CUNNING OF GLUTTON 



alternate procedure lasts as long as does the carcass ; 

 after it is eaten up to the last morsel, the glutton sets 

 out in quest of another." It suggests, as occurs to 

 Olaus Magnus, the ancient Romans who, " vorando 

 bibendoque vomunt redeuntque ad mensam." Like 

 many eaters of carcasses the glutton also pursues and 

 kills living food. 



It is said to bring great cunning to bear upon its 

 predatory expeditions and to observe, and select in 

 accordance with its observations, a tree whose bark 

 has been scored by the horns of the expected deer, and 

 then to spring with one fierce bound upon its neck and 

 crunch it to death. In any case it has been indisputably 

 seen running hard after a hare. It is much more likely 

 that the glutton is mainly devoted to carrion, but 

 that now and then, by way of a variety, it succeeds in 

 overpowering some weakly but living creature. This 

 " vulture among quadrupeds," as it has not ineptly 

 been called, is nevertheless tamable. Audubon and 

 Bachman, who are among the principal natural historians 

 of the animals of North America, relate that a Gulo was 

 so adequately tamed that it sat up on its haunches and 

 smoked a pipe. It is an odd fact, exemplified also in 

 the chimpanzee " Consul," that the imitation of smoking 

 is always gloried over and " par'd " as a human attribute 

 much more than such genuine human qualities as the 

 capacity for counting and other really intellectual 

 achievements on the part of monkeys and others. It is 

 true that the " learned pig " appears to confute this 

 suggestion. But it is gravely to be suspected that that 

 favourite of some decades since also held a pipe and re- 

 ferred to a tall glass. The late Dr. Elliot Coues, the 

 American ornithologist, was struck by the magpie-like 

 curiosity of the glutton, a characteristic which it shares 

 with the raccoon, its ally. An individual stole from a 



Z.G. 113 I 



