XXI 



COURAGE IN WILD ANIMALS 



EITHER in wild animals or tame men, courage is the 

 moral impulse that impels an individual to fight or to 

 venture at the risk of bodily harm. Like Theodore 

 Roosevelt, the truly courageous individual engages his ad- 

 versary without stopping to consider the possible consequences 

 to himself. The timid man shrinks from the onset while he 

 takes counsel of his fears, and reflects that "It may injure me in 

 my business," or that "It may hurt my standing;" and in the 

 end he becomes a slacker. 



Among the mental traits and passions of wild creatures, a 

 quantitative and qualitative analysis of courage becomes a 

 highly interesting study. We can easily fall into the error of 

 considering that fighting is the all-in-all measure of courage; 

 which very often is far from being true. The mother quail that 

 pretends to be wounded and feigns helplessness in order to draw 

 hostile attention unto herself and away from her young, thereby 

 displays courage of a high order. No quail unburdened by a 

 helpless brood requiring her protection ever dreams of taking 

 such risks. The gray gibbons of Borneo, who quite success- 

 fully made their escape from us, but promptly returned close 

 up to my party in response to the S. O. S. cries of a captured 

 baby gibbon, displayed the sublime courage of parental affec- 

 tion, and of desperation. Wary, timid and fearfully afraid of 

 man, at the first sight of a biped they swing away. At the first 

 roar of a gun they literally fly down hill through the treetops, 

 and vanish in a wild panic. And yet, the leading members of 

 that troop halted and swiftly came back, piercing the gloom 

 and silence of the forest with their shrill cries of mingled en- 



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