SUICIDE. 141 



motive, and so forth. But in truth those who are familiar 

 with human insanity know that all these features may be 

 developed, and be exhibited, in the suicides of persons in- 

 dubitably of unsound mind in a medical sense. In all cases, 

 whether in animals or man, there is manifest derangement 

 of the powerful instinct of self-preservation, the strong 

 conservative, ever active, principle of love of life. It is a 

 marvellous and morbid change of character, the substitution 

 of weariness of, disregard for, loss of all interest in, life 

 which prompts to the throwing of it away, instead of that 

 sense of the value of its possession which, under other cir- 

 cumstances, in the same animal, would urge imperiously to 

 all efforts for its conservation. 



I have notes of what has been described as and what 

 appears to have been true suicide in a considerable variety 

 of animals, including the dog especially, the horse, ass, mule, 

 camel, llama, monkey, seal, and deer ; the stork, cock, jack- 

 daw, and canvas-back duck ; the spider and scorpion. 



Wild as well as domestic animals commit suicide some- 

 times, under such circumstances as the blindness, deafness, or 

 helplessness of age, or when they have been tortured or per- 

 secuted beyond endurance, or in presence of a powerful and 

 relentless enemy from whom escape is hopeless, in which case 

 they become not only desirous but impatient of ending their 

 own sufferings. 



The modes in which suicide is committed or attempted by 

 the lower animals do not vary so much as in man, simply 

 because their opportunities, and their knowledge of the best 

 means, are less. In the dog drowning is by far the com- 

 monest mode, if we except self-starvation obstinate and 

 absolute abstinence from food. 



In the case of drowning in the dog, the sagacious animal 

 simply selects the mode to which it has readiest access. Dogs 

 know full well that water will drown other dogs, other ani- 

 mals, and even man himself; and hence their frequent, 

 and frequently successful, efforts to save life by rescue from 

 drowning. In making such efforts the dog must be aware 

 of the risk he runs. It is simply a correct inference from all 

 his knowledge of the properties of water that, if sufficiently 



