THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 55 



determined by the amount of food for their sustenance 

 which it contains. A more extensive range will not, 

 however, give the female a relatively better chance of 

 saving her broods from the male than will a less 

 extensive one; inasmuch as the larger area will be 

 as thoroughly roamed over and familiar to the species 

 occupying it as the smaller area, from the greater 

 activity demanded from the animals to secure their 

 necessary food. The amount of deletion must 

 obviously be proportionally equal in all fully stocked 

 feral habitats. 



Let us now see what provision Nature has made 

 for the recuperation of her species, when they have 

 their numbers decimated by any abnormal cause of 

 destruction. If there were no accidental deaths 

 among the carnivora, no fierce encounters between 

 individuals of the same or of different species, no wear 

 and tear of the jungle, the forest, the desert, and the 

 mountain, we might say that Nature's adjustment of 

 her elimination is the deletion by the male of all but 

 one pair out of six, eight, or ten pairs, as the case 

 may be, in a generation. 



But there is, of course, a certain amount of de- 

 struction from internecine strife, though in the case 

 of the larger carnivora the tale of deaths from it is 

 but trifling. The casualties of feral life are more or 

 less of the following character. It happens occasion- 

 ally that when a lion makes a kill and begins to 

 devour it, hyaenas and jackals gather round, to wait 

 until the lord of the desert retires, gorged from his 



