54 FOEMS OF MENTAL DEFECT AND DERANGEMENT. 



panied by furiosity and combativeness than by inertness and 

 mental depression ; and it may pass into ordinary mania of 

 the most furious, and even of the murderous, type (Pierquin) . 

 Thus there is not unfrequently an unexpected and dangerous 

 outbreak in harness, on the part either of horses or ruares, 

 in which case there is imminent risk of the animals running 

 off at a bolt and smashing the carriage, or of their running 

 at full speed to the point of falling from sheer exhaustion. 



Pierquin goes so far as to describe the annual spring rut 

 of certain animals as a periodic insanity, characterised by an 

 irrestrainable tendency to furiosity as, in fact, a kind of 

 true mania. But this is going too far, although the physio- 

 logical condition in question is apt to become pathological, 

 the pugnacity and temper that characterise it apt to pass 

 beyond the bounds of control and to acquire a morbid in- 

 tensity. In such a case, when the ferocity and pugnacity 

 become somewhat chronic, and when they are uncontrollable 

 by the will, the condition may be fairly considered morbid, 

 and relegated to the category of insanity just as much as un- 

 bearable, ungovernable, and dangerous ferocity of temper in 

 the horse and other animals may also be. Not only, however, 

 is the rut accompanied usually by a dangerous kind and de- 

 gree of mental excitement, which is apt to pass into common 

 mania or erotomania, but in the bitch, for instance, it is no 

 infrequent cause of rabies (Fleming). 



Just as in man, theft occurs among other animals as a 

 misdemeanour, vice, or crime, in which case the motive is 

 obvious, the propensity corrigible, and the article stolen of 

 use to the thief. But there also exists, both in other animals 

 and man, a morbid or insane impulse or propensity to steal, 

 which in man is described as kleptomania, and which is dis- 

 tinguished from ordinary theft by 



1. The absence of conceivable motive. 



2. Incorrigibility under reproof or correction ; and 



3. The utter uselessness, perhaps also valuelessness, of 

 the objects stolen. 



In ordinary or natural theft the objects of the animal's 

 envy or covetousness are usually articles of food, and are at 

 once used as such, or are stored for future use. The hungry 



