ANIMALS

And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill . . . with the beast of the earth.

—Revelation 6:8

113 Rat Population

Five billion rats continue to spread disease through the earth. Thus, there are more rats than people. With favorable conditions and no deaths, two rats can produce 359,000,000 descendants in three years.

114 Rats—Most Destructive Animal

Government statistics show that rats cause an estimated two million dollars’ damage yearly. One rat eats and destroys two dollars’ worth of food each year. Ten rats can eat as much as a market hog. It has been estimated that rats annually spoil as much food as 265,000 average farms can produce.

In addition to being necessary links in the transmission of typhus and other diseases, rats cost US citizens some $200 million each year. It is the most destructive animal in the world.

115 Muskrat Starts Chain Reaction

In Crewe, England, a muskrat started a chain of disasters when it burrowed through the embankment of a nearby canal, causing the bank to cave in. About three million gallons of water rushed through the 40-foot gap, drained the canal dry for seven miles, swept away something like a million fish, and carved a 20 foot gorge in an adjoining field.

116 African Swine Flu

Newsday reported that operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced the African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.

Six weeks after the virus was introduced, a Cuban outbreak of the fever forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic. This was the only outbreak of such an epidemic in the Western Hemisphere, and called “the most alarming event” of 1971 by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization.

117 Longest Fence

Perhaps the longest fence in the world is around Kruger National Park in South Africa, set up to prevent spread of hoof- and-mouth disease. It is five hundred and ninety miles of fence, built at a cost of $520,000.

118 Pets And Diseases

Dogs and cats carry 65 diseases transmittal to man, and 40 of these diseases are identified in the USA. About 1.5 million Americans require medical treatment for dog bites annually, and approximately 30,000 have to undergo rabies treatment.

119 Mailman’s Dog Stopper

Mail carriers have now a valuable ally in a handy sonic device. The electronic gadget emits sound waves that are painful to the dog’s ears and effective in halting the charge of a persistent pooch. One press of the button stops the attacker in his tracks. The sound cannot be detected by human ears and is not harmful to the dog’s.

The $8-device will be welcomed by postmen who say that they encounter as many as 94 dogs in a day.

—Have a Good Day

120 Cat Did Not Cooperate

From Tokyo comes this report: A cat followed his master in a neighborhood burglary attempt, but when the man fled the cat did not, leading to the man’s arrest, police said.

“I loved that cat and always took him with me, but I didn’t know he was with me then,” police quoted Masakazu Kodama, 22, as saying.

121 An Historic Dog Bite

King Henry VIII of England sent a delegation to the Vatican to patch up the political differences between himself and the Pope. The delegation was led by the Earl of Wiltshire, who took along his dog.

As was customary at that time, the Earl prostrated himself before the Pope and was about to kiss the Pope’s toe. The pope, willing to receive the homage, thrust his foot toward the Earl, and his dog, watching, misunderstood the action and went to the defense of his master. Instead of a kiss, the Pope got a bite on the toe!

This enraged the Swiss guard and they killed the dog. And this so angered the Earl that he refused to proceed with the mission for which he had been sent—and he returned home without having accomplished anything. After his return to England, King Henry VIII took steps to separate England from the jurisdiction of Rome.

—Christian Victory

122 Heads If It Bites

A fellow was walking his long-haired dachshund and he met a friend who said “What a funny animal! How do you tell his head from his tail?”

“It’s very simple,” the dog’s owner replied. “You pull its tail and if it bites, it is his head.”

123 Snake Bite Statistics

It is estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 people die from snakebite each year, 75 percent of them in densely populated India. Burma has the highest mortality rate with 15.4 deaths per 100,000 population per annum. Australia has some of the world’s most poisonous snakes, though the average death toll is only six per year.

124 Deaths From Snake Bites

In South America about 4500 people die annually from contact with the Fe-de-lance. The most deadly snakes of the world are the Indian cobra, Russell’s viper, saw-scaled cobra, Indian krait, and Ceylon krait. None of these are found in the United States whose chief offenders are the corals, copperheads, cotton mouths, and rattlesnakes.

125 Longest Snakes

The longest and heaviest snake is the anaconda of South America. A 37½-foot beast was caught and measured in 1944 in Columbia, South America. Other long snakes are the reticulated python (about 32 feet) and the African rock python (32 feet).

