Do Animals "Commit Suicide"? 



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nouement. My contention now is that animals 

 do not know anything whatever about life and 

 death as contrasted or correlative conditions; 

 and can have no idea that life may be ended, 

 or that death is an alternative state which may 

 be arrived at by fatal means. 



Young beasts do not recognize death when 

 they see it manifested in a lifeless body though 

 the highest apes seem to have some glimmering 

 of the truth but will linger about a mother 

 that has been shot and try to awaken her at- 

 tention. Older animals usually recognize a dead 

 body as dead, but the state seems to mean to 

 them only a mysterious disability, incapacity 

 for resistance and readiness to be eaten at lei- 

 sure. In the case of carnivores, the last is proba- 

 bly the most vivid impression, and many of them 

 will devour almost at once a partner, or even 

 mate or offspring, killed by their side, when not 

 themselves too much alarmed to take advantage 

 of the lucky provision. Hunters constantly 

 meet with instances of this " cannibalism." 



I have watched with interest the behavior of 

 my dogs toward dead animals. They would 



