LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 407 



refraining from punishment. Apparently such animals hold, 

 with magnanimous authors vexed by contemptible critics, 

 or at least they act upon the principle, that 



The noblest answer unto such 

 Is kindly silence when they brawl. 



The elephant is satisfied with different degrees of ven- 

 geance according to the nature of the provocation ; in other 

 words, its placability depends upon the kind and amount of 

 annoyance or ill-usage to which it has been subjected. On 

 the other hand, punishment is sometimes inordinate, dispro- 

 portionate, unsuitable, and it is apt to be so wherever the 

 passions are unduly excited, whenever the desire for revenge, 

 exasperation, despair, bereavement, fear, or other feelings gain 

 an ascendancy and hurry on to precipitate action. In such 

 cases punishment is apt to be characterised by its fury, 

 pitilessness, mercilessness, by its not stopping short of the 

 death of the victim, and even by indignities to its murdered 

 body. 



For instance, when hens attack the sparrow-hawk, more 

 than mere deterrent or corrective punishment is aimed at 

 or involved (White). The long-suffering fowls give vent to 

 long pent-up irritation ; they visit upon their victim their 

 hereditary or ancestral, as well as their individual, hostility 

 and vengeance. This leads to the remark that, as in man, 

 the innocent frequently suffer for the misdeeds of the guilty. 

 The unoffending young of a species or genus, some individual 

 of which may have committed a serious misdemeanour, or 

 whose individuals are natural enemies, and are habitually 

 committing faults of aggression, suffer for the misdeeds of 

 their ancestry, parents, species, or genus. 



The particular form of punishment adopted sometimes 

 shows much ingenuity in the adaptation of means to ends, 

 and this ingenuity may take the shape of a very refined 

 cruelty. Thus Watson tells us of the blockade of a usurping 

 sparrow by a company of swallows. Such an incident illus- 

 trates the frequency and efficiency of co-operation or combi- 

 nation for the purpose of punishing an enemy. 



A sparrow having taken possession of a marten's nest, 