126 Python Swallows Three Men

A giant python swallowed three men at the bottom of a ninety-foot oil exploration well at Murar Megang, South Sumatra. When the leader of the team, Mr. Luskito, failed to emerge from the well after two hours, a second man, Mr. Rusli, was lowered to investigate. When he failed to return, a third man, Mr. Amin, went down but did not reappear. A fourth man armed with dynamite was lowered into the well. The snake immediately reared up at him. Realizing that his mates had been swallowed, the man signaled to be pulled up. Then he drop the dynamite into the well, killing the python! The three victims were found dead in the snake’s stomach!

127 Frozen Snake Still Bites

A newspaper reports of a taxidermist who was bitten by a frozen 10-pound rattlesnake as he cuts into it. Robert Herndon buys poisonous rattles, freezes them to death, and markets the preserved remains. And he usually tapes their mouths when cutting. But he missed the tape this time.

128 Stuntman’s Plaything Changes Role

From 1890 came this incident: A noted wild beast tamer gave a superb performance in London. As a closing act, he introduced a boa constrictor, 35 feet long, which he handled for 25 years when it was still two or three years old, and supposed it to be harmless.

The curtain rose on an Indian woodland scene. A rustling noise is heard and a huge serpent is seen winding its way through the undergrowth. It stops. Its head is erect. Its bright eyes sparkle. Its whole body seems animated. A man emerged from the heavy foliage. Their eyes meet. The serpent quails before the man. Man is victor.

Under the man’s signals and guidance, the serpent performs a series of frightening feats. At another signal, it slowly approaches the man and begins to coil its heavy foils around him. Higher and higher they rise, until man and serpent seem blended into one. Its hideous head is reared above the man.

The man gives a little scream and the audience unites in a thunderous applause, but it freezes upon their lips. The trainer’s scream was a wail of death agony. Those cold, slimy folds had embraced him for the last time. They had crushed the life out of him. The horror stricken audience heard bone after bone cracked. Man’s plaything had become his master.

129 61 Days In Snake Pit

DURBAN, South Africa, July 30, 1980 (UPI)—A 19-year-old woman, out to “show men how it is done,” has shattered the world snake-sitting record of 61 days—the first woman to win the snake sitting crown.

Leigh Van Den sat in a snake cage a little over 61 days and promptly declared it a victory for feminists around the world.

The perky student had spent the last two months of her life locked inside a tiny 8-by-10 foot (2.4-by-3M) glass cage in the Durban snake park with 35 of the deadliest snake known to man and- as she is quick is to remind people-woman.

In the cage is a collection of puff adders, mambas, cobras and boomslangs (tree snakes) better known as “two-steppers” because, according to legend, their victims can usually walk two steps before collapsing from the venom.

130 Spitting Snake

Jack Toomey, keeper of the Bronx Zoo, was talking of snakes. Said he. “Now there’s the black cobra. He’s the feller that spits, you know. Spits poison fifteen feet—aims for your eyes. He blinds you first and bites you afterward. I can never open his cage except I wear goggles. And if that stuff of his gets in your pores, it’s too bad.”

131 Biggest Rattlesnake Farm

In Colfax, on National Highway No. 40, is Rattlesnake Ranch with more than 20,000 inhabitants. This ranch literally crawls with rattles.

Believed to be the largest of its kind in the world, the farm is owned and operated by S. E. Evans and his wife.

Mr. Evans has handled rattlers for twenty-two years and has never been bitten. Since rattlers are highly nervous creatures and cannot take the stares of a gaping public, he maintains a snake pit especially for visitors where some twenty-five to fifty rattlers are under the limelight for show-off purposes. Even so, the loss of snakes is still large. Life in the pit virtually is a death sentence to the rattler who will usually die within sixty days after its contact with the curious public.

132 How Snake Poisons

The fangs of venomous snakes consist of grooved or hollowed teeth that are connected with sacs of poison in the snake’s cheek. When it strikes, a snake uses a squeeze-bottle technique that squirts a jet stream of venom into its victim. In less than half a second the reptile can strike, inject, and return to normal stance. So poisonous is the venom of some species such as the African mamba that men have died in less than a minute.

—Selected

133 Lions Are Never Tamed

Any lion trainer will tell you that there is no such thing as a tame lion. The animal may be on his good behaviour today and be a whirlwind of ferocity tomorrow. He may eat off your hand, or permit you to put your head in his mouth, but tomorrow he may tear you limb from limb if a sudden fury arises within his wild heart.

