| Show SUICIDE even VOM arut practice it new york filoi SUA I one moro more un unfortunate fort abo th possessor of a number of questionable pets said fishing out ft is limp limit long tailed monster from a glass tank old age the reporter suggested feelingly no 11 he be replied scratching the th back of the insectivorous cadaver with his microscope suicide ayou you dont mean that the tile hug bug killed itself I do PI the naturalist said it Z was a clear case of suicide I and thre seemed to be a tremor in his voice as he jolted the tile remains over a bottlo of alcohol dropped it in and pasted on the read hie buthus carolinda Car olinia nus ita its only a scorpion he continued I have kept the thing for oyer over a year and had quite domestic cat bated edit it yes yee it would sting holding up a finger that looked like a pear but it was tame for a scorpion i I usually fed him on c cockroaches ock roaches and a good deal of time watching it kill other ani mals I have seen it strike nn an alder manic manio croton bug dead in a second with its sting and then slowly tear it a apart rt with it crablike crab like claws but at whit what made it commit suicide ul just what has caused a good many poor wretches to do the same I had bad heard that they would kill themselves in provocation so to test it I tried starvation and kept it in this glass jar for more t an eix six weeks it gradually grew sluggish even abata abstaining ining from water and find finally alter beating ta tanner cr by two dt dys ys it committed suicide you see the tail is mado made up of six joints and it can move it up and down Th the esting sting on the last joint looks like a diminutive awl and although it strikes down it can bend it back and sting itself and hat that is how kow it killed itself the tail was thrown up tip over its back as if to strike at some object but instead ho the sting was forced into the animals back I where it remained for several seconds and when it came out the scorpion was dead it bad had evidently found out that life wa was merely a prolongation of suffering and so put an end to it exactly liow how much these and other animals suffer we cannot tell but there is no reason why their agony does not equal that of f our own Is suicide common among a animals 71 it is not uncommon was tho the reply hera is an animal called the a that acts very ry 11 strangely angely tr when deprived of food zd gradually committing suicide it is is an unsightly object in the alcoholic alcohol io bath but eo to delicate a creature when alive that quatre barges refers to t it as a cylinder of rote colored crystal as much ch aa as eighteen inches long and more than a an I I inch in diameter traversed in all its length by fit dixe e narrow ribbons of white silk and its head surmounted by a living flower whose twelve ten tell tables of purest white fall behind bel d in a graceful curve in the center of of these thise tissues which rival in their delicacy the tile most refined products of the loborio imagine an intes ine of the thinnest gauze g aged from one end to the other wilta with coarse grains of granite gran ite tho the rugged points and sharp edges of which are perfectly perceptible to the naked eye I kept one of beautiful creatures in in an aquarium once where there was neither sand nor food for it in three geeki I J noticed a curious indention or circle forming around tho the animal it grew deeper and in a dy or so fo it became detached evi dently amputated by muscular contraction A week later another ring a appeared and the operation was repeated until the animal bad had thrown off so many pieces that all that re gained alivo alive was an oval mass surmounted by the tentacles of the mouth ard lo leaked ked moro more like a ses anemone than a sea cucumber it had bad found round that the water did lid not contain food enough ta to supply so large a body so retrenchment became necessary and the demand was diminished dimin shed by spontaneous ampula am puta tion which wa kept up until hp ibe animal bad sacrificed ita its entire body to save its head which finally alo also succumbed the deflect of deprivation of food in different animal animate is often L accompanied with results quite as as suicide affecting their vital functions in various ways if you starve a full grown hydroid medusa it will change entirely in time and eventually assume the polyp form which is the larva form of the species among the higher of fe want of nourishment tends retard their increase decreasing tho the number of young mr F gentry of philadelphia has shown that wh when en kept on short rations the larva of the moth loses ita its bauit habit of spinning a cocoon that it gen evilly does before taking the pupa shape it affects their size also both pupa and moth doing