The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals Part 30

Was it strategy? Was it the result of quail thought and reason? Or did it come by heredity, just like walking? To deny the cold facts in the quail case is to discredit our own ability to reason and be honest.

Fear is the ruling emotion alike of the most timid creatures, and also the boldest. Of course each wild animal keeps a mental list of the other animals of which he is not afraid; and the predatory animal also keeps a card catalogue of those which he may safely attack when in need of food.

But, with all due consideration to mighty forearm, to deadly claws and stabbing fangs, there is (I think) absolutely no land animal that is not afraid of something. Let us progressively consider a few famous species near at hand.

The savage and merciless weasel fears the fox, the skunk, the wolf and the owl. The skunk fears the coyote which joyously kills him and devours all of him save his jaws and his tail. The marten, mink and fisher have mighty good reason to fear the wolverine, who in his turn cheerfully gives the road to the gray wolf. The wolf and the lynx carefully avoid the mountain lion and the black bear, and the black bear is careful not to get too close to a grizzly.

Today a cotton-tail rabbit is not more afraid of a hound than a grizzly bear is of a man. The polar bear once was bold in the presence of man; but somebody has told him about breech-loading high power rifles; and now he, too, runs in terror from every man that he sees. The lion, the tiger, the leopard and the jaguar all live in wholesome fear of man, and flee from him at sight. The lordly elephant does likewise, and so does the rhinoceros, save when he is in doubt about the ident.i.ty of the biped animal and trots up to get certainty out of a nearer view. Col. Roosevelt became convinced, that most of the alleged "charging" of rhinoceroses was due to curiosity and poor vision, and the desire of rhinos to investigate at close range.

Today the giant brown bears of Alaska exhibit less fear of man than any other land animals that we know, and many individuals have put themselves on record as dangerous fighters. And this opens the door to the great Alaskan controversy that for a year raged,--chiefly upon one side,--in certain Alaskan newspapers and letters.

Early in 1920, certain parties in Alaska publicly asked people to believe that W. T. Hornaday in his "published works" had set up the Alaskan brown bear as "a harmless animal." All these statements and insinuations were notoriously false, but the repet.i.tion of them went on right merrily, even while the author's article portraying the savage and dangerous character of the brown bear was being widely circulated in the United States through _Boys' Life_ magazine.

The indisputable facts regarding the temper of the great Alaskan brown bears are as follows: Usually, unless fired at, these big brown bears flee from man at sight of him, and by many experienced Alaskan bear hunters who can shoot they are not regarded as particularly dangerous, save when they are attacked by man, or think that they are to be attacked.

They are just now the boldest of all bears, and the most dangerous.

They often attack men who are hunting them, and have killed several.

They have attacked a few persons who were not hunting.

Where they are really numerous they are a menace and a nuisance to frontiersmen who need to traverse their haunts.

In all places where Alaskan brown bears are quite too numerous for public safety, their numbers should thoroughly be reduced; and everywhere the bears of Alaska should be pursued and shot until the survivors acquire the wholesome respect for man that now is felt everywhere by the polar and the grizzly. Then the Alaskans will have peace, and our Alaskan enemies possibly will cease to try to discredit our intelligence.

The most impressive exhibition of wild-animal fear that Americans ever have seen was furnished by the African motion pictures of Paul J. Rainey. They were taken from a blind constructed within close range of a dry river bed in northern British East Africa, where a supply of water was held, by a stratum of waterproof clay or rock, about four feet below the surface of the dry river bed.

By industrious pawing the zebras had dug a hole down to the water, and to this one life-saving well wild animals of many species flocked from miles around. The camera faithfully recorded the doings of elephants, giraffes, zebras, hartebeests, gnus, antelopes of several species, wart-hogs and baboons.

The personnel of the daily a.s.semblage was fairly astounding, and to a certain extent the observer of those wonderful pictures can from them read many of the thoughts of the animals.

Next to the plainly expressed desire to quench their thirst, the dominant thought in the minds of those animals, one and all, was the _fear of being attacked._ In some species this ever- present and hara.s.sing dread was a pitiful spectacle. I wish it might be witnessed by all those ultra-humane persons who think and say that the free wild animals are the only happy ones!

With the possible exception of the sanguine-tempered elephants, all those animals were afraid of being seized or attacked while drinking. One and all did the same thing. An animal would approach the water-hole, nervously looking about for enemies. The fore feet cautiously stepped down, the head disappeared to reach the water, --but quickly shot upward again, to look for the enemies. It was alternately drink, look, drink, look, for a dozen quick repet.i.tions, then a scurry for safety.

