ARTIFICIAL INSANITY. 73 



allow the panic-stricken animals to gallop off their nasal 

 irritation and their epidemic alarm. 



The creation of panic in any large body of highly nervous 

 or timorous animals, such as the horse, is at all times as easy 

 on man's part as it is, or may be, ruinous to his interests. 

 Thus the North American Indians artificially produce stam- 

 pedes in the prairie-feeding horses of settlers by causing 

 them, in unreflecting imitation or imitativeness, to follow the 

 false lead of their own (Indian) decoy horses trained for 

 the purpose first, however, producing panic. The aim is 

 the same as that of the Normandy panic-producerhorse' 

 stealing. 



Cantharides are also said to produce in some animals 

 erotomania, or a morbid amorousness amounting thereto. 



Opium, as might be expected, like alcohol, produces dif- 

 ferent effects in different animals, e.g. the rat, pig, and horse. 

 Passion or anger, irritability or combativeness, are common 

 results. But, on the other hand, it has been used as a seda- 

 tive or calmative to repress or diminish ferocity in menagerie 

 animals. Pierquin describes opium as capable of inducing, 

 according to circumstances, simple joyous mania, erotomania, 

 melancholia, or idiocy. 



According to Belt, corrosive sublimate rendered certain 

 leaf-cutting ants mad, c so that they bit and destroyed each 

 other.' Sprinkling it experimentally on their track, ' as soon 

 as one of the ants touches the white powder, it commences 

 to run about wildly, and to attack any other ant it comes 

 across. In a couple of hours round balls of the ants will be 

 found all biting each other, and numerous individuals will be 

 seen bitten completely in two, whilst others have lost some 

 of their legs or antennae ' all by a sudden development of 

 what must be regarded as a murderous mania or monomania, 



Castoreum has an irresistible attraction for the beaver, 

 causing it to ' squeal with fierce excitement ' if it merely 

 scent it. Hence it is used by hunters for baiting beaver- traps 

 (Wood). 



What may quite appropriately be described as maternal 

 affection is producible in certain male animals, artificially 

 and vicariously, for instance in the male castrated fowl, by 



