GENEEAL ADAPTIVENESS. 365 



on to the next (' Chambers's Journal '). The various many 

 of them ingenious modes in which dogs, cats, and other 

 animals attract man's attention are described in the chapters 

 on * Language.' 



In all kinds of rivalry it is common for animals to seize 

 any natural advantage over an adversary ; such as the inci- 

 dence of light, or the favouring character of ground. This 

 is a sort of fair or legitimate advantage recognised in all the 

 rivalries of man. Thus Wynter tells us of a rat taking 

 advantage of light in a fight with a ferret, and its proving 

 successful in the fight so long as it held its well-selected 

 position. Zincke refers to the choice by ' a cat, when at- 

 tacked by a dog, of the best position for defence the locality 

 offers.' Spiders and scorpions, and many other animals, 

 ( take up advantageous positions where they expect prey to 

 pass' (Belt). Small birds chase the owl by daylight for 

 sport (Watson), knowing how feeble is its power of day 

 vision, and how helpless it is thereby rendered. One of the 

 commonest forms of taking advantage is making use of a 

 victim's helplessness by injury, sickness, or otherwise. And 

 this sort of advantage is taken of man himself when ill, 

 disabled, wounded, dying. Moreover, so thoroughly do 

 certain birds and other animals realise their own power of 

 torment, assault, or prey in proportion to the powerlessness of 

 an enemy, that their boldness is proportioned to the help- 

 lessness, real or supposed, of their victim. 



Another kind of advantage, of which dogs and other 

 animals are fully sensible, is that of man's protection. Hence 

 they dare and do things under his auspices, or in his presence 

 or house, which they would never venture upon alone. They 

 may even presume upon such protection or patronage by acts 

 of impotent and impudent defiance or insult. The sense of 

 the protection or power of numbers, of union, of co-operation 

 and organisation, gives the same feeling of power, and im- 

 parts the same kind of courage ; so that an Eastern dog, in 

 its own territory, among its own fellows, who will rush to its 

 aid at once in case of attack, barks its defiance or utters its 

 threats with a confidence that would be absent were it alone. 



The importance of taking an enemy at unawares, when 



