HOW THE GUINEA-PIG LOST HIS TAIL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 25 (Supplement)

HOW THE GUINEA-PIG LOST HIS TAIL

Long, long ago the guinea-pig had a beautiful bushy tail like a squirrel; but if to-day you look at one you will see that it has no tail at all.

It all happened, of course, through the Flood. You all remember the story of the Flood —how Noah built his great Ark, how it rained and rained and rained, and all the animals, great and small, went by two and two into it.

First the elephants went stumping in, then the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and so on—the biggest first and the smallest last —stretching away in a long line far into the distance. Guinea-pigs, of course, are not the smallest animals, so they would not come last of all in the great procession. The two mice, for instance, would come some distance behind them. Still, they were a long way back, and directly behind them came two rats.

Now, of course, the long stream of animals could only get into the Ark two at a time, so they were not able to move very fast, and before long the water, slowly creeping up, began to get dangerously near the animals who were at the back. “Move up, move up!” they shrieked, and the poor rats got quite frantic because there were a couple of hedgehogs behind them, and they were getting frightfully pricked and the two guinea-pigs in front would keep swishing their huge tails about. “Would you please be so kind as to curl up your tails and give us just a little more room,” asked the rats politely. But the guinea-pigs were too excited to take any notice, and at last the rats could stand it no longer.

Making a signal to each other, they suddenly made a grab, and off came the guinea-pigs’ fine tails! Then the procession suddenly moved on, and so what might have been a terrible qittirrel was prevented. Still the guinea-pigs were left without their tails, and, as of course these were the only two guinea-pigs in the world, tails quite went out of fashion among them as they are to this day.