270 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. IX. 



each other during the season of love, may justly he 

 termed solitary. The impulse which hrings them to- 

 gether is one of the irresistible laws of nature, and is 

 totally distinct from those ordinary feelings and passions 

 on which the permanent and hahitual happiness of life 

 depends. If, among mankind, we find the most cruel 

 and ferocious for a season laying aside their evil pro- 

 pensities, when under such influences, we can feel no 

 surprise at witnessing the same in the brute creation. 

 But, so soon as the sensual flame has consumed itself, 

 the habitual repugnance to community with its fellow 

 creatures returns; and the gloomy, if not the malevolent, 

 propensities of their nature, flow in their accustomed 

 course. Everything by which we are surrounded, under 

 one shape or other, is an emblem of good or of evil. 

 We gather not ' ' grapes from thorns, nor figs from 

 thistles;" neither can we expect that gentleness and 

 innocence should accompany moroseness and misan- 

 thropy. Hence we find that the most unsocial animals 

 in existence are among those which seek the lives of 

 others, and live upon their flesh. The lion, the tiger, 

 and the whole family of Felidce to which these de- 

 structive quadrupeds belong are eminently solitary 

 and unsocial. The rapacious order by which they are 

 represented in the feathered creation are equally dis- 

 tinguished by their repugnance to associate with their 

 kind, save at the breeding season. When this is past, 

 and their progeny can provide for themselves, the pa- 

 rents separate, lose all pleasure in mutual society, and 

 seek again their food in solitude and silence. The 

 gloom of night is more congenial to such habits than 

 the bright and cheerful day ; and we accordingly find 

 that the majority of carnivorous quadrupeds, typifying 

 the worst portion of our own species, emerge from 

 their retreats during the shadows of evening, " making 

 night hideous" by their deeds of violence and bloodshed. 

 The falcon tribe, indeed, hunt during the day; but 

 nearly the whole family of owls not to mention the 

 equally numerous one of goatsuckers (Caprimulyid&)-~ 



