SUICIDE. 139 



But no such supposition is possible in the case of the 

 Norwegian lemmings, which terminate their migrations, 

 when they survive so long, by drowning themselves in myriads 

 in the sea. Many insects simultaneously commit wholesale 

 suicide in flame of all kinds, by which they are usually said 

 to be ' fascinated ; ' there is a voluntary act of sacrifice, and 

 yet will and thought in the animals appear to be for the 

 moment paralysed. 



Altogether peculiar in its nature is the apparent suicide, 

 by voluntary dismemberment, of various starfish. A corres- 

 pondent of ' Nature ' put about a hundred feather stars and 

 brittle stars into a sponge-bag. ' On reaching home I found 

 that both feather stars and brittle stars had converted them- 

 selves into a mass of mincemeat. It would have been diffi- 

 cult to find a single portion of an arm a quarter of an inch 

 long.' 



All forms of suicide hitherto considered whether epi- 

 demic or isolated involve, or appear to involve, intention on 

 the part of the animal a choice of death in preference to 

 life. But there are many other forms of self-destruction in 

 which there is obviously or apparently no desire to put an 

 end to life ; suicide is accidental or non-intentional. The 

 most familiar illustrations of this form of self-destruction are 

 to be found in the panics of horses, cattle, sheep, and other 

 nervous timid animals. I have elsewhere pointed out to 

 what extent and in what forms panic in cavalry horses, for 

 instance, urges them to rush unintentionally upon what is 

 nevertheless certain death. 1 More common, however, is the 

 case of a flock of sheep, frightened by a dog, leaping blindly 

 and heedlessly one after the other, stupidly following their 

 bellwether, into a confined ditch, and perishing there in hun- 

 dreds, partly by drowning, but mostly by suffocating each 

 other. 



Baden Powell describes the headlong rushes into, and 

 the consequent wholesale self-destruction by smothering in, 

 ravines by sheep in Australia. In all such panics we have 

 illustrations of epidemic suicide, but of a non-intentional 



1 In the paper on ' Mental Epidemics among the Lower Animals,' quoted 

 in the Bibliography. 



