THE APPARENT CRUELTY OF NATURE. 278 
fancies that animals think and talk. This feeling has an important 
bearing on the question of cruelty, and I believe it is quite right 
to sternly put down cruelty to animals, for, apart from the question 
whether they feel or otherwise, there is nothing more demoralising 
than the wanton infliction on animals of what would give pain to 
ourselves. Scientific researches stand on quite another ground. I 
do not think there is any fear of such studies increasing cruelty to 
animals. The difference that has been shown between educated 
animals and wild animals is of great importance. It is wonderful 
how contact with the human mind changes the characters of 
animals. We must not argue that the sensitiveness of the race- 
horse, for instance, is a measure of the feeling of the undomesti- 
cated lower animals, it is a totally different thing—you cannot 
argue from the one to the other. Of this I feel sure that of vt be 
taken rightly, such a Paper as this will not justify any wanton cruelly 
on the part of any careless or cruel person, old or young. 
Rey. F. A. Watxer, D.D.—I see one of the first Entomologists 
in the country present to-night, and I hope Mr. Kirby will favour 
us with some remarks on this very interesting Paper. As regards 
my own views, I cordially agree with a great deal of Mr. Wood’s 
Paper, but there are some points in it upon which I hesitate to do 
so. Icannot help thinking that the feeling of pain is rather under- 
rated in Nature. Mr. Wood brought forward, for example, the case 
where the ichneumon fly exerts its ovipositor on the body of a moth. 
The caterpillar of the Puss moth (Cerura vinula) when pierced, 
so far from remaining quiescent under the operation, evidently uses 
its forks and not unfrequently drives away the fly, which then 
awaits an opportunity to renew its attack. With regard to the 
higher orders of Nature, there are, I think, abundant instances 
of whales suffering intense pain from the persistent attacks of 
sharks, and from the thrasher leaping on their backs, and they are 
often quite unable to escape or survive the repeated and fierce 
attacks of their natural foes. The thrasher, when it leaps out of 
the water, falls with great force on a whale’s back, and I understand 
that on such occasions the whale gives a sickening throb through- 
out its whole bulk, as though feeling agonising pain, and it ulti- 
mately succumbs to the combined attacks of two or three of its 
foes. As regards birds, I think, from the ery that cocks utter 
when in fighting they pull feathers out of each other, they must 
suffer great pain ;.and the noise a dog makes when a cat claws 
