ANIMALS IN SICKNESS 161 



dangers the safety of the whole. Bulls and wild 

 stallions fight for the herd, but that is the price 

 of their own supremacy. The wounded and sick 

 are usually driven away, and perhaps killed: 



The wild cows of Chillingham Park hide their 

 calves from the rest, and, as in the days of the 

 Psalmist, the calving hind 'discovereth the thick 

 bushes/ and does not venture to show its young 

 till it can keep up with the herd. Shakespeare, in 

 'As You like It/ does no injustice to the general 

 indifference of deer to their injured comrades ; and 

 the stag, 'left and abandoned by his velvet friends/ 

 which excited the pity of Jaques, suffered the 

 general fate of wounded deer. But there are ex- 

 ceptions to the rule. The scene of the wounded 

 stag, attended by the hinds, which Sir Edwin 

 Landseer painted in his beautiful picture, called 

 ' Highland Nurses/ was, we believe, actually 

 witnessed by the painter or his host. But the 

 S torch Gericht condemns without mercy those that 

 cannot join in the Southern migration ; ducks and 

 canaries peck sick and ailing birds to death, and 

 pigs are born bullies, the smallest of the litter 

 the * petment/ as it is called in East Anglia 

 being invariably bitten, and deprived of its food. 

 Carnivorous animals rarely injure a sick or wounded 

 member of their tribe, though wolves, when pressed 



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