XIV 

 MAMMALS DANGEROUS TO HUMAN BEINGS 1 



The inhabitants of Europe, America and Australasia are fortunate 

 as compared with those of some portions of Asia and Africa, so far 

 as dangerous mammals are concerned. We read that in one year ( 1910) , 

 in India alone, 2138 persons were killed by wild mammals, as follows: 

 By tigers, 882; leopards, 366; wolves and bears, 428; elephants and 

 hyaenas, 77; wild pigs, 51; buffaloes, 16; wild dogs, 24; unspecified, 

 220. 2 Other portions of Asia could add largely to the list. 



We have at hand no figures for any part of Africa, but the literature 

 of exploration, hunting trips and the settlement of Africa is filled 

 with accounts of attacks of the larger mammals upon people, and the 

 total mortality from this cause must be very large. Roosevelt lists four 

 mammals of Africa as especially dangerous, and says: "During the 

 last few decades, in Africa, hundreds of white hunters and thousands 

 of native hunters have been killed or wounded by lions, buffaloes, ele- 

 phants and rhinos" (rhinoceroses). 3 It must not be inferred from this 

 statement that only hunters have been killed or that the animals named 

 are the only ones that are dangerous. Such is far from the case. The 

 hippopotamus often upsets boats and destroys the native occupants. 

 Though the leopard does not often attack humans, it sometimes does, 

 and Roosevelt mentions one that killed seven boys before the hunters 

 could get it. Various writers assert that the hyaena enters native huts 

 and kills children and even attacks sleeping adults. 4 



The lions and tigers are not all man-eaters, or the destruction of 

 human life by them would be much greater, but their great size and 

 strength and the uncertainty as to when one may acquire the taste for 

 human blood make them all a potential menace. A remarkable account 

 has been published of two man-eating lions in Africa that waged war 

 upon a railroad construction gang for nine months before they were 



1 In this chapter we consider only those large mammals that directly attack 

 human beings. Danger from mammalian disease carriers is considered in another 

 chapter. 



2 Science, xxxvn, 938, 1913. See also Amer. Nat., xxxi, 77-78, 1897. 



3 Roosevelt, African game trails, pp. 58-59, 62, 243, 1910. 



4 Roosevelt, ibid., p. 59. Drake-Brockman, The mammals of Somaliland, p. 42, 

 1910. Ingersoll, The life of animals, p. 161, 1907. 



1 02 



