A Home Study in Natural History. 2ii 



yard of the proprietor, nor the drying-yard where jerked beef 

 hangs about by the thousand pounds in tempting slices. Nay, 

 dogs and perros promptly combine to defend such property against 

 the raids of the predatory coyotes, and at first sight of those in- 

 truders enact a steeple chase too fierce and persistent to be a mere 

 piece of eye-serving bravado. Business rivalry would partly ex- 

 plain their zeal, but old Tauler is not altogether wrong. The neigh- 

 borhood of man for his own sake seems to exert an attractive influ- 

 ence on some species of animals, as in Burmah, where the woods 

 abound with wild fruit, and troops of monkeys nevertheless insist 

 on congregating about the huts of the natives. Religious preju- 

 dices oblige the peasants to spare such visitors; and, like country- 

 cousins, the four-handers decline to leave on any but the strongest 

 hints. They do not sow, neither do they spin, but they obtain a 

 share in all sorts of farm produce ; they filthy the roof, they ap- 

 propriate kerchiefs and ribbons; but withal take a sort of family 

 interest in the welfare of their landlord, for at the approach of a 

 stranger or a strange dog they break forth in excited grunts, or 

 even leap from the roof and strut about the door, bristling with 

 suspicion and pugnacity. Fruit is a drug in the Burmah market, 

 but where the finer varieties are raised for export, the effrontery of 

 those long-tailed tenants becomes a fearful nuisance. They will 

 snatch all they can eat, and at the slightest symptom of protest fly 

 into a paroxysm of virtuous indignation, like the Franciscan beg- 

 gar monks of Spain, who were so used to the free lunches of coun- 

 try taverns that they attempted to raid the restaurant of a North 

 Spanish railway junction, till the French proprietor bethought him- 

 self of moderating their appetite by a judicious admixture of 

 calomel. 



The traveler, Burton, tells a good story of a Fanti warrior, 

 who had been watching a number of imported coolies chopping 

 cordwood for a British trading-post on the coast of Zanzibar. 



"What a waste of trouble!" muttered the chieftain; "why, 

 with half as many hard licks they could have knocked h — out of 

 the biggest ligger settlement in the land and helped themselves to 

 all they need." 



With a similar surprise our carnivorous redskins would prob- 

 ably witness the toil of a starving Hindoo who fails to avail himself 

 of an ample meat-supply in the next neighborhood of his cottage. 

 The established prejudice against an attempt on the life of any of 

 man's fellow-creatures is so strong that an orthodox follower of 



