 August 1926, Page 3

WHEN THEIR TIME COMES

HOW ANIMALS DIE. How do the birds find 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 wa ; s 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 s.ee 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 taibins of the hawk; 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 die quietly ajid peacefully, amid their natural surroundings. Many of them who sleep through the winter, like the squirrels and hedgehogs, do not waken when the spring calls their brothers and sisters back to the world df activity. If we knew where to’ look for them we should find them curled up comfortably enough, as though they were still as,leep 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' the skeletons of small animals in all manner of odd places, such as they would never have entered under ordinary conditions.

Mast animals, indeed, steem. to be posesssed with a desire to hide themselves away when death draws near. Last winter we found one morning that old .Bess, the sheep dog, was missing. Days slipped by and she did not return, and it ,was some •months later when at length one df the farm hands found her remains hidden away in a cosy little nest at the back bjf the wood pile. Most of us, I suppose, have secret foil's 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 love them and follow their ways sbfon learh. Some, of, them make little caches, where they store .all manner df treasures that take their whimsical fancy during their workaday rambles, and woe bqtide the intruder who attempts' to discover the s,ecrets of another’s cache. Foxes and coyotes will fight desperately when discovered by one •of their own kind in the act dfi burying some secret treasure — it may be an eld dog collar or a medicine hoi-n —while jackdaws and magpies will move their treasures to a new hidingplace upon finding the aid one enedNo doubt the birds and animals, like ourselves, feel a sense of security in the neighbourhood df these secret lairs, for there, they often hide themselves away when the , strange lasstiude of death first steals down upon them. The elephants have recognised burial grounds, situated in the heart of the densest forests, which the healthy herds never penetrate. When an elephant grows old he leaves, his friends and, guided by some strange instinct, makes his way to a far-off jungle where one of theae burial grounds is situated, haunting the place week after week till his turn comes. Here and there these elephant cemetaries are known to the na.tives, who guard their 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, wher the elephant himself has never been known to exist This goes to prove that hl's prehistoric ancestors adhered to re,cognisted burial grounds, and doubtless the elephant has inherited the habit from them. The wild creatures do not feay death, for they do not understand it, and thus they are saved the ereatesb pains