Beneficent Distribution of the Sense of Pain. 389 



I do not lay much stress on this case, as it is not very sur- 

 prising that a spirited horse, in harness with others, should 

 continue running under such circumstances ; but, in the for- 

 mer case, there was nothing to excite the horse but its hun- 

 ger, and if the pain had been equal to what such a dreadful 

 injury would seem to indicate, it would probably, if in ever 

 such a famished state, have gone upon its knees to feed, 

 rather than upon the injured parts. 



It is curious to observe the apparent indifference with 

 which some animals will devour parts of their own bodies. I 

 once kept tame dormice, and, in shutting the cage-door, acci- 

 dentally caught the tail of one of them, when it squeaked out 

 and left the skin of about two-thirds of its tail sticking to 

 the door. Whether the cry was caused by pain or fear, I can- 

 not decide; but it went about the cage for a few minutes appa- 

 rently rather uneasy, it then took hold of its tail with its paws 

 and eat all the injured part, and then seemed as well as ever. 



Rats will often eat their tails when in confinement, if kept 

 short of food ; and the habit of eating their own tails is not 

 uncommon amongst the monkey tribe. I know a person who 

 used to dip the end of his monkey's tail in tobacco water to 

 keep it from being eaten, and some of the monkeys in the 

 London Zoological Garden may at times be seen enjoying 

 themselves in this way[; but from whatever cause this pro- 

 pensity may arise, I believe it is never indulged in by the 

 monkeys with prehensile tails ; their tails seem to be too 

 useful to be so wantonly disposed of, and I have no doubt are 

 therefore possessed of a much greater share of the sense|of pain. 



A few years since, the Quarterly Review, in a notice of the 

 Dean of Westminster's Work on the bones found in the cave 

 at Kirkdale, stated that an old hyena kept in t?ie Jardin 

 des Plantes at Paris, had its leg broken, when one night it bit 

 off the leg at the broken part, and eat it. 



The emasculation of large cattle seems a very barbarous 

 operation, the parts being cut with hot instruments ; yet I 

 saw an aged bull after undergoing that operation, walk away 

 very unconcernedly, and then after grazing for about half an 

 hour, he lay down and chewed his cud apparently quite com- 

 fortable. 