much smaller among another class of animals certain kinds of food merely affects their clor color As an example the green reen feathers of the brazilian parrot ch festina fes estiva tiva can be changed from yellow to red by faedi feeding the he uffe bird on the fat ef certain fishes related to our shad the m galifi cent indian bird lord kapsh pro pre serves its color coloring ilig by its food Balf inches have been made to as romo a black hugh when fed on fW iV f t jl hempseed and the rich orti orange colored canary that ii is HOW nosy so o much in demand is said to owe its color en to the spanish ish pepper the bird bong beng the common can canary itry many and especially those of alio genus g ew 14 maur ne et r an abnormal colo coloring rin when fed on leaves the vare not abc acc accustom scorned botho eminent english surgeon stained etarl ed a sea gull ami amil thus to feat eat grain an and after arr a ve year or the lie stomach was examined and ana found not soft aa as it should be as adapted to fish diet but eo so completely hardened that it looked and felt almost exactly liko like the horny gizzard gi of a pigeon that ra rather ther a cruel experiment peri ment V nature docs does the same thing Was the reply in the shetland nl islands the stomach of tho the herring gull according to dr ed monEo nechan q es Cs twice a year in the summer it is adapt adapted ea to grain and in the winter toa to a in other words during half of tho the year it has the organs of a grain enter euter and in the other half those of a bird of prey tho same can be said of the raven and of certain owls many animals will commit suicide to relieve themselves from great pain snakes will lacerate them seh belies es when suffering from intense heat I have observed spiders do the same biting off their legband legs and available parts with suicidal intent arini a rin of firo fire around n scorpion pion and it will invariably destroy itself itel f rather than suffer the toy torture ture of heat and I have often seen ants tear their own legs t and nd try to ito destroy themselves when exposed to deadly heat dogs have been noticed from various cau causes sesto to make desperate attempts to drown themselves holding their heads under ater until the desired rele release alse was obtained A case camo came under my notice of a doa doo that was very much attached to its master refus refusing i ng all food after its musters masters death and actually starved itself to death being found weeks afterward lifeless on its masters grave and yot yet we pay ay the lower animals are devoid of intelligence gen ce if the truth were known they bey have a ve the bamo affections and feelings differ differing ilif only in deaice fron from our own on questioning an old farmer in adirondack county countr last cummer summer if he lie knew of any cases of animal suicide he lie referred me to the bible citing the cal case of abo swine that rushed down into the sea and were drowned lie ile said tho tile abino preferred death loath to evil spirl spirits 19 and so o committed suicide this in in terp wont be FO found und in the revised edition he ile told me that several of his hogs in trying to swim across a large pond evidently gave out in the middle and before be he could get to them they had killed them themselves elves their throats were cut evidently by their foro faro feet his ilia i idea waa was that they began to give out and had cut their throats but this was evidently only accidental their increased creased in struggles had caused the wounds which were fatal the cuts being vertical wounds deep and five or faix inches chea long but among the star fishes suicide or attempted attempt self destruction seems to be a tavo favo rite method of avoiding enemies and escaping pain there is unc one hold ing up a round object about four inches in diameter that I caught u gb on the reef about sixty mites mile from fr havana I was wading along among the coral dragging dr drig ging my boat and in lilting lifting up a bunch found this fellow it was more than two feet in in and the arms five in number at tho the hasp base br bir inched off into thousands of bifurcating points and tener ils that were entangled about e tho coral like so many snakes it was the commonly called ailed a basket fish from its resemblance to ono one when the myriads of arms aro are coiled up it dropped out of the coral and as I picked the equi squirming ning mass up it commenced process of suicide that was as decidedly astonishing J had to partly dive to it and as I raised it up a perfect shower of limbs fell off twisting and coiling down on to my feet and by the time I had lad ii it at the surface its beauty was a shorn h or n as it had thrown off every arin ann and appeared as you see a simple oval |
