The Cannibal Habit in the Male 35 



of rage she flies upon him and drives him off for the 

 time being. He argues, if this behaviour is representa- 

 tive of the carnivora, there must be some odour about 

 a female advanced in pregnancy which provokes the 

 male to keep her close company in expectation of a 

 feast to be shortly provided, and points to a pro- 

 vision of nature in order to secure that the elimina- 

 tion of young shall be sufficient for her purpose. This 

 method is at once the most direct and is effected with 

 the smallest amount of misery or suffering, for the 

 process of deletion, so far as the young are concerned, 

 is an absolutely painless one. Nature separates the 

 interests of the males and the females — the one to 

 bring forth in safety, the other to devour. In the 

 conflict the majority of litters perish, while a sufficient 

 number is preserved to ensure continuance of the 

 species. It has been pointed out by other observers 

 that the males of the rat, the rabbit, the cat, the 

 guinea-pig, the weasel, the pig, and other wild species 

 so act when they have opportunity. While on a visit 

 to a friend, and while this subject was occupying his 

 thoughts, it was announced that a sad mischance had 

 occurred. The gamekeeper had discovered a pair of 

 ferrets ; while the female was in the act of parturition, 

 the male was swallowing the infants as soon as they 

 appeared ; after the removal of the male one young 

 ferret was born, and was the sole survivor. 



He asks naturalists to give this method some con- 

 sideration, and goes on to aver that if they can prove 

 a single instance in which the male remains with the 

 female at the time of delivery without devouring the 

 young he will at once abandon the hypothesis ; and 

 adds that he is possessed of irrefragable evidence of 

 this instinct of the males, embracing every prolific 

 carnivorous and herbivorou s species without exception. 

 He points out that Darwin is at a loss to account for. 