134 Lion Kills Baron

French aristocrat, Baron Richard d Arcy, kept a strange pet in his home: a two-year-old lion. One night the baron tried to make his pet enter the bathroom, where it usually spent the night, but it refused to go, and leaped on its master. In a matter of minutes the lion had clawed the baron to death. Later the police killed the beast with submachine-gun fire.

135 God Bless Grandmother!

When a 120-pound mountain lion leaped through a partially opened window of a motor home parked in a tourist area of South Dakota called Bear County, and began mauling 18-month-old Jason Cowden, the boy’s grandmother, Mrs. Peter Underdahl, killed it with a butcher knife.

“All I kept saying was, ’Bring me a knife. Bring me a knife. Finally, my husband handed me a butcher knife, and I jammed it in and twisted it and the lion went slack, and I knew I had pierced the heart. I said a prayer that the good Lord would give me the strength and the right spot, and He did.”

—Prairie Overcomer

136 Tire-eating Lion

According to the newspapers, a 400-pound male lion has been nicknamed “Firestone” because he has so far destroyed 10 tires on cars of visitors to a drive-in park—which tire were promptly replaced by the park. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. says their guarantee on tires does not cover damage caused by lions. So the company has provided “Firestone” with enough scrap tires for him and his lioness friend to chew on.

137 Most Poisonous Venom

The most active and powerful poison known is manufactured by a frog. The kokoi of western Columbia, South America, secretes a substance known as batrachotoxin—only about 1/100,000th of a gram (or . 02 milligrams) can kill a man. However the poison is not used by the frog for either defense or aggression, but only serves to keep its body moist.

138 Biggest Locust Swarm

The greatest swarm of desert locusts ever recorded was one covering an estimated 2,000 square miles, observed crossing the Red Sea in 1889. Such a swarm must have contained about 250,000,000,000 insects weighing about 500,000 tons.

—Selected

139 Attached By Crocodile

While walking along the bank of the Crocodile River in Natal province, Asarm Phiri was attacked by a crocodile. The creature took hold of his hip, and then of his right arm. Phiri stabbed at the crocodile with his small knife, then realizing he was losing the battle, he cut off his badly mauled right arm at the elbow joint.

140 What A Kick, Bite, Spit, And Face!

The camel, although a very useful animal, is one of the ugliest, most stubborn and dangerous of all the so-called tame animals.

The camel can kick sideways as well as forward and backward, and it has a very nasty bite. It can stretch its long, goosy neck around and bite. It can also turn around and discharge its salive into the face of the rider—the spit carrying with it a very offensive odor. Sometimes it turns its face around and simply stares at its rider. The camel can drop its head between the two front legs and look backward with an upside-down face. And what a face!

141 When Snapping Turtles Snap

The surly snapping turtle hatches from an egg not much smaller than a ping-pong ball. The tiny creature begins life with a diameter less than that of a silver dollar. From the time he hatches, he is an unsociable fellow ready to bite whatever comes near. At the end of three years he may be saucer size and as ready to bite as ever. He has no friends and even his enemies give him wide berth. By the time he is an adult he may weigh as much as 150 pounds depending on his habitat and species, but in any case he can bite off a man’s hand. He can tow an automobile, walk away with two men standing on his back or overturn a boat and its occupants. He engages in death struggles with other males at mating time and is suspected of attacking and eating females of his own species. He lives a good many years but never outlives his reputation for being a vicious snapper.

—Virginia Whitman

142 Two-Headed Turtle

Teenager Caroline McDonald of Virginia found a two-headed turtle behind her home. She said the two heads did a tug-of-war over a piece of meat she was feeding them. According to scientists, two-headedness can occur in all animals but the survival rate is short. The reason is that each head tends to work independently of the other, controlling its own side of the body, creating disunity, confusion, and frustration.

143 Swiftest Animal

The cheetah is the swiftest of all animals. It has been clocked running at a speed of 70 miles an hour. One of the most interesting things about the cheetah is this. At mealtime, the cheetah singles out one animal among the grazing herd. Then the chase begins! Along the chase may be other animals which the cheetah could easily seize. Nothing, however, can detract or turn the cheetah from his one fixed purpose—the catching of the unfor tunate victim he had singled out.

144 Monkey See-Monkey Do

I’ll never forget our visit to the Bronx Zoo. At one end of the huge “monkey house” a large chimpanzee peered out from his iron-ribbed prison. As I watched this rather ugly-looking creature, I was fascinated by the strange sound coming from his mouth as he puckered his lips. Suddenly rearing back, and then thrusting forward, this big “chimp” let loose with a great big “spit-ball.” He was a spitter!

