Reply #17: here's something interesting...

[cleofus1]

http://www.zephryus.demon.co.uk/geography/resources/earth/pred.html

"The Chinese have claimed considerable success with a totally different approach to the problem. It has long been known that animals, birds and insects seem to change their behaviour patterns before an earthquake.
In December 1974 Chinese scientists began to receive reports of snakes coming out of hibernation and freezing to death on the cold ground. This activity was followed by a series of minor tremors at the end of the month.

During January 1975 they received even more reports of strange animal behaviour. Much of this concerned larger animals such as cattle and horses which had become restless, refused to enter buildings or seemed frightened for no obvious reason.

In February that year a major earthquake struck. The epicentre was in Haicheng, the area from which most of the animal reports had been received."

It is known that some animals are very sensitive to sound, temperature, touch, light intensity and even magnetic fields, so it is perfectly possible that they can indeed detect the seismic activity which precedes an earthquake. Perhaps they are sensitive to the electrical and magnetic disturbances which form the basis of the Dilatancy theory .