40 The Cannibal Habit in the Male 



For example, in his book " Wild Animals in Captivity," 

 he mentions that the male wolf takes an active interest 

 in rearing the young ; as soon as they begin to run 

 about, the male throws up a considerable portion of 

 the contents of his stomach for the young to devour. 

 But who would imagine that " begins to run about " 

 means " the male wolf after having been excluded 

 from the cage until the danger to the cubs has passed 

 is restored to the company of the female " ? A very 

 different tale indeed ! The male has been transformed 

 from a creature ravening to devour its young to the 

 kind parent, feeding them with the contents of its own 

 stomach. 



We must now ask what principle can be supposed 

 to govern the amount of elimination so that it shall 

 cease before the living broods become too few to 

 continue the species in due numbers ? And also the 

 means of recuperation when some sudden catastrophe 

 has reduced the species to the vanishing point ? 

 Nothing is left to chance ; in nature's arrangements 

 the element of chance can never enter. Aberrations 

 from the normal are as surely the product of unvarying 

 law as the normal itself. The very conception of 

 " chance " argues the limitation of the human mind. 

 To go on with the problem : the individual pairs have 

 each their own territory, out of which they seldom 

 travel, as if they were kept within their bounds by some 

 physical constraint. The roaming ground is more or 

 less extensive according to plenty or scarcity of prey, 

 and nature has adjusted its prolific species numerically 

 to the capacity of their several coursing grounds to 

 maintain them comfortably, and thereby has arranged 

 that a certain unvarying proportion of the broods 

 shall escape the ken of the male. Nature has adjusted 

 to the finest issues the instinct of the male of prolific 

 species, so that the proportion saved to the proportion 



