172 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 



the moors near the sea. These birds, in many cases, 

 moved down to the coast and ate the salt crystals 

 left among the rocks. 



The maintenance of a good digestion holds the 

 next place to a healthy skin in the animal practice 

 of medicine. To this end they do seek and use 

 what might be termed ' drugs/ or substances which 

 are their equivalent. As each creature is its own 

 doctor and has to judge of its symptoms by the light 

 of Nature, the uniformity of * practice ' in their use 

 of medicines is not a little curious. Salt is the remedy 

 most generally used by all the larger herbivorous 

 animals. Both in America and India certain places 

 are resorted to by animals, often coming from a 

 great distance, to eat the salt-impregnated earth, or 

 to lick saline exudations from the rocks. In North 

 America this habit is so well known that hunters 

 wait at the ' salt-licks ' to shoot the deer which come 

 to them at night. A tea-planter in Assam was recently 

 watching at night under a salt-yielding hill-side with 

 the same object when he was himself attacked. An 

 elephant with a young one came on to the bank 

 above, and smelling an enemy below, picked up large 

 stones and threw them over, thinking, as a native 

 gun-bearer remarked, that a tiger was hidden below. 

 Red deer will also go down to the shore and eat 

 the seaweed and even devour the bones and horns 



