252 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



place between them. Pierquin adds that baffled love often leads man 

 as well as animals into a murderous monomania. Buffon cites exam- 

 ples of animals which were frequently subject to a murderous passion. 

 He speaks of canary-birds which were so wicked as to kill the female 

 that was given them, and which could not be broken of the practice 

 except by giving them two. Others are so barbarous in their inclina- 

 tions as to break and eat the eggs as soon as they have been laid ; and, 

 even if the unnatural father allows the eggs to be sat upon, he will 

 kill the young as soon as they are hatched. Pierquin mentions cross, 

 quarrelsome dogs that are always ready to fight upon the smallest 

 provocation. Wickedness of this kind may be manifested in certain 

 races ; it may be individual, permanent, and hereditary ; or, while it 

 is still individual, it may be accidental and transient, provoked by 

 particular circumstances. 



We may call a specific malignity that which one species shows 

 toward another species that hunts it or is its rival in the struggle for 

 existence. The instinctive repulsion of dogs and cats is proverbial. 

 It is interesting, however, to observe how this repugnance can cease 

 under certain conditions, as when the struggle for existence becomes 

 less active. Commander Mouchez asserts that the cats and the rats 

 on tbe Island of St. Paul, where he went to observe the transit of Ve- 

 nus, have ceased to war upon each other, and have instead joined in 

 hunting birds. Cases of permanent and hereditary maliciousness are 

 not rare. All who have had to do with domestic animals, says M. 

 Cornevin, have observed that there appear among our subdued species, 

 horses and cattle, individuals, both male and female, which are in- 

 tractable, vicious, and absolutely useless ; just as individuals of a simi- 

 lar character sometimes appear in human society. Such traits are often 

 hereditary. 



We have examples of the excitation of the destructive propensity 

 by higher faculties in which malice seems to be consecutive to a real 

 reasoning. First among them is the case of malice aroused by the 

 recollection of bad treatment. Animals with such passion become 

 murderers for revenge. They say that the mule always kee>s a kick 

 in store for the master who maltreats it ; and examples are frequent 

 of asses, mules, and horses, that were very gentle till they were chas- 

 tised, remembering the blows they had received, and avenging them- 

 selves on the drivers who inflicted them. There are also murderers 

 for rivalry. A bull that has been gentle enough as long as he has had 

 his cows to himself will become vicious as soon as a rival is brought 

 into the field, and will try to kill him or drive him away, and always 

 keep watch over him. 



M. Colin, in his treatise on the " Physiology of the Domestic Ani- 

 mals," cites two curious examples of criminality developed under the 

 operation of the nutritive instinct. A dog at the school of Alfort, 

 which was fed on the remains of dissected bodies, conceived a violent 



