The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal ObservationsHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Science
The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Animal behavior
In September and October, and up to the arrival of the enveloping
snow, he cuts plants of certain kinds to his liking, he places
them in little piles atop of rocks or fallen logs where the sun
will strike them, and he leaves them there until they dry
sufficiently to be stored without mildewing. Mr. Charles L. Smith
declared that the pikas know enough to change their little hay
piles as the day wears on, from shade to sunlight. The plants to
be made into hay are cut at the edge of the slide-rock, usually
about a foot in length, and are carried in and placed on flat-
topped rocks around the mouth of the burrow. The stems are laid
together with fair evenness, and from start to finish the
haymaking of the pika is conducted with admirable system and
precision. When we saw and examined half a dozen of those curing
hay piles, we felt inclined to take off our hats to the thinking
mind of that small animal which was making a perfectly successful
struggle to hold its own against the winter rigors of the summits,
and at the same time escape from its enemies.
The common, every-day Cotton-Tail Rabbit (_Lepus sylvaticus_)
is not credited by anyone with being as wise as a fox, but that
is due to our own careless habits of thought. It has been man's way,
ever since the days of the Cavemen, to underrate all wild animals
except himself. We are not going to cite a long line of individual
instances to exhibit the mental processes or the natural wisdom of
the rabbit. All we need do is to point to its success in
maintaining its existence in spite of the enemies arrayed against
it.
Take the state of Pennsylvania, and consider this list of the
rabbit's mortal enemies:
450,000 well-armed men and boys, regularly licensed and diligently
gunning throughout six weeks of the year, and actually killing
each year about 3,500,000 rabbits!
200,000 farmers hunting on their own farms, without licenses.
Predatory animals, such as dogs, cats, skunks, foxes and weasels.
Predatory birds: hawks, eagles and owls.
Destructive elements: forest fires, rain, snow and sleet.
Now, is it not a wonder that _any_ rabbits remain alive in
Pennsylvania? But they are there. They refuse to be exterminated.
Half of them annually outwit all their enemies--smart as they
are; they avoid death by hunger and cold, and they go on breeding
in defiance of wild men, beasts and birds. Is it not wonderful--
the mentality of the gray rabbit? Again we say--the wild animal
must think or die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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