296 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Rap 



tainty. JS T ow the orang-outang has vast muscular strength, 

 powerful tenacious hands and strong canine teeth, and when he 

 chooses to defend himself, he can easily tear any antagonist to 

 pieces, and yet this is how he deports himself. One might 

 suppose he had taken a lesson from human fools on the subject 

 of impotent rage. How many men there are who when in a 

 passion never resort to a reasonable defence of their own in- 

 terests, but indulge their own fury, and so expose themselves 

 entirely to the mercy of cunning enemies ! D. 



The Rapacious Character. 



The mole, says Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, does not ex- 

 perience a sense of hunger like other animals ; with it this 

 want is of the most powerful description, it is an exhaustion 

 which is felt as a kind of frenzy. Take two moles of the 

 same sex, place them before each other in a room, and in a 

 very short time the strongest will have devoured the weakest. 

 Such is ever the rapacious character, whether found among 

 men or the lower animals. It is always ravening after some- 

 thing, and it will even devour that which it ought to s^are 

 rather than endure any check to its voracity. Among men of 

 commerce it is not at all unusual to see the stronger of two 

 speculators appropriate to himself the whole of the weaker 

 man's pecuniary estate. This man does not resemble the mole 

 in his greediness alone, but also in his vision. His moral eye- 

 sight is very small, and made for burrowing amongst things " of 

 the earth earthy." M. 



Rapacious Misfortune-Seekers. 



The shark's swiftness of motion is such that he can outstrip 

 the swiftest vessel, and his strength so great that no unarmed 

 man can cope with him successfully. With one snap of his 

 powerful jaws, a shark of average size will cut a man in two. 

 Frequently in the West Indian seas the negro crew of a boat 

 will cease rowing, and with a significant air indicate to the 

 voyager the hideous form of a shark following in the rear, and 

 apparently waiting for some false movement or sudden accident, 



