DESERT ANIMALS 



171 



son he is likely to produce blood-poisoning, 

 which is miscalled hydrophobia. 



Taking them for all in all, they seem like a 

 precious pack of cutthroats, these beasts and 

 reptiles of the desert. Perhaps there never was 

 a life so nurtured in violence, so tutored in at- 

 tack and defence as this. The warfare is con- 

 tinuous from the birth to the death. Every- 

 thing must fight, fly, feint, or use poison ; and 

 every slayer eventually becomes a victim. What 

 a murderous brood for Nature to bring forth ! 

 And what a place she has chosen in which to 

 breed them ! Not only the struggle among 

 themselves, but the struggle with the land, 

 the elements the eternal fighting with heat, 

 drouth, and famine. "What else but fierceness 

 and savagery could come out of such condi- 

 tions ? 



But, after all, is there not something in the 

 sheer brute courage that endures, worthy of our 

 admiration ? These animals have made the best 

 out of the worst, and their struggle has given 

 them a physical character Avhich is, shall we 

 not say, beautiful ? Perhaps you shudder at the 

 thought of a panther dragging down a deer 

 one enormous paw over the deer's muzzle, one 

 on his neck, and the strain of all the back mus- 



The 



cutthroat 



band. 



The 



eternal 

 struggle. 



Brute 

 courage. 



