252 SELF-EDUCATION : THE ACQUISITION OF 



unfortunate animal into danger or death, for man, especially 

 in the form of the sportsman, is never slow to take advan- 

 tage, for his own ends, of the mental or moral failings of the 

 lower animals. Their inquisitiveness is obviously based on 



1. Wonder or surprise at what is novel or unusual, and 

 on a 



2. Desire to know the nature or properties of the object, 

 animate or inanimate, that begets this wonder. 



A curiosity or inquisitiveness, sometimes insatiable and 

 demanding gratification at whatever cost to the animal, has 

 been described in the dog (Cobbe), parrot (Darwin), New 

 Zealand water- hen (Baden Powell), walrus, monkeys as a 

 tribe, cormorant (Cunningham), goat (Wood, Baird), com- 

 mon fox (Anson), Magellan and Siberian fox (Houzeau), wild 

 turkey and brent goose of North America (Gilhnore), guanaco 

 (Darwin, Cunningham), ptarmigan (Gillmore), orang (Hou- 

 zeau), Polar bear (Hayes, Cassell), prong-horned antelope 

 of North America (Gillmore), zebra-ichneumon of Central 

 Africa (Schweinfurth), sheath-bill of Kerguelen's Land, and 

 in oceanic birds and wilderness animals generally those, 

 namely, in whom the overruling fear of man has not yet 

 been begotten by sad experience. 



Of the zebra-ichneumon Dr. Schweinfurth says, c I found 

 it exceedingly troublesome on account of the pertinacious 

 curiosity with which it peeped into all my cases and boxes, 

 upset my pots, broke my bottles, with no apparent object but 

 to investigate the contents.' 



Dr. Hayes mentions a Polar bear that c seemed to be 

 fascinated with the steamer, and her curiosity got the better 

 of her discretion,' costing her the loss of her own life and 

 that of two of her cubs ; and the same Arctic traveller gives 

 other instances of the same kind of fatal curiosity in the 

 same animal. The prong-horned antelope is frequently 

 brought within range of the sportsman's rifle c by waving a 

 coloured handkerchief or other unknown object ' (Gillmore). 

 Similar advantage is taken of the curiosity or wonder of the 

 wild turkey and brent goose to get them within the sports- 

 man's range. Of the brent goose of Chesapeake Bay, Mary- 

 land, Gillmore tells us that ' even while out of sight .... 



