THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 76

THE NATURALIST.

i The Khino in African Wilds. (The Key. Dr W. S. Rainsford, in the , Outlook.) ! I am en the north-west side of Kenia, about 40 miles still from the mountain's base. Suddenly arises an outcry so dreadful that I take my rifle quickly from my gun boy. What can it be? Has a family of lions cornered a herd of zebra, on the other side of the rock, and is the hideous outcry the shrill death cry of the zebra and the fierce growling of the lions- echoed back by the rocky walls? It is simply the angry protest of a large band of baboons against our intrusion. I have often seen baboons before, and in large troops, too, l/Ut never heard their war-cry. It is a truly dreadful cry. Suddenly we come on two rhinos feeding among the brush. .Ugly brutes they surely are, and dangerous as they are ugly. All rhinos should be shot on sight. They are a common nuisance — too common hereabouts — useless for food, and especially dangerous to unarmed people. i Only the other day my friend the missionary, Sohauffaker, came very near losing his life in an encounter with • a rhino. Schauffaker is pre-eminently a man of peace, and generally rides, more often walks, on his way unarmed. ' On this occasion he borrowed a mule from another missionary, for the road he must take was not a short <riie. As he was passing through some thickish brush he was, without warning, incontinently charged by a rhino. As 1 have said, such an onslaught is usually made with exceeding swiftness; and though his mule swerved for his life, the cruel horns pinned him. Schauffaker is • young, and a very active man. He threw himself off and darted behind a friendly bush. All in vain. The furious beast crashed through the dense shrubbery, carrying everything before* him, and) when SohauflUker came to himself he was partly stunned. He held in his hand a small lemnant .if .his sun, umbrella, and a. cloud of dust and trailing brush and the rest of the umbrella decorating the beast's horn showed where the rhino was still furiously charging away. 1 During the night they seldom trouble the caravan. But Mr Percivale, one of the game wardens appointed by the British ! .East African Government, told me of an 1 extraordinary escape he had lately. He i had risen about 2 in the morning and left his tent and his companion, who was sleep- , ing in it, for a few moments. Rhino had not been ■common, in the neighbourhood for some time. There was no moon. Suddenly, in the pitchy darkness, a dark animal rushed by him. There was a crash; down went his tent; then another crash, followed by loud cries from hie men. He rushed -back to find his friend crawling out unhurt from the wreckage and all bespattered with jam. He was scarcely" awake, and quite at a loss to know what had happened. "Is it a tornado? " said he. Percivale's bsd, from which he had risen a moment before, was smashed to atoms. A pot of jam, crushed by the great beast's foot, had exploded like a bombshell, squirting over everything. He called to .his men, and was answered by groans. One of them was badly trampled, and another, bundled up in his little tent, had i been carried bodily off for 20 yards. The ! rhino's horn had cut a deep gash in his ! forehead — otherwise he was all right. t I may as well here tell xny own experiences with a rhino. One day late in August, 1908, 1 was tracking a buffalo bull on the Quasi Nyero of the north. I and my gun-bearer had crawled silently as we could some 200yde into the tearing, outting jungle, and I was on the point of ' saying we had bctl go out, as in such a place nothing could be done, when through ■ the bkuek vail of herbage to our right came the sharp, whistling snort of a rhino. We etood stock still, and I, fortunately, was i able to stand upright just there and clear [ very quietly the trailing creepers from my arms and rifle. Looking hard where .the sound had come from I was presently able to make out a small patch of brown ekin, j not larger than my hand, about 10yds away. I was naturally most anxious not to i shoot. The noise would destroy my chances l of coming on any buffSaJo thereabouts, and, besides, this was no place to shoot anyI thing, much less a bush rhino, whose horn ' was almost certain to be but a poor one. So we 6tood and waited, hoping our most unwelcome neighbour would move away. He stood as silent as we did. Then very ' 6lowly I tried to retreat. All in vain—we were so near that he must have seen us clearly. He wheeled with a crash, and, snorting loudly, ruehed into us. I could see nothing to shoot at till his horn was within a few yards of the man next me on mj leit, my Somali. Now Dooda was » brave man enough, but in the presence of rhino or lion he became very much excited. He now fell back so violently against my left shoulder that, as I threw him off, his rifle cut my hand, and I almost fell. Had I done so nothing could have saved ue from being gored and trampled on. As I straightened up I saw the broad shoulder and lowered horn almost on us. I fired i he right barrel of my 450 into the :~pine — at a distance (afterwards Hieasuicd) of about 10ft. And the rhino fnlJ, an inert mass, without a groan or a kick. I had ju«;t time, behind the flash of my right barrel, to €cc a second great head and «houlck-r following the first; indeed, t-o close was the second rush on the first I could barely pull my left trigger quick enough. And had I been using a black powder cartridge I shouldn't 'have seen the socond till he was on me. Fortunately the almost unaimed 6hot took him in the same place as his feilow. He, too, collapsed. The charge of the two furious animals was so simultaneous, or so almost simultaneous, that niy gun bearer, Dooda, had no idea there were two, but fancied I had shot twice into the one. When he stepped forward on top of two dead rhino, not one, ho leaped backward, thinking we had another untouched animal before ufl«

