OF WILD ANIMALS 223 



individual than many a pretty gentleman whose name we see 

 heading columns of divorce proceedings in the newspapers. 



Said the Count to Julia in "The Hunchback/' "Dost thou 

 like the picture, dearest?" As a natural historian, it is our task 

 to hew to the line, and let the chips fall where they will. 



Among the wild animals there are but few degenerate and 

 unmoral species. In some very upright species there are 

 occasionally individual lapses from virtue. A famous case in 

 point is the rogue elephant, who goes from meanness to mean- 

 ness until he becomes unbearable. Then he is driven out of 

 the herd; he becomes an outcast and a bandit, and he upsets 

 carts, maims bullocks, tears down huts and finally murders 

 natives until the nearest local sahib gets after him, and ends 

 his career with a bullet through his wicked brain. 



In my opinion the gray wolf of North America (like his 

 congener in the Old World) is the most degenerate and unmoral 

 mammal species on earth. He murders his wounded pack- 

 mates, he is a greedy cannibal, he will attack his wife and chew 

 her unmercifully. On the other hand, his one redeeming trait 

 is that he helps to rear the pups, — when they are successfully 

 defended from him by their mother! 



The wolverine makes a specialty of devilish and uncanny 

 cunning and energy in destroying the property of man. Trap- 

 pers have told us that when a wolverine invades a trapper's 

 cabin in his absence, he destroys very nearly its entire contents. 

 The food that he can neither eat nor carry away he defiles in 

 such a manner that the hungriest man is unable to eat it. This 

 seems to be a trait of this species only, — among wild animals; 

 but during the recent war it was asserted that similar acts 

 were committed by soldiers in the captured and occupied villas 

 of northern France. 



The domestication of the dog has developed a new type of 

 animal criminal. The sheep-killing dog is in a class by himself. 

 The wild dog hunts in the broad light of day, often running down 



