92 ANIMAL REPUTATION. 



when companionship has been long and intimate, are cited 

 by Wood and other authors. 



The timidity of the common hare is so proverbial that it- 

 derives its specific name, timidus, from this mental pecu- 

 liarity. Nevertheless it sometimes shows fearlessness of 

 dogs, and even commits rash assaults upon them, or romps 

 with dog companions (Cassell). It also becomes a house pet, 

 showing great attachment to a master, as in the well-known 

 case of the poet Cowper. Shakespeare is not the only person 

 who has spoken of certain kinds of men as being ' hare- 

 brained,' and to this day we constantly hear of this or that 

 person being as c mad as a March hare.' There is no good 

 ground, in the cerebral or psychical organisation or character 

 of the hare, for a comparison so damaging to the good name 

 of the poor animal. The terms are apparently applied to 

 people possessed of the most fanciful and impracticable pro- 

 jects; but why such vagaries should be connected with the 

 name of so useful and harmless a creature I confess myself 

 utterly at a loss to understand or explain. 



Unlike the hare, the beaver is one of the animals whose 

 reputation is better than its real character warrants. It is 

 popularly supposed to be intelligent and industrious in the 

 highest degree ; but in the first place Grillmore describes it 

 as lazy, and we know that its constructive ' instinct ' is sin- 

 gularly fallible. 



The wary wolverene, or glutton, is believed to be so vora- 

 cious that ' gluttony ' has become a by-word for a synonym 

 of inordinate appetite greed to the extent of gorging in 

 man or child ; but there is no reason for supposing that the 

 wolverene is more voracious than many other animals that 

 are closely hunted by man, that are often pressed with hunger, 

 and that are compelled by the exigencies of their existence 

 to gorge themselves with food when fitting opportunity 

 occurs. Savage man himself does the same, and both in his 

 case and in that of the wolverene there is, or may be, pro- 

 per excuse. But the gluttony of civilised man, or of his 

 pampered, over-indulged child, is something very different. 

 Here again the epithet borrowed from the name of one of 

 the lower animals is perverted in its use or application, and 



