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The howling of their companion has excited them so 

 greatly that they have suddenly and momentarily lost 

 their senses. So it may be with the cows or cattle 

 when they attack a companion in distress. They rush 

 up to the scene, maddened by the cries of their fellow, 

 and see some object performing strange antics, so, 

 without waiting to consider what they are doing, they 

 attack it. 



The naturalist, Hudson, looks upon this strange 

 instinct which makes animals kill a companion in dis- 

 tress as the perversion, not of the instinct which teaches 

 animals to mob all strange species, but of that which 

 teaches gregarious creatures to go to the assistance of 

 a companion attacked by some enemy. According to 

 him, when the individuals of a family are excited to a 

 sudden deadly rage by the cries of distress of one of 

 their fellows, or by the sight of its bleeding wounds, 

 or when they see it frantically struggling on the 

 ground, or in the cleft of a tree or rock, as if in the 

 clutches of a powerful enemy, they do not turn on it 

 to kill it, but to rescue it. But there is no enemy to 

 see, so they, in their blind rage, attack the one living 

 thing present — the wounded friend in this case — in 

 mistake for an enemy. 



Whether the theory here put forward or that of 

 Hudson meets with acceptance, it is obvious that this 

 habit of attacking friends in distress is not wanton 

 cruelty ; it is a blunder of a useful instinct. It may 

 seem shocking to us that animals are so ready to de- 

 stroy life. We must, however, remember that the char- 

 acters of animals are moulded by natural selection ; 