Even the stilt-legged and long-necked giraffes went through that same process,--a mouthful of water greedily seized, and a fling of the head upward to stare about for danger. Group by group the animals of each species took their turns. The baboons drifted down over the steep rocky slope like a flock of skimming birds, and watched and drank by turn. Having finished, they paused not for idle gossip or play, but as swiftly as they came drifted up the slope and sought safety elsewhere.

And yet, it was noticeable that during the whole of that astounding panorama of ferae naturae unalloyed by man's baleful influence, no species attacked another, there was no fighting, nor even any threatening of any kind. Had there been a white flag waving over that water-hole, the truce of the wild could not have been more perfect.

Effect of Fear in Captive Animals. Among captive wild animals, by far the most troublesome are those that are obsessed by slavish fear of being harmed. The courageous and supremely confident grizzly or Alaskan brown bear is in his den a good-natured and reliable animal, who obeys orders when the keepers enter the den to do the daily housework and order him to "Get up out of here."

The fear-possessed j.a.panese black bear, Malay sun bear and Indian sloth bear are the ones that are most dangerous, and that sometimes charge the keepers.

Our famous "picture lion," Sultan, was serenely confident of his own powers, his nerves were steady and reliable, and he never cared to attack man or beast. Once when by the error of a fellow keeper the wrong chain was pulled, and the wrong part.i.tion door was opened, the working keeper bent his head, and broom in hand walked into what he thought was an empty cage. To his horror, he found himself face to face with Sultan, with only the length of the broom handle between them.

The startled and helpless keeper stood still, and said in a calm voice, without batting an eye.

"h.e.l.lo, Sultan."

Sultan calmly looked at him, wonderingly and inquiringly, but without even a trace of excitement; and feeling sure that the keeper did not mean to harm him, he seemed to have no thought of attacking.

The keeper quietly backed through the low doorway, and gently closed the door. Had the keeper lost his nerve, _and shown it,_ there might have been a tragedy.

Lions are the best of all carnivorous performing animals, because of their courage, serenity, self-confidence and absence of jumpy nerves. Leopards are the worst, and polar bears stand next, with big chimpanzees as a sure third. Beware of all three.

Exceptions to the Rule of Fear. Fortunately for the wild animal world, there are some exceptions to the rule of fear. I will indicate the kinds of them, and students can supply the individual cases.

Whenever a wild animal species inhabits a spot so remote and inaccessible that man's blighting hand never has fallen upon it, nor in any way influenced its life or its fortunes, that species knows no fear save from the warring elements, and from predatory animals. The wonderful giant penguins found and photographed near the south pole by Sir Ernest Shackleton never had seen nor heard of men, never had been attacked by predatory animals or birds.

You may search this wide world over, and you will not find a more striking example of sublime isolation. Those penguins had been living in a penguin's paradise. The sea-leopard seals harmed them not, and until the arrival of the irrepressible British explorer the spell of that antarctic elysium was unbroken.

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: PRIMITIVE PENGUINS ON THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT, UNAFRAID OF MAN (From Sir Ernest Shackleton's "Heart of the Antarctic," by permission of William Heinemann and the J. B.

Lippincott Company, publishers)]

Those astounding birds knew no such emotion as fear. Under the impulse of the icy waves das.h.i.+ng straight up to the edge of the ice floes, those giant penguins shot out of the water, sped like catapulted birds curving through the air, and landed on their cus.h.i.+oned b.r.e.a.s.t.s high and dry, fully ten feet back from the edge of the floe. They flocked together, they waddled about erect and serene, heads high in air, and marched close up to the ice-bound s.h.i.+p to see what it was all about. Men and horses freely walked among them without exciting fear, and when the birds gathered in a vast a.s.semblage the naturalists and photographers were welcomed everywhere.

And indeed those birds were well-nigh the most fortunate birds in all the world. The men who found them were not low-browed butchers thinking only of "oil" or "fertilizer"; and they did not go to work at once to club all those helpless birds into ma.s.ses of death and corruption. Those men wondered at them, laughed at them, photographed them, studied them,--and _left them in peace!_

What a thundering contrast that was with the usual course of Man, the b.l.o.o.d.y savage, under such circ.u.mstances! The coast of Lower California once swarmed with seals, sea-lions and birds, and the waters of the Gulf were alive with whales. Now the Gulf and the sh.o.r.es of the Peninsula are as barren of wild life as Death Valley.

The history of the whaling industry contains many sickening records of the wholesale slaughter by savage whalers of newly discovered herds of walrus, seals and sea birds that through isolation knew no fear, and were easily clubbed to death en ma.s.se.

