The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1901-02-19
TAKES THE DIFFERENCE
FEAR OF WILD ANIMALS.
Really Less Ground For 1t Than For
q Dread of Lightning.

HG0llX Less 1EOuuU n UT ~ 4 AAt%AA ~ ~
q Dread of Lightning.
OF all the questions asked by people
VINO have never been much out of doors
none seems SO simple to the old timers as
that which concerns the dangers to which
the camper may be exposed from the at
tacks of wild beasts. 1t is chiefly wom-
en- and children who ask such questions,
but it is evident that in the brains Of
many inexperienced persons is firmly es-
tablished a belief that wild animals are
dangerous - that wolves, panthers and
bears prowl. about seeking whom they
may devour. This belief is in all prob
ability a survival in part of earlier days.
when the most civilized men dwelt large
" in the east, where might be encoun-
tered lions, which would attack them, or
hyenas ready to snap up the stray child
wandering away from the camp, or
bears of the type encountered by the ir-
reverent infants who apostrophized Eli
sha, and also in part of that time when
the weapons of primitive man were so
feeble and of so little avail against the
wild beasts that these were justly to be
feared.
This feeling already existing is en-
couraged and strengthened by certain
amount of the writing of the day. The
average man and woman love to read a
bear or panther or wolf story not less
than do small boys, and round eyed chill
dren listen with pleasure to the tales OF
some venerable uncle or grandfather who
relates the story of the wolves that used
to howl about his cabin or visit his sheep
fold when first he settled in the country.
In this land of America, as many know
there are no such things as dangerous
animals, though there are creatures which
may be made dangerous. The wolf, the
bear and the cougar are far more anxious
to get away from man than man is to gel
away from them. If given the opportu
nifty they will always slip away and run
| and if they fight it is because they be
! lieve that they have been cut off from ev
ery avenue of escape. Where an ANNA
! has been wounded it is a different matter
Then often considerations of prudence
| are forgotten and the animal acts on i'm
pulse instead Of doing what it knows t.
be wise, but even so, there is much more
| danger from a wounded deer than from
a wounded panther and vastly more from
q wounded moose.
But for the average man who is travel
ing through a new country where wilt
animals may be plenty, who stops wheI
he has made a days march and is at home
where night finds him. there is not nov
nor ever was more danger from the wilt
animals of the country than from tn
lightnings which blaze in the summer sky
Many more people have been killed b,
! lightning than have been run over b.
stampeding buffalo herds or killed by un
wounded grizzly bears or by all the othe
animals of the prairie put together. ON
might almost say that more people hav'
been struck by falling meteorites thai
have been killed by panthers or wolves
And yet from day to day the newspaper
continue to print bear stories, catamoun
stories and wolf stories, and probabl.
they will do SO until long after the las
bear, catamount and wolf shall have dis
appeared from the land.-Forest ant
! Stream.