198 PHYSICAL CAUSES OF 



noisiness or turbulence, ardour, untamability, ferocity, com- 

 bativeness. 



Ecker states that male horses are most liable to certain 

 forms of insanity. Eogue elephants, so frequently the sub- 

 jects of the most destructive and dangerous, frequently 

 murderous or homicidal, mania, in whom insanity would 

 seem to be the result of compulsory exile, are always males 

 (Pierquin). The dangerous rivalries and jealousies of courtj 

 ship are, as a rule, confined to the males (Darwin). It 

 would appear further that the males are the chief sufferers 

 at the period of the rut. In deer it is notorious that the 

 annual rutting produces a remarkable change of disposition, 

 whereby ferocity is substituted for gentleness; but it is in 

 the buck the male that this change is observed. As a 

 general rule, the season of the rut, the function of rutting 

 is attended in all male animals with irascibility and pugna- 

 city, frequently with furiosity or ferocity of a kind dangerous 

 to the life not only of their own species, but also of man. 

 Other obvious physiological or pathological changes of 

 character occur. 



Not only does the timidity of the stag become transformed 

 into boldness or ferocity, but the dog loses its obedience and 

 disregards punishment, while the cat deserts home and lapses 

 into melancholia if confined to the kennel or room. An 

 irresistible impulse to gratify the sexual passion affects even 

 the most placid animals, e.g. the dromedary, while any ob- 

 stacle to such gratification is always apt to engender either 

 furiosity or a tendency thereto. The dromedary becomes 

 restless, ceases to recognise man, loses its affection for him, 

 becomes dangerous to him from vicious biting, these con- 

 ditions being accompanied by cries and anorexia, while 

 delirium or mania is occasionally developed (Pierquin). 

 Wholesale deaths of the animals engaged result from the com- 

 bats of the musk ox in rut (Houzeau), while those of the 

 Virginian stag lead frequently to entanglement of the horns, 

 and death by inanition. On a smaller scale the conflicts of 

 male nightingales in the pairing season are no doubt more 

 generally known. 



There are certain singular sexual attractions and repul- 



