250 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



knocked out, because as the chief fighter in the Home Defense 

 League it is his bounden duty to preserve his strength and his 

 weapons, and remain fit. 



In the days of the club, the stone axe and the flint arrow- 

 head, men were few and feeble, and the wild beasts had no 

 cause to fear extermination. Tooth, claw and horn were 

 about as formidable as the clumsy and inadequate weapons of 

 man. The wild species went on developing naturally, and some 

 mighty hosts were the result. 



But gunpowder changed all that. In the chase it gave 

 weak men their innings beside the strong. Man could kill at 

 long range, with little danger to himself, or even with none at 

 all. And then in the wild beast world the great final struggle 

 for existence began. Man's flippant phrase, "the survival 

 of the fittest," became charged with sinister and deadly 

 meaning. 



But for Mother Love among wild creatures, species would 

 not multiply, and the earth soon would become depopulated. 

 In the entire Deer Family of the world, the annual shed- 

 ding of all horns is Nature's tribute to motherhood in the 

 herd. A buck deer or a bull moose is a domineering master 

 so long as his antlers remain upon his head. But with the 

 approach of fawn-bearing time in the herd, down they go. 

 I have seen a bull elk stand with humbly lowered head, and 

 gaze reproachfully upon his fallen antlers. The dehorned 

 buck not only no longer hectors and drives the females, but in 

 fear of hurting his tender new velvet stubs he keeps well away 

 from the front hoofs of the cows. The calves grow up quite 

 safe from molestation within the herd. 



It may be set down as a basic truth that all vertebrate 

 animals are ready to defend their homes and their young against 

 all enemies that do not utterly outclass them in size and strength. 

 Of course we do not expect the pygmy to try conclusions with 

 the giant, but at the same time, wild creatures have their own 

 queer ways of defense and counter-attack, and of matching 

 superior cunning against superior force. 



