

XXIIL ANIMAL ANTIPATHIES 



A CORRESPONDENT describes a curious scene witnessed 

 at the Zoological Gardens. He had for companion a 

 gentleman, now dead, who was a dwarf, and walked 

 with crutches. ' As soon as the tiger saw him he 

 lashed his tail, and finally stood up on his hind-legs 

 against the bars, and remained in a state of great 

 excitement. We who saw it at the time were much 

 struck by the sight, though whether its behaviour were 

 due to alarm or intense curiosity we could not tell.' 

 Probably the tiger's excitement was due to neither, but 

 to the latent antipathy which many animals feel for 

 anything abnormal, either in their own species, or even 

 among others with which they are well acquainted. It 

 is the feeling which prompts storks or rooks to destroy 

 at once the young of other birds which are hatched 

 from eggs placed in their nests, and dogs to bark at 

 cripples or ragged beggars, or, as in this case, roused 

 the dislike of an observant Zoo tiger, which saw men of 



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