Читать книгу Birds and all Nature, Vol. IV, No. 3, September 1898 - Various - Страница 3

TO SHOW the importance of water to animal life, we give the opinions of several travelers and scientific men who have studied the question thoroughly.

The Camel, with his pouch for storing water, can go longer without drink than other animals. He doesn't do it from choice, any more than you in a desert would prefer to drink the water that you have carried with you, if you might choose between that and fresh spring water. Major A. G. Leonard, an English transport officer, claims that Camels "should be watered every day, that they can not be trained to do without water, and that, though they can retain one and a half gallons of water in the cells of the stomach, four or five days' abstinence is as much as they can stand, in heat and with dry food, without permanent injury."

Another distinguished English traveler, a Mr. Bryden, has observed that the beasts and birds of the deserts must have private stores of water of which we know nothing. Mr. Bryden, however, has seen the Sand-Grouse of South America on their flight to drink at a desert pool. "The watering process is gone through with perfect order and without overcrowding" – a hint to young people who are hungry and thirsty at their meals. "From eight o'clock to close on ten this wonderful flight continued; as birds drank and departed, others were constantly arriving to take their places. I should judge that the average time spent by each bird at and around the water was half an hour."

To show the wonderful instinct which animals possess for discovering water an anecdote is told by a writer in the Spectator, and the article is republished in the Living Age of February 5. The question of a supply of good water for the Hague was under discussion in Holland at the time of building the North Sea Canal. Some one insisted that the Hares, Rabbits, and Partridges knew of a supply in the sand hills, because they never came to the wet "polders" to drink. At first the idea excited laughter. Then one of the local engineers suggested that the sand hills should be carefully explored, and now a long reservoir in the very center of those hills fills with water naturally and supplies the entire town.

All this goes to prove to our mind that if Seals do not apparently drink, if Cormorants and Penguins, Giraffes, Snakes, and Reptiles seem to care nothing for water, some of them do eat wet or moist food, while the Giraffe, for one, enjoys the juices of the leaves of trees that have their roots in the moisture. None of these animals are our common, everyday pets. If they were, it would cost us nothing to put water at their disposal, but that they never drink in their native haunts "can not be proved until the deserts have been explored and the total absence of water confirmed." —Ex.