FOKMS OF MENTAL DEFECT AND DERANGEMENT. 55 



or starving dog or cat steals a piece of meat and forthwith 

 devours it. But in theft of the character that is to be con- 

 sidered morbid, the objects purloined are of the most hetero- 

 geneous and useless nature, bright metallic substances perhaps 

 predominating. Instead of being applied to any intelligible 

 purpose, these miscellaneous articles are piled up in hidden 

 hoards, to which the only parallel is the collection and con- 

 cealment of equally miscellaneous and useless heaps of rub- 

 bish by the human kleptomaniac heaps and hoards that are 

 common in every large hospital for the insane. Instances 

 may be found recorded in ' Excelsior,' a little serial issued 

 for the last twenty-one years from the Murray Royal Institu- 

 tion for the insane, near Perth. 1 



Such hoards of animals or men are not to be confounded 

 with what may be called the 'kitchen-middens' of cave 

 carnivora, or of harvesting ants, which in the latter case 

 serve as guides to the nests of ant colonies. Still less are 

 they to be confounded with grain, seeds, fruits, or other 

 articles carefully stored away in quantities during summer 

 for winter's consumption. 



Kleptomania would appear to be a family failing of the 

 magpies. They have at least an evil reputation for inveterate 

 theft (Baird). The Australian magpie steals, hides, and 

 hoards the most heterogeneous articles (Baden Powell), just 

 as its British representative does. 



Rats are notorious as incurable thieves, purloining and 

 secreting in hoards in their nests coins and other indiges- 

 tible and heterogeneous articles. Many a discovery of long- 

 lost articles, many a hoard of once shining objects, has been 

 found in a rat's nest on dismantling a house or making 

 repairs on its floors or walls (Eassie). 



The jackdaw, raven even the monkey, dog, and cat 

 sometimes steal and hide spoons, buttons, toothbrushes, and 

 other articles that are utterly useless to them, and of which 

 they never attempt to make any use. They steal and hide 

 apparently simply on account of the pleasure they derive from- 

 theft and the accumulation of property. Theft in them 

 appears to be in a sense involuntary ; they cannot resist the 



1 E.'j. in No. 32 for 1872, p. 7, and in Xos. 23-5 for 1866, p. 8. 



