NATURAL DEATH IN THE ANIMAL WORLD 159 



striking but still constant causes of natural death. But 

 to those which perish in this normal course of mortality 

 there must be added a vast number of wild animals 

 which escape constitutional or contagious disorders, and 

 die of lingering starvation, hastened by exposure. This 

 fact in a great degree justifies the domestication and 

 appropriation of animals to the service of civilized man, 

 who in his dealings with their last years shows an ever- 

 increasing tendency to rectify this aberrant conclusion 

 set by Nature to animal life. 



