402 LAW AND PUNISHMENT. 



be erroneous, that we have to deal with an accused, con- 

 victed, condemned criminal ; official accusers ; and the sum- 

 in ary execution of a judicial sentence. Marcgrave long ago 

 described such assemblies of rooks, with their addresses and 

 debates, but his account has probably been regarded, as so 

 many of such narratives are, apocryphal. 



The stork, too, is represented by Watson, as having, or 

 holding, trial by jury, public conventions at which harangues 

 or speeches are delivered, accusations made, defences offered, 

 by public orators and other officials, while the mass of the 

 audience takes a lively interest in the proceedings. Consult- 

 ations are held, sentence is pronounced, and capital punish- 

 ment inflicted for such supposed crimes as the hatching of 

 a gosling. The sparrow is another bird that administers 

 public punishment to offenders after holding general councils, 

 the proceedings of which are marked by much agitation, 

 tumult, and clamour (Watson). 



The public trial of a prisoner before a public court by the 

 aid of advocates has also been mentioned as occurring among 

 Barbary apes (Cassell). 



All such incidents, so far as they are authentic, furnish 

 illustrations of public punishment for public misdemeanour. 

 But punishment of animals by each other has not always or 

 generally this public character. Usually it is private, and 

 of an individual by an individual, as in the correction of the 

 young by parents. It may be said to have a public character 

 in those not uncommon cases in which a number of indivi- 

 duals usually, but not necessarily, of the same species- -co- 

 operate for the destruction or persecution of a common enemy 

 a case in which any one of the co-operating individuals 

 would have no power of inflicting punishment. 



The grounds on which animals inflict punishment on each 

 other include the following : 



I. In young 



1. Ignorance, inexperience, stupidity, awkward- 



ness. 



2. Forwardness, impudence, or impertinence. 



3. Refractoriness. 



4. Theft. 



