er 
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THE APPARENT CRUELTY OF NATURE. 207 
attributable to the instinct of self-preservation? [Dr. Waker: I 
suppose it felt something on the penetration of the skin.] That, I 
think, is only self-preservation, as I instance in the Paper. [ Dr. 
Waker: It was not a mere wriggling, but it was the vigorous 
brushing with its two caudal appendages by which it tried to 
save itself.] I do not see that it was anything more than self- 
preservation before the piercing really took place. As to cocks 
fighting, is it certain that it is pain or passion? [Dr. WALKER: 
Pain, I should say, when the feathers are pulled out.] In some 
cases of savages screams are emitted which do not seem to apply 
to pain. As to hounds, of course they are domesticated animals, 
and cannot be put in the same category as wild animals. Where 
these have to some extent been civilised, sensation is increased : 
they are then not wild animals, and you cannot draw any argument 
for the purposes of this question from them. 
As to the piercing the thorax of the insect that I referred to, of 
course the thorax is closely permeated with large nerves connected 
with the head, and is therefore a pretty good test. I have known 
of moths being stuffed—they have been chloroformed and the 
whole of the abdomen slit open and the interior taken out and re- 
placed with cotton wool and closed—and five minutes after they have 
recovered from the chloroform, they have been walking about the 
table, with nothing inside their bodies but the cotton wool. Thenas 
to the dog referred to by the Chairman, which cried when he was not 
being beaten, I had a similar case in my own dog, a very nervous 
one anda great humbug. A sister of mine has beaten him witha 
straw and he has howled as if in agonies, and anyone hearing him 
would have said he was suffering excruciating pain. Then Mr. 
Cherrill, I think, spoke of evolution. It is not necessary to treat 
evolution as a proved fact, but if it brings a sense of pain with it, 
I do not see that it is an argument against pain being useful; for 
we know that it warns us that we are receiving injuries, which, if 
it were not for that warning, might proceed in such a measure as 
to bring about loss of life. I should suppose, therefore, that the 
sense of pain would be a benefit. 
Then, with regard to the attack made by the thrasher on the 
whale, and its supposed results. A whale’s body is encased 
throughout in a coating of blubber, varying from eight or ten 
inches to nearly two feet in thickness. I cannot quite understand 
how even a blow from a thrasher’s tail could be felt through this 
