Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-09-21
ANlMALs IN slcKNEss.

The circumstances that attend the illness and death of wild animals are | perhaps less we'll known than any other part of their history. Yet, when we consider that animal life, though in some species of great duration, is natur- l ally brief and liable to an infinite num- | Der of accidents without remedy and sudden dangers unforeseen, the subject of the last days of the nobler sorts ot beasts has certain pathetic interest. No doubt all animals from the healthy and natural lives they lead, have strange powers of self-cure in case of accident Those whose profession it is to prepare the skeletons of wild beasts, large and small, for museums and laboratories speak with surprise of the number of injuries and fractures which the bones exhibit, but which have set themselves in 8 rough but effective fashion. But the chapter of accidents" in animal life spares none, from the stags which die with horns locked to- gether on the mountain-side to the locusts which impale themselves upon the barbed wire of the Transvaal farms, or the cicalas which rend their wings upon the thorns of the mimosa- Death by violence seems to be the rule in the lower forms of animal life, except in the case of sudden plaques or changes of season. Only to the largest quad rupeds has human fancy conceded the boon of natural and perhaps painless death; and the remote, untrodden jungle, where the elephants go to die, lies still among the undiscovered countries
 The saddest side of these millions of unrecorded deaths, from the human and humane point of view, is that the creatures for the most part suffer un- aided and die alone There is, how ever, good reason to believe that this is not always the case, and that there are many cases of animal sympathy, and Some of animal aid for animal suf- fering. On the other hand, it must be admitted that there is often a strong and apparently natural impulse among animals, as among savage men, to hasten the death of a sick comrade, whichin some cases takes the form of deliberate and premeditated murder of the sufferer. If ever human sentiment at the sight of fellow-creatures' suffer- ing be analysed the two emotions of pity and disgust are constantly at war. Pity is generally prior, but, except in the higher natures, it weakens with time. Pity" says Cobbett, 'is not lasting emotion;" and instead of pity passing to love, disgust often becomes dislike, after long contemplation of disease and deformity. The ruder the state of society the harsher becomes the law; for we may assume that the dislike of the weak and sickly by the healthy and vigorous is an indirect if most unpleasing form of the law of | natural selection. Maternal affection must, of course, be excepted from this | general tendency. So long as any | young creatures are dependent upon their parents, the tendency of the old
 is to give most to the young who need | most. The devotion of bird or animal varies directly with the helplessness of their offspring. But we must look | further and consider the relations of the ~non-related, the conduct of society | to the individual, and of different l species to one another In so doing we may find something parallel to our | own development; for domestication, | the animal equivalent to civilization does certainly produce an increased | tendency towards the emotions of pity and benevolence- But in animal com munities there seems to exist little sense of pity when the weakness of a member inconvenience or endangers
 the safety of the whole. Bulls and
 wild stallions will fight for the herd,
 but that is the price of their own su- 1 premacy. The wounded and sick are
 usually driven away, and perhaps
 killed The wild cows of Chillingham
 Park, and the deer at Windsor, still
 hide their calves and lawns. As in the
 days of the Psalmist, the calving hind
 "discovereth the thick bushes," and
 docs not venture to show its fawn till it
 can keep up with the herd Shakespeare,
 in 'As You Like It," does no injustice
 to the general indifference of deer to
 their injured comrades; and the stag
 '1eft and abandoned by his velvet I friends which excited the pity of
 Jaques, suffered the general fate of l wounded deer.
 But there are exceptions to the rule.
 The scene of the wounded stag, at
 tended by the minds, which Sir Edwin
 Landseer painted in his beautiful pie
 ture called "Highland Nurses" was, we
 believe, actually witnessed by the
 painter or his host But the Storch
 Gericht condemns without mercy those
 that cannot join in the southern mi |
 and ailing birds to death, and pigs are
 born bullies, the smallest of the litter the ''petment," as it is called in East
 Anglia-being invariably bitten and de-
 prived of its food. Carnivorous animals
 rarely injure sick or wounded mem,
 Der of their tribe, though wolves, when
 pressed by hunger, devour the weakest,
 and jackals will at once assemble and
 tear to pieces a wounded member of the
 pack. But we lately heard curious
 instance of the instinct to destroy the
 injured among the larger cats. Some
 rough ground in Oudh was being driven
 by beaters, when a cheetah appeared
 before one of the guns and was badly
 wounded. Another cheetah appeared
 immediately after, and came up to the
 first, which it seemed to urge to follow
 1t The wounded cheetah was nnahle