1 68 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



is mostly in seeming. A near acquaintance with living 

 creatures enforces the conviction that sorrow and suffering, 

 as we know them, scarcely have an existence in the animal 

 world ; while happiness, the pure joy of mere existence, 

 bubbles up and flows on in an unintermitting stream. " The 

 sense of death is most in apprehension," and from this the 

 poor beetle that we tread upon is wholly delivered by a 

 merciful want of imagination. It knows of nothing except 

 the physical pain which accompanies death, and knows of 

 that only while actually enduring it. Without doubt, being 

 torn to pieces by a tiger is to a wild animal a fate less 

 dreadful than to succumb slowly to fever or old age; and, 

 looked at wisely, it is a cheering thought that, of the many 

 birds every sportsman inevitably wounds and leaves to die, 

 few indeed will escape from the host of rapacious enemies 

 ever on the watch to put them to a short and sharp, if a 

 bloody, end. 



Fear also has very little effect in distressing animals. 

 Hairbreadth escapes do not take away their breath. 

 A miss of an inch is quite as good as a mile to them. 

 I had a tame hare which would be thrown into such a 

 panic of fright by the rustling of a piece of paper, that 

 it would almost dash itself to death against the sides 