Having been a “victim” myself, I stood back, and couldn’t help but laugh as other sightseers also had to do some fancy side stepping to avoid his deadly aim. What enjoyment this ape seemed to derive from startling one onlooker after another.

This “chimp” had no doubt learned this unsavory habit from those on the other side of the bars.

—Selected

145 29 Amputations

A railway brakeman spent four months in a Sedalia, Missouri, hospital, some years ago because a tarantula had bitten him on the tip of the middle finger of the right hand. At the time he felt a sharp twinge of pain, but paid no more attention to it until the bitten finger began to swell. Soon the whole hand and arm were swollen to three times their natural size.

Bit by bit the doctors amputed the affected finger, but the wound refused to heal. Finally his entire hand had to go. It was only after twenty-nine amputations that the surgeons were able to stop the spread of the poison. Even then they considered it nearly miraculous that he recovered at all, because the poison had gone through his system.

—Arthur Tonne

146 Cats And Discord In Peru

According to Reuter, hundreds of cats imported by the Peruvian town of Quillambamba to kill a plague of rats and mice are keeping everyone awake at nights with their yowling.

Press reports say the cats ignore the rodents and spend all night serenading each other from walls and roofs.

The sleepless inhabitants have now reverted to trying to poison the rats and mice—and the cats as well.

147 Australia’s Bad Import

About 150 years ago, a man brought a pair of English rabbits into Australia. That country has since lost many millions of dollars trying to exterminate them in order to protect the crops against them. High and close wire fences have been built, but the rabbits have developed a long nail to cling to the wires and climb, or to burrow underneath.

148 Laughing Frogs

At Appledore, England, years ago, a species of Hungarian frog was imported to prey upon the hordes of mosquitoes that plagued the country. The original detail of twelve frogs were effective predators on the insects, but they multiplied into the thousands, and consumed the native species of frogs that make a noise like laughter, which is “driving the people crazy” and robbing them of their sleep. Too numerous to dispose of, the noisy creatures must be endured.

—Virginia Whitman

149 Largest And Smallest Animals

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest and heaviest of animals are the blue whales, some weighing over 100 tons. The largest creature without a backbone is the Atlantic giant—weighing 1½ tons and growing up to 55 feet long.

On land, the largest land mammal is the African bush elephant which averages 5.6 tons. The smallest animal is the least shrew of northern Europe which is rarely longer than 1–1/2 inch from nose to tail.

150 Animal Life Spans

The unusual life spans of some creatures are as follows:

Pike: Perhaps the longest lived of all creatures—one was known to have lived for 267 years.

Tortoises: About 200 years.

Crocodiles: About 100 years.

Eagles and Falcons: About 100 years.

Parrots and Swans: About 80 years.

Crabs: About 50 years.

Lions: About 30 years.

Cattle: Live between 25 and 30 years.

Pigs: Live up to 20 years.

Ants: One was kept alive for 15 years.

Deer: Live between 10 and 15 years.

Wild Goats: Live between 12 and 14 years.

Queen Bees: About 5 years.

Rats and Mice: Live up to 5 years.

Oysters: About 5 years

151 A Celtic Rhyme

An old Celtic rhyme, put into modern English, says:

“Thrice the age of a dog is that of a horse;

Thrice the age of a horse is that of a man;

Thrice the age of a man is that of a deer;

Thrice the age of a deer is that of an eagle.”

—Selected

152 Aged Turtle Under Sidewalk

They were tearing up the sidewalk outside one of New York’s old hotels. The workmen were cracking up the concrete and were beneath the first layer when one of the sledge hammers slammed on something that seemed to move. Well, it did move. It was a fourteen-pound turtle.

It had been there thirty-two years. When the sidewalk was first built outside that old New York hotel, the proprietor reported that one of his snapping turtles, which then weighed only five pounds, had disappeared. No trace of it was ever found, and it was generally supposed that the turtle had walked off somewhere. But it showed up again, not only as alive as ever, but nine pounds heavier. The mystery is—what did that turtle feed on for thirty-two years that caused it to get so fat?

—Lowell Thomas

153 Speed Records Of Animals

According to Virginia Whitman, the cheetah can speed along at 70 miles an hour. The prong-horn antelope can do 60. The swift bird of India has been timed at 200 miles per hour in flight, while a duckhawk was clocked at 184 miles per hour in a dive for prey. An ostrich can outrun the fastest greyhound on record. Race horses attain from 40 to 50 miles an hour. The best that man afoot can do is 25 miles per hour.

