144 Wild Beasts 



extraordinary boldness, that all attempts to find and shoot 

 him were for many months unsuccessful. European sports- 

 men who went out, after hunting him in vain, would 

 often find his tracks close to their tent doors in the 

 morning." 



It is about time that the usual explanation given for this 

 kind of exceptional conduct upon the part of a beast of 

 prey by those writers who think it necessary to allude 

 to their character, otherwise than in general terms, was 

 banished from descriptive natural history. The course of 

 thought upon the natural relations which subsist between 

 men and brutes, seems to run somewhat in this wise. 

 At sometime, somewhere, and somehow, all inferior deni- 

 zens of this earth were made to appreciate and fear 

 human superiority. That impression was transmitted as 

 an instinct, and is in full force now. When, therefore, a 

 predatory animal does such violence to its nature as to eat 

 a man, the shock, which according to conventional ideas 

 always attends great crime, unhinges its mind. A kind of 

 madness ensues. It becomes wild, and is driven by Furies 

 like an ancient Greek guilty of sacrilege, or early Chris- 

 tians who, as reported by Gregory the Great and many 

 others, had swallowed devils. Instantaneous change of 

 character is the consequence, and the creature henceforth 

 thinks, feels, and conducts itself in a new and terrible 

 manner. 



That is about the sum and substance of most statements 

 bearing upon this subject, and there is not the slightest 

 foundation in fact for any of them. This question has 

 been considered in the abstract ; but with regard to the pan- 