1 1 Do Animals Feel Pain ? ; — Or Is Their Distress Merely a Matter of Imagination ?— ; According to Professor Lee there are few things in this world about which more nonsense is talksd and b3lieved than the eimentary sense of pain. In many cases, he main" tains, when we are unduly alarmed by its presence in ourselve-, or others, it exists only in our own imaginations. It is, he explains, a well-known fact "*n human physiology that sensations may be intensified and given undue prominence in. the individual's experience by the addition of certain mental factors. Potent among these are imagination, memory, attention, and anticipation. These factors are particularly efficacious in intensifying pain. Its anticipation, preliminary imaginings of its 1 ; suffering, the remembrance of past pains, the focussing of the attention on the present one, uncertainty as to its future course and its ultimate outcome, and general ; I anxiety for one's self and others — ail these ' 1 may be added to the simple sensation ; and ' j the result is a mixture of painful sensai tions of an intensity out of all proportion ; to that of the simple pain itself. Largely; if not chiefly, because of the ' addition of these mental qualities a progressive increase in the delicacy of the sense of pain exists in passing from the lower animals to the higher animals, savages, and civilised iaces. Pain, is felt most acutely by civilised man. Savages are noted for the bluntness of their pain sensa- , tions. .Regarding animals, the argument >is sometimes raised that, because certain races of animals have certain unusually acute senses, as. hounds have a keen sense 1 of smell, therefore animals must appreciate pain more acutely than man. The truth, however, is that there is no relation whatever between the acuteness of one sense and that of another. Moreover innumerable facts of animal experience testify to [ the comparative indifference of animals to happenings that might be accompanied by intense suffering in human beings. ' Professor Sterling tells of "seeing a horse which had had its thigh broken hopping about on three legs with its broken leg dangling, and it was grazing . comfortably until it was destroyed" two hours later. A ?ox terrier was severely bitten in the head and aeck by a more [ powerful dog, yet with lacerated wounds he continued to manifest his 'nnate joyouaj I ness and high spirits, and was always ready for a romp. After a severe surgical " operation a rabbit fell to munching a carr Trot as if notiiixig .xrk-woxrteel iia^l occorred. These instances are typical of the '. habitual apathy of even the domestic animals. The existence of this does not justify the, wanton infliction of needless suffering, but it bids us to be chary of uncalled-for emotion over beings that are far lower in the scale thaa we. We must accept the fact that man .possesses qualities that are, as Milton said, "to brute denied." By untrained persons the existence of painful sensations in animals has often been inferred from the presence of muscular movements— a moving or struggling animal is supposed to be a feeling animal. Thus persons have witnessed certain- experiments on anassthetised animals, and, on observing struggles, have asserted- that the animals were conscious- and 1 suffering. There is abundant evidence from human y 6urgery that although deep anaesthesia prevents muscular movement, yet when anesthetics are used in smaller quantity a patient undergoing an operation may make extensive motions and even, writhe in apparent agony and utter cries without being conscious of what is occurring and without feeling any pain.