146 Wild Beasts 



"The tiger is an abject coward," and so is the lion. 

 Panthers are audacious, but they run away upon instinct, 

 like Falstaff. No qualifications, no reservations, are made, 

 no middle ground is taken, only a series of facts is given, 

 which prove, so far as anything in this connection can be 

 said to be proved, the incorrectness of what was insisted 

 upon in the first place. 



The opinion that a wild beast that has tasted human 

 blood is thereby metamorphosed morally, " undergoes a 

 transformation of emotional psychology," as Professor 

 Romanes expresses it, scarcely deserves a serious refutation. 

 There is not the slightest reason why any such change of 

 character should take place, and of course it does not. 

 But the fact of a wild beast's taking to man-eating is a suf- 

 ficient cause for an alteration in habit. What modifies 

 the animal then, however, is not the fact of killing a 

 man, but the discovery of the ease with which he can 

 be destroyed. Under these circumstances the brute 

 simply substitutes one kind of game for another ; it be- 

 comes used to the feeble attempts at opposition met with, 

 and goes on with its murders. Where the state of affairs 

 is different, where people are ready to combine against 

 such scourges, to anticipate their designs, pursue, circum- 

 vent, and slay them, these beasts of prey do not devour 

 men ; they keep as far from them as possible. 



It is doubtful if it could be shown that panthers are 

 more prone to anthropophagous habits than other brutes, 

 but the evidence is strongly in favor of the fact that they 

 fight human beings more readily. Their ferocity and hardi- 

 hood are exceptional among the Felidce. 



