COMMISSION OF ERROR. 511 



feelings often led them to beat, kick and strike inanimate 

 objects, sometimes to their own greater hurt ; and commonly 

 to gnaw and bite, on extraction, a splinter or thorn which had 

 pierced them.' 



It is quite as obvious a folly in the dog or other animals 

 to vent their displeasure on inoffensive objects (Mrs. Lee). 

 The dog bites or barks at the trap in or by which it has been 

 caught ; it snaps at the stream of water from a syringe, 

 hydropult, or hose, by which it has been drenched. It is a 

 common error of carnivora to bite or kick inanimate bodies 

 that hit them instead of the persons by whom these bodies 

 have been thrown. The antelope uselessly vents its fury upon 

 the ground, tearing it up with its horns. But very much the 

 same thing occurs in children, savages, and even, as we have 

 seen, in mature and civilised man in the form of the angry 

 kicking or throwing away of stones or sticks tripping them, 

 or of inflicting blows upon articles against which they have 

 stumbled. 



One of the most illustrative examples of the folly of pour- 

 ing out the vials of wrath on unoffending, inanimate objects, 

 is a story current in Kamtschatka, and which has given rise 

 to a well-known Kamtschatka proverb of a bear that hugged 

 a kettle of boiling water with which it had scalded itself 

 (Cassell). I have seen the incident described both as an 

 actual occurrence and simply as a story. The anecdote re- 

 quires verification ; and meanwhile it may be regarded as the 

 figurative basis of the moral that both in other animals and 

 man an individual has frequently only himself to blame for 

 his misfortunes. It may be what is virtually the same story 

 told in a different form which represents a horse, that 

 thrust its nose into a boiler, and so scalded itself, pouring 

 out its vengeance by furious kicking on the metal utensil. 



A chimpanzee bestowed its anger on an unoffending 

 article of food offered to it instead of some other kind it 

 specially desired. A baboon that had been fighting with a 

 tiger, and was at last forcibly removed from the tiger's cage, 

 and so prevented venting its spleen on its enemy, viciously 

 bit the bars of the cage itself (Jamrach) in order to the 

 relief of its passion. 



