HORNS AND HOOFS OF RUMINANTS. 359 



suught refuge, beat about the bushes, and tear up the ground 

 with their horns. Their rage became at length so ungovernable, 

 that they began to fight among each other, to the great despair 

 of the herdsman. 



The bison of the North American prairies is equally dan- 

 gerous when excited, and the aurochs of Lithuania defies every 

 carnivorous animal of his native forest. The long, twisted, 

 and pointed horns of the eland (Damalis orcas) are sufficient 

 to pierce a man through-and -through by one thrust, and even 

 the horns of the goat can inflict severe wounds. 



It may be observed as a general rule among the cervine and 

 antelopine races, that in proportion to the smallness of their 

 horns they seem endowed with an additional degree of speed. 

 The roebuck and the chamois are proofs of this : the horns of 

 both are but ill-calculated for vigorous defence, yet both are 

 proverbial for their swiftness, and thus avoid many dangers 

 with which they would be unable to cope. The graceful dark- 

 eyed gazelle, the favourite of the poets of the East, whose weak 

 horns can hardly afford the slightest resistance to attack, bounds 

 across the desert with such amazing fleetness, that it seems 

 to skim over the surface like a bird. 



The horses, to whom a horned front has been denied, find 

 compensation in their hard and solid hoofs, with which they 

 deal out such blows as to make many an enemy repent having 

 approached them too nearly. Moreover, in the wild state the 

 various species of this noble animal live in wide-extended 

 plains, avoiding forests and steep places; so that, with the aid 

 of their acute senses and wonderful speed, they can both per- 

 ceive danger at a considerable distance, and avoid it by a rapid 

 flight. 



The giraffe seems at the first glance a rather helpless animal, 

 ill-provided with the means of escaping the crafty attacks of 

 the lion or the panther, particularly as in the vast arid plains 

 through which he roams his towering height makes him 

 conspicuous from an immense distance. His colossal stature, 

 however, is far less frequently a source of danger than of 

 security; for his large, dark, and lustrous eyes are able, by 

 their lateral projection, to take in a wider range of the horizon 

 than is subject to the vision of any other quadruped ; and their 

 efficacy must naturally be much increased by their sweeping 



