134 SUICIDE. 



water until the water engulphed him. Unable to endure his 

 misery, the poor brute had committed suicide.' l 



A small dog ' had got its head cut almost open, whether 



by some malicious person or by accident is unknown 



It ran about a good while, evidently in great agony, and 

 then deliberately walked into the middle of the river, lay 

 down and drowned itself.' 2 Dr. Macdonald 3 describes a 

 mad retriever as snapping in or at the air, or at imaginary 

 objects in it, uttering a melancholy howl, and walking 

 straight into the sea, in which it, too, was drowned. A 

 Havannah dog, in consequence of the irritation of a seton in 

 its neck, 6 rushed to the sea, swam out a little distance, put 

 its head under water, and was drowned ' (Wynter) . 



Many other examples of dogs drowning themselves have 

 been published by Wood and other authors. 



The dog, then, that commits suicide is generally or fre- 

 quently a cast-away. It has been expelled from its master's 

 domicile because it is old, diseased, and useless ; or it is a city 

 waif, a pariah. It has learned by the bitterest experience 

 what life is ; it infers what continued life is likely to be. It 

 sometimes reflects and hesitates a good deal before taking 

 the final step ; it may be seen, for instance, intently gazing 

 on the water of a pond or river for hours, days, or weeks 

 before it makes its suicidal plunge, just as so many human 

 e anonymas ' do when contemplating the last sad scene in their 

 unfortunate career. But when the dog has once made up 

 its mind, has chosen a certain and immediate death rather 

 than a prolonged life of persecution, hardship, misery, it 

 becomes blind and deaf to all offers of salvation, resolutely 

 using its paws if necessary to keep itself submerged. 



A captive monkey that committed suicide by drowning, 

 prior to the act was noticed to become morose ; it refused 

 all companionship, bit viciously, and had a marked fixity and 

 vagueness as if contemplative of gaze (Forbes). 



An American canvas-back duck used its bill to keep 

 itself submerged till it was drowned, seizing water-weeds 



1 'North British Daily Mail,' January 5, 1876. 



2 ' Dundee Advertiser,' November 1874. 



3 Writing to the 'Times,' from South Wales in October 1874. 



