SOn JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



decrepit old leopard which was growling on the other side of the shutter, and 

 even went so far as to insert one of its longest teeth into the crack between 

 the shutter and the wall , as a reminder to the lion of what was waiting for it 

 on the other side. The lion was striking constant heavy blows on the door, 

 and was so intent on its occupation as to disregard the call of its keeper. The 

 keeper quietly attracted its attention by pulling its tail ! — and the lion at once 

 desisted, rubbed its face against the keeper's hand, and lay down to be stroked, 

 patted, and have its mane caressed. A very beautiful puma close by exhibited 

 all the pleasure of a friendly cat at being stroked, and the tiger from Tur- 

 kestan allowed itself to be fondled like a big dog. 



That good-tempered races contain very ill-natured individuals, raises the 

 difficult question of temperament. A good authority on horses, Mr. Mayhew, 

 endeavours to show that ill-temper among them is accidental, not innate. ' In 

 his work, "jibbing" is shown to be due to brain-disease, shying to defective 

 vision, and temper to the mismanagement of man. There is much truth, but • 

 : also much error here. Those best acquainted with the nature of domesticated 

 .animals know how greatly the temperaments of individuals differ. Take, for 

 ilnstance, the case of three highly bred young Jersey heifers, of which the 

 ■writer has watched the up-bringing from their earliest days. They have 

 never been frightened or struck ; they have not even heard a rough word from 

 their earliest days, even when they jumped the garden-fence and browsed on 

 an apricot-tree. One is as gentle and domesticated as a well-bred cow can 

 be, the others are ready with their horns at any or no provocation. The same 

 is true of horses : some are so ill-tempered that they will luck or bite at any 

 living thing that comes near them. It is as impossible to trace these dislikes 

 to any known cause as it is to find a reason for the antipathy which cows have 

 for hares. However great our liking for horses, we cannot deny that some of 

 tht best thoroughbreds are revengeful, quarrelsome, and liable to frightfully 

 sudden fits of rage. Xo doubt this evil temper is often accompanied by splen- 

 did qualities of endurance. Chestnut horses, which have generally the most 

 uncertain tempers, are perhaps the most high-couraged. But courage and 

 temper are not always- allied ; and temper and human management are not 

 necessarily connected. 'Bendigo' and ' Surefoot ' were both trained in the 

 "Seven Barrows" stable by the late Mr. Jousiffe, who always avoided any 

 severity of treatment, and never ran his horses " light." Each as a three-year- 

 old won a great race, ' Bendigo ' the Cambridgeshire, ' Surefoot ' the Two 

 Thousand Guineas. Both carried off the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown, worth 

 £10,000, later in their career. Yet ' Bendigo ' had a perfect tenrper, while 

 ' Surefoot's ' is well-known to be ferocious. ' Bendigo ' would train himself, 

 and however well he ran in trials on the White Horse Hill, his trainer knew 

 that he would do still better on the race-course. In his last race, when he was 

 just beaten when carrying a crushing weight, Watts gave him one" stroke of 

 the whip. But the horse was doing all he could, and the jockey did not 



