A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



The so-called "wild beasts" have always avoided man, but it is 

 in these days of long-range rifles that they have really taken to hiding 

 themselves, or decamping as fast as they can, since they can no 

 longer count on an approximately equal fight. Dangerous wild 

 animals are now found only in books of juvenile fiction, whose 

 writers have no particular scruples as to what they offer their readers. 

 There you may find such descriptions of lions and tigers as would 

 naturally come from the pen of a reader of sensational fiction. 

 What an excellent thing it would be if our books for boys, instead 

 of constantly rehashing crude and antiquated tales of imaginary 

 perils, were to describe the more fascinating aspects of animal life ! 



But while the ordinary traveller through forest or plain need have 

 no fear of danger from wild animals, the hunter, I need hardly say, 

 should not neglect ordinary precautions. A hunting expedition will 

 persistently follow up the great cats, or elephants, or rhinoceroses, 

 or what not, tracking them in order to kill them. That many animals 

 attempt to defend themselves when brought to bay is hardly to their 

 discredit ! Almost any animal, if it can see no way of escape, will 

 turn on the aggressor. An animal driven into a corner is always 

 dangerous, whether it be a lion or a rat. A case is on record of 

 a rat which, having been chased about a room and finally driven 

 into a corner, suddenly turned and sprang at its persecutor and bit 

 through his jugular vein. 



But the snakes, the snakes, you say !. Thousands of human beings 

 die of snake-bite in India every year ! 



Well, one must not assume, without further inquiry, that every 

 report of death from snake-bite is to be accepted as true. The Indian 

 natives are not fond of calling in the police when a murder is com- 

 mitted for jealousy or some other motive ; they prefer to give out 

 that the death was due to snake-bite. It is said that this fact explains 

 the high statistics of death from snake-bite. However this may be, 

 in respect of the danger to life from the Indian snakes, I will refer 

 the reader to a writer who knows his India. Mahatma Gandhi says, 

 in his Guide to Health: "Even to-day, in respect of snakes our super- 

 stition knows no bounds. Experience has taught us that snakes 

 never attack of their own accord, but that they use their fangs only 

 in self-defence when they are in some way molested or irritated. 

 We must not forget that the snakes were created by the same God 

 Who made us also, and all other creatures. Thousands of yoghis 

 and fakirs are to-day living, like St. Francis, in the forests of Hindo- 

 stan, among lions and tigers and snakes, but we have never yet 

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