Probably most
snakes get killed long before a natural decline sets in; to say that not
one in a thousand dies of old age would probably be no exaggeration; but
if they were as safe from enemies and accidents as some less prolific
and more highly-organized animals, so that many would reach the natural
term of life, and death came slowly, we can imagine that in such a
heat-loving creature the failure of the vital powers would simulate the
sensations caused by a falling temperature, and cause the old or sick
serpent, even in midsummer, to creep instinctively away to the ancient
refuge, where many a long life-killing frost had been safely tided over
in the past.
The huanaco has never been a hybernating animal; but we must assume
that, like the crotalus of the north, he had formed a habit of
congregating with his fellows at certain seasons at the same spot;
further, that these were seasons of suffering to the animal--the
suffering, or discomfort and danger, having in the first place given
rise to the habit. Assuming again that the habit had existed so long as
to become, like that of the reptile, a fixed, immutable instinct, a
hereditary knowledge, so that the young huanacos, untaught by the
adults, would go alone and unerringly to the meeting-place from any
distance, it is but an easy step to the belief, that after the
conditions had changed, and the refuges were no longer needed, this
instinctive knowledge would still exist in them, and that they would
take the old road when stimulated by the pain of a wound; or the
miserable sensations experienced in disease or during the decay of the
life-energy, when the senses grow dim, and the breath fails, and the
blood is thin and cold.
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