144 FOREST CREATURES. 



when he is trailing his wings and quivering with the in- 

 tensity of his passion, he will probably not take ^ving, 

 nor will the report or the shot that fly around hina dis- 

 turb him in the least. He will not have heard it, so 

 entirely is every sense then merged in the one. An old 

 Grerman writer says, ^^ Should the sportsman fire at and 

 miss him while uttering this cry, he cares not for it ; 

 fancying it to he a thunderstorm or a tree that has 

 been overthrown,'''^ Indeed so indifferent is he at such 

 moment to circumstances which at every other time 

 would at once scare him away, that I have known two 

 cocks shot within ten minutes of each other, so near 

 were the trees together on which they were perched. It 

 takes a good charge of coarse shot to kill the bird, for 

 like all animals at this particular season he seems pos- 

 sessed of extraordinary vitality. Though wounded, 

 unless he drop at once, there are many chances against 

 your getting him. But as I have elsewhere remarked 

 of other animals, this tenacity of life in the rutting 

 season is a striking phenomenon. Indeed it were a 

 most interesting subject for minute scientific inquiry. 

 The excited state of the nervous system is, without doubt, 

 the cause : and this again exercises an influence over 

 the whole organisation. In the human subject we also 

 observe an insensibility to pain when a certain degree 

 of excitement has been reached : and men half-mad- 

 dened by drink will receive blows and bruises from falls 



