250 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



digging up the dead and attacking domestic animals and 

 human beings where it can do so with safety, it is uni- 

 versally detested, notwithstanding its important services. 



The Felidce, or cats, great and small, wild and domestic, 

 may be reduced by circumstances to eat almost anything, 

 but since they prefer to catch and kill their prey, they cannot 

 be considered as genuine scavengers, though the panther 

 eats carrion when other food is scarce, and the lion of 

 Algeria actually haunts the neighbourhood of towns, and 

 satisfies his hunger with the garbage of all sorts flung out- 

 side the walls. 



However, Nature's scavengers, though they unquestion- 

 ably do a vast amount of good, by preserving the air from 

 pollution and ridding the earth of that which is disgusting to 

 sight and scent, cannot generally be called perfect. Some 

 are disgusting in themselves, and others do so much mis- 

 chief by their want of discrimination that many people are 

 disposed to find fault with them, and to question their 

 title to be looked upon as benefactors at all. 



But, in the first place, surely Nature's workmen can be 

 fairly judged only where they have to deal with Nature 

 alone, and are not brought into contact with civilisation ; 

 and, secondly, if they transgress the bounds within which 

 they are useful to man, whose fault is that ? 