Moreover, a frog can jump farther than man—13 feet 5 inches versus 12 feet 1–1/2 inches. Kangaroos leap 30 feet; gazelles, 40. The jerbao, a rodent similar to a mouse, can leap 15 feet in one jump. To make a size-for-size jump, a man would have to clear about 200 feet, but his broad jump record is under 30 feet.

154 Minneapolis To California

Skunky the cat, after traveling two thousand miles in one and one-half years, turned up at his old home in Minneapolis—all the way from Alhambra, California, Morie, the cat’s owner reported:

“We left Skunky—a black cat with a white stripe—with my sister-in-law, Mrs. Joyce Johnston, in Columbia Heights near Minneapolis. The kids put up a fuss so we had him shipped out to us by air. A year and a half ago Skunky disappeared. Now we get a letter from my sister-in-law saying the cat is there—skinny and starved and footsore—but alive.

“I don’t know how he did it—he came out by air so he couldn’t have seen any landmarks to travel by.” Is Morie going to send for the cat again? “I think we’ll leave him where he wants to be,” Morie said, “he’s earned it.”

—Selected

155 Tennessee To Louisiana

“A few months ago, M. E. Rainey, Knoxville, Tennessee, grocer, gave his fox terrier, Tiny, to a friend who was going to New Orleans. Shortly after the friend’s arrival in the Louisiana city, Rainey got a letter saying that Tiny had disappeared. One day as Rainey was preparing to lock up his store, he heard a scratching at the door. He opened it and there was Tiny. It had taken Tiny eleven weeks and three days to make the trip, which is seven hundred and seventy-one miles by highway. If we admire Tiny’s love of home and courage to get there despite the dangers and obstacles in her way, let’s slow up a bit when we see a dog in the street or highway.”

—Robert G. Lee

156 Walking 500 Miles Blindfolded

Doc Hall could hardly believe his eyes when he flew his plane low and saw a black bear with a 20 pound coffee can stuck fast on its head. The bear was walking around in circles in the area of Devil’s Creek, Alaska. In rummaging amidst cast off garbage, the bear had stuck its head inside the can and could not extricate it.

Hall said, “The bear must have walked more than 500 miles in circles. It had made six worn smooth circular paths in the thick blanket of leaves and twigs which covered the ground.”

157 Magnificent Stockpile System Of Gila

The Gila monster, one of the world’s two poisonous lizards and the only poisonous one in the United States has a thick tail that serves as a reservoir of nourishment on which it could keep alive for months without food. The Dumba sheep of Asia also stores its food reserve as fat in its tail. Such a “stock-pile” of nourishment may weigh as much as forty pounds.

158 Thousand-Mile Traveller

The green turtle is quite a navigator. It travels over 1000 miles straight to the tiny isle of Ascension in the South Atlantic Ocean. Then digging a hole in the sand to lay about 100 eggs, it swims the same 1000 miles back to the Brazilian coast where it remains two or three years before returning to the nesting site so far away.

159 A Tunnel A Night

The mole is sightless, but it can dig a 100-yard tunnel in a single night. To accomplish this proportionately, a man would have to complete a tunnel 50 miles long and wide enough to crawl through.

160 34 Piglets

A sow owned by farmer Aksel Egedee, has given birth to thirty-four piglets, which Danish veterinary experts in Copenhagen believe is a world record. The sow produced fifteen piglets one day and another nineteen early the next day.

161 Smart Dog?

Jim: “My dog is so smart, he can talk.”

Bobby: “I don’t believe it. Get him to say something.”

Jim: “O. K. Prince, you tell Bobby how sandpaper feels.”

Prince: “Ruff ruff.”

162 “Greatest Animal Lover”

Although the Marquess of Ripon was one of Britain’s busiest statesmen during the second half of the 19th century, he also managed to achieve the reputation of being the greatest hunter of all time.

Between 1867 and 1900, when his secretary kept an exact record of his hunting expeditions, the Marquess killed 370,728 animals, including tigers, deers, buffaloes and rhinoceroses, an average of 216 a week.

But the number would have been well over 500,000 had a record been kept of his kills during his entire life. He was even out shooting birds on his estate on the morning he dropped dead in 1909 at the age of 82 years.

—Freling Foster

See also: Birds ; Jer. 8:17.