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Beasts of prey selrioin devour each other ; nor can any thing 

 but the greatest degree of hunger induce them to it. Wliat 

 they chiefly seek after, is the deer, or the goat •, those harmless 

 creatures, that seem made to embellish nature. These are either 

 pursued or surprised, and afford the most agreeable repast to 

 their destroyers. The most usual method with even the fiercest 

 animals, is to hide and crouch near some path frequented by 

 their prey ; or some water where cattle come to diink ; and 

 seize them at once with a bound. The lion and the tiger leap 

 twenty feet at a spring ; and this, rather than their swiftness or 

 strength, is what they have most to depend upon for a supply. 

 There is scarcely one of the deer or hare kind, that is not very 

 easily capable of escaping them by its swiftness ; so that when- 

 ever any of these fall a prey, it must be owing to their own inat- 

 tention. 



But there is another class of the c«'nivorous kind, that hunt 

 by the scent, and which it is much more difficult to escape. Jt 

 is remarkable, that all animals of this kind pursue in a pack ; 

 and encourage each other by their mutual cries. The jackal, 

 the syagush, the wolf, and the dog, are of this kind ; they pur- 

 sue with patience rather than swiftness ; their prey flies at first, 

 and leaves them for miles behind ; but they keep on with a con- 

 stant steady pace, and excite each other by a general spirit of 

 industry and emulation, till at last they share the common phui- 

 dor. But it too often happens, that the larger beasts of prey, 

 when they hear a cry of this kind begin, pursue the pack, and 

 when they have hunted down the animal, come in and monopo- 

 lize the spoil. This his given rise to the report of the jackal'a 

 being the lion's provider •, when the reality is, that the jacl;:il 

 hunts for itself, and the lion is an unwelcome intruder upon the 

 fruit of his toil. 



Nevertheless, with all the powers which carnivorous animals 

 are possessed of, they generally lead a life of famine and fatigue. 

 Their prey has sucli a variety of methods for escaping, tlmt they 

 sometimes continue without food for a fortnight together : but 

 nature has endowed them with a degree of patience equal to the 

 severity of their state ; so that as their subsistence is precarious, 

 their appetites are complying. They usually seize their prey 

 with a roar, either of seeming delight, or perhaps to terrify it 

 from resistance. They frequently devour it, bones and all, in 



