NATURAL DEATH IN THE ANIMAL WORLD 157 



Consumption and other forms of tuberculosis account 

 for a large percentage of the natural deaths of domesti- 

 cated animals. We doubt if any but the goat have 

 complete immunity from it. Cattle, cats, chickens, 

 pigeons, and in a less degree horses, dogs, rats, and 

 mice, are all victims of the tubercle-bacillus. Between 

 these normal and non-contagious causes of death and 

 the violent and devastating animal plagues comes the 

 long list or contagious animal diseases mainly confined 

 to domesticated animals. Anthrax, the most rapid and 

 deadly, is perhaps the least common. Then follows 

 the permanent list influenza, now always present and 

 often epidemic, and affecting all domestic animals, and 

 probably wild ones also ; swine fever, aphthous fever 

 (not commonly fatal), glanders, and in some seasons the 

 fatal { liver rot,' mainly affecting sheep and rabbits, due 

 to a parasite harboured in tainted ground and water. 

 Add to these the choleraic diseases from bad water 

 and dirty soil, and we have forms of natural death suf- 

 ficient to account for the total disappearance of whole 

 species, did not the generally healthy conditions under 

 which they live act as a safeguard. Unfortunately, 

 among these conditions is one which does not make for 

 the preservation of health, namely, the tendency of 

 nearly all non-carnivorous animals to herd together, 

 and, even when non-related, to seek each other's society. 

 Hence the astonishing violence and fatal results of 



