DEATH 23 



a mere begging of the question, since the terms are inter- 

 changeable ? 



It is as easy to assert that we know animals do not 

 fear Death because they fail to recognise it, as it is to assert 

 that we know they do not recognise Death because they fail 

 to fear it. 



But do they, or do they not, recognise Death — not perhaps 

 as man does, but as something which is to be avoided ? 

 The very instinct of self-preservation which is made to 

 account for so much in animal life that would otherwise 

 need the explanation of reason, seems to postulate a com- 

 prehension of something that is not life, something to be 

 avoided. 



Take the case — a common one — of foxes in the mouth 

 of whose holes a trap is set. For a longer or shorter length 

 of time all the inmates brave hunger rather than something 

 which they must realise is a worse evil. But finally choice 

 is made ; for it is not a forced choice by any means — the 

 breaking point as it were of a starving organism — since 

 many foxes elect to die in their holes quietly. Now what 

 is it that thus impels one fox to one decision, another fox to 

 a very different one .? 



Apart, however, from argument, those who have lived 

 much amongst animals know from experience that they 

 show an apprehension of at least the physical phenomena of 

 Death, that they recognise it outwardly. 



The dead puppy after being licked and mourned over, 

 at first feverishly, often with maternal cries, is finally set 

 aside, in some cases taken away and deliberately hidden or 

 buried. 



The lioness raises the death dirge in the desert, and 



