308 SALMONIA. 



POIET. How ? 



Phys. — In these rapacious and predatory 

 animals, the organization of the head must be 

 connected with the functions of the jaws, as 

 the construction of the shoulder-blade must 

 be related to the use of the fore-leg, which, 

 being intended to strike and seize by talons, 

 must have a powerful support and a strong 

 bony apparatus in the shoulder, which might 

 as well be called the organ of courage as the 

 projection below the frontal bone : but these 

 animals have no more of what is called courage 

 in man, than they have what is called reason : 

 they face danger when they are hungry, but 

 almost always fly when their appetite is satis- 

 fied : a hen, in defending her chickens against 

 a powerful dog, or the game cock, in fighting 

 for the female, or the timid stag, at the time of 

 the sexual intercourse, shows quite as much of 

 this quality as the most ferocious royal tiger. 

 Courage is the result of strong passions or 

 strong motives ; and in man it usually results 

 from the love of glory or the fear of shame ; 

 and it appears to me a perfectly absurd idea, 



