DOMESTIC CATTLE. 159 



vehemently hostile feeling is provoked by a 

 wound, or by anything which might be mistaken 

 for blood, than by the appearance of an animal 

 which is merely suffering from illness. Indeed 

 in the latter case horned stock will often do no 

 more than boycott the invalid and persistently 

 avoid his society. 



Mr W. H. Hudson, whose opinions are well 

 worth listening to, because they are always 

 founded upon careful personal observation, thinks 

 that the action of cattle in rushing upon and 

 oforing one of their number which is wounded 

 or otherwise in trouble, is a misdirected attempt 

 to rescue it from an imaginary foe. Mr Hudson 

 gives various good reasons for coming to this 

 conclusion in his delightful book, ' The Naturalist 

 in La Plata.' Probably, however, the instincts 

 of the animals which make brutal blunders of 

 this kind are quite as much mixed as are their 

 ideas. 



How are we to explain the fact that farmers 

 find it necessary to make away with bulls when 

 they are four or five years old, because they then 

 become so pugnacious and unmanageable ? I 

 learned from the keepers at Chillingham that 

 each mob of wild cattle is under the command 