Wild creatures generally subscribe to the political principle that in union there is strength. In the minds of wild animals, birds and reptiles, great numbers of individuals ma.s.sed together make for general security from predatory attacks. The herd with its many eyes and ears feels far greater security, and less harrowing fear, than the solitary individual who must depend upon his own two pair. The herd members relax and enjoy life; but the solitary bear, deer, sheep, goat or elephant does not. His nerves always are strung up to concert pitch, and while he feeds or drinks, or travels, he watches his step. A moving object, a strange-looking object, a strange sound or a queer scent in the air instantly fixes his attention, and demands a.n.a.lysis.

On the North American continent the paramount fear of the wild animal is aroused to its highest pitch by what is called "man scent." And really, from the Battery to the North Pole, there is good reason for this feeling of terror, and high wisdom in fleeing fast and far.

Said a wise old Ojibway Indian to Arthur Heming:

"My son, when I smell some men, and especially some white men, I never blame the animals of the Strong Woods for taking fright and running away!"

And civilization also has its terrors, as much as the wilderness.

The fox, no matter what is the color of his coat, or his given name, is the incarnation of timidity and hourly fear. The nocturnal animals go abroad and work at night solely because they are afraid to work in the daytime. The beaver will cheerfully work in daytime if there is no prospect of observation or interference by man. The eagle builds in the top of the tallest tree, and the California condor high up on the precipitous side of a frightful canyon wall, because they are afraid of the things on the ground below. In the great and beautiful Animallai Forest (of Southern India), in 1877 the tiger walked abroad in the daytime, because men were few and weak, but in the populous and dangerous plains he did his traveling and killing at night, and lay closely hidden by day.

Judging by the records of those who have hunted lions, I think that naturally the lion has more courage and less fear of bodily harm than any other wild animal of equal intelligence. By reason of his courage and self-confidence, as well as his majesty of physique, the lion is indeed well worthy to be called the King of Beasts.

Among the few animals that seem naturally bold and ready to take risks, a notable species is the gray wolf. But is it really free from fear? Far from it. When in touch with civilization, from dawn until dark the wolf never forgets to look out for his own safety.

He fears man, he fears the claws of every bear, he fears traps, poison and the sharp horns of the musk-ox. Individually the wolf is a contemptible coward. Rarely does he attack all alone an animal of his own size, unless it is a defenseless colt, calf or sheep. No animal is more safe from another than an able-bodied bull from the largest wolf. The wolf believes in ma.s.s action, not in single combat.

But there is hope for the hara.s.sed and nerve-racked children of the wild. _The Game Sanctuary has come!_ Its area of safety, and its magic boundary, are quickly recognized by the harried deer, elk, sheep, goat and antelope, and right quickly do these and all other wild animals set up housekeeping on a basis of absolute safety. Talk about wild animals not "reasoning!" For shame. What else than REASON convinced the wild mountain sheep in the rocky fastnesses they once inhabited in terror that now they are SAFE, even in the streets of Ouray, and that "Ouray" rhymes with "your hay"?

On account of his crimes against wild life, man (both civilized and savage) has much to answer for; but each wild life sanctuary that he now creates wipes out one chapter. From the Cape to Cairo, from the Aru Islands to Tasmania and from Banks Land to the Mexican boundary, they are growing and spreading. In them, save for the misdoings of the few uncaught and unkilled predatory animals, fear can die out, and the peace of paradise regained take its place.

HYSTERIA OF FEAR IN A BEAR. Among wild animals in captivity hysteria, of the type produced by fear, is fairly common. A case noticed particularly on October 16, 1909, in a young female Kadiak bear, may well be cited as an example.

The subject was then about two and one-half years old, and was caged in a large open den with four other bears of the same age.

Of a European brown bear male, only a trifle larger than herself, she elected to be terror-stricken, as much so as ever a human child was in terror of every move of a brutal adult tormentor.

Strangely enough, the cause of all this terror was wholly unconscious of it, and in the course of an observation lasting at least twenty minutes he made not one hostile movement. The greater portion of the time he idly moved about in the central s.p.a.ce of the den, wholly oblivious of the alarm he was causing.

The young Kadiak, in full flesh and vigor, first attracted my attention by her angry and terrified snorting, three quick snorts to the series. On the top of the rocks she raced to and fro, constantly eyeing the bear in the centre of the den. If he moved toward the rocks, she wildly plunged down, snorting and glaring, and raced to the front end of the den. If the bogey stopped to lick up a fallen leaf, she took it as a hostile act and wildly rushed past him and scrambled up the rocks at the farther end of the den. This was repeated about fifteen times in twenty minutes, accompanied by a continuous series of terrified snorts. She panted from exhaustion, frothed at the mouth, and acted like an animal half crazed by terror.

Not once, however, did the bogey bear pay the slightest attention to her, and his sleepy manner was anything but terrifying.