River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1899-06-01
OLD AGE AMONG WILD BEASTS.
Decrepit Animals Driven Ont by
Their Kind md Left to Perish
Miserab1y.

at was an old story, read in my boy
hood days, of the valley in India to
which the wild elephants went to de-
said the naturalist. when the elephant
felt that his end was near, the story
ran, he left the herd and went to this
valley, where he waited for death to
come. That this is true / would hardly
venture to assert, though, as Kipling
says, no man knows all the ways of
the wild elephant. But the mention of
the story has reminded me of the
pathos that attends the coming of old
age to a wild animal. In the National
museum at the Smithsonian institution
in Washington there is the stuffed fig
ure of a buffalo bull attacked by wolves.
One wolf he has pierced with his horn
and crushed to the ground; another
springing from behind has seized him
above the gambril with the evident de-
sign of hamstringing him.
In these figures is the story of the
old bull driven from the herd when
through age he has lost the power to
hold his own in battle with the younger
bulls. His reign may have been long as
king of the herd, but at last there came
the time when he found himself cast
forth, abandoned by the others of his
kind, alone upon the prairie. When the
herd moved southwest at the coming
of winter he remained solitary upon the
prairie, or took refuge from wind and
storms in some sheltered hollow of the
foothills. 1t was question only of
time when the wolves should attack
him, and then, fight bravely as he
would, there could be but one ending.
Through numbers and wolfish strategy,
with overcoming attacks, they would
at last pull the old buffalo down.
''In the same fashion the wild stall
lion that has outliyed his power of
beating all rivals from the herd is him
self driven forth by some younger
stallion to wander alone until, with the
weakness of age, he perishes in the
winter storm or falls a prey to the
wolf or bear or cougar. 1t is cruel
and memorable law which pervades all
animal nature, except in the commune
ties of civilized man, that the old and
the stricken shall be left unassisted
to their fate.
'Forty years ago, on the shores of
Sebec lake in Maine, a bulldog owned
by man named Moulton pulled down
and killed a bear. A boat rowed by
Moulton was approaching the shore
at the foot of Birch mountain when
the bear was seen coming down the
mountainside toward the water. In
stantly the dog leaped from the boat
and swan to the shore, and he had
killed the bear before his master could
get to the spot. Ordinarily bear would
be a match for half a dozen bulldogs,
but the mystery of the readiness with
which this one was killed was ex-
planned when it was found to be very
old bear, decrepit, in fact, from age.
Lean, weak, NANCY, he was picking
his way toward the lake, perhaps to
drink, when the dog, espying him,
wise have been left to him.
zone of the old South African mis-
sionaries, Mr.. Andersen, think-told
of lion that in Kaffirland walked into
church where a religious service was
being conducted. The congregation at
first was terror-stricken, but it soon
appeared that the lion was helpless
from age and incapable of harming
anyone. Upon this two of the natives
seized him, one by the name and the
other by the tail, and bundled him out
of the church. Once outside he was
knocked in the head. IN. Y. Sun.