IN GENERAL. ]21 
first state of existence, may be one of the many 
provisions of Nature to keep up the balance be- 
tween the carnivora and the other orders of mam- 
malia ; for as the reproduction, in hot climates at 
least, may amount to two litters in the year, and 
each be of eight or ten, it follows that the destroyers 
would increase beyond measure, unless by the above 
and probably other precautions, a great number 
perished at an early period of life; and in this way 
became themselves food for other carnassier in the 
form of living prey, or in a corrupting state, when, 
at their second dentition, numbers are carried off by 
disease. The adults of different species, and even 
of the same, if disabled, are prey to others; nay, 
the mothers occasionally eat their own whelps ; 
they mutually destroy each other in their battles, 
and are devoured by hyznas. Nature appears to 
have implanted an innate hostility between the 
canine and feline genera. The hyena, the dhole, 
and other wild dogs, are alike reported to destroy 
all tiger-cubs they can find ; and the last mentioned 
in particular, enabled by their superior instinct to 
act in packs, and combine their attacks, are even 
more than a match for the most powerful of the 
feline. Those that perish in these conflicts only 
add to the repast of the survivors, and in this man- 
ner further the purposes of Nature. It is to this 
peculiar instinct, no doubt, that the desire of tigers 
to escape from the presence of sporting dogs, so 
often observed in India, is mainly to be ascribed. 
Of the smaller canines, the jackal still evinces the 
