146 SAVAGE SURVIVALS 



clay pigeons or glass balls, since the community 

 has grown too civilized to let him kill real birds. 



The hunting and fighting instincts combine to 

 furnish the fascination which atrocity has for 

 many minds even yet. Why do newspapers teem 

 with accounts of murders and blood-lettings of va- 

 rious kinds? Because people like to read about 

 them. Why do we like to read about such things? 

 Because our ancestors were beasts of prey. The 

 thirst for blood is very old one of the oldest 

 cravings of our nature. And this is why it is so 

 slow in passing away because it is so deep-seated 

 and fundamental. 



If the hunting instinct is not exercised, it soon 

 dies out. And if the sympathetic instinct is culti- 

 vated by pets and by moral teaching, the individ- 

 ual will in time lose his desire to kill. He will 

 come to derive greater pleasure from the care and 

 study of wild beings than he will from taking their 

 lives. In the majority of higher men today the 

 instinct of sympathy is strong enough under all 

 ordinary circumstances to keep down the hunt- 

 ing and fighting instincts. By practice this be- 

 comes a habit. In thousands of men and women 

 the fighting instinct never gets beyond a momen- 

 tary feeling of anger, with some slight threats 

 or slight agitations of the body. The instinct ex- 

 ists, but is not strong enough to break thru the 

 better instincts and send the individual charging 

 on a mission of death and destruction. 



Many communities have already passed laws 



