The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 343 



adversary lie looked to see, and to slay him in his 

 false-seeing anger. 



An illusion just as great, leading to action equally 

 violent, but ludicrous rather than painful to witness, 

 may be seen in dogs, when encouraged by a man to 

 the attack, and made by his cries and gestures to ex- 

 pect that some animal they are accustomed to hunt 

 is about to be unearthed or overtaken ; and if, 

 when they are in this disposition, he cunningly 

 exhibits and sets them on a dummy, made perhaps 

 of old rags and leather and stuffed with straw, they 

 will seize, worry, and tear it to pieces with the 

 greatest fury, and without the faintest suspicion of 

 its true character. 



That wild elephants will attack a distressed 

 fellow seemed astonishing to Darwin, when he 

 remembered the case of an elephant after escaping 

 from a pit helping its fellow to escape also. But it 

 is precisely the animals, high or low in the organic 

 scale, that are social, and possess the instinct of 

 helping each other, that will on occasions attack a 

 fellow in misfortune — such an attack being no more 

 than a blunder of the helping instinct. 



Felix de Azara records a rather cruel experiment 

 on the temper of some tame rats confined in a cage. 

 The person who kept them caught the tail of one 

 of the animals and began sharply pinching it, 

 keeping his hand concealed under ihe cage. Its 

 cries of pain and struggles to free itself greatly 

 excited the other rats ; and after rushing wildly 

 round for some moments they flew at their dis- 

 tressed companion, and fixing their teeth in its 

 throat quickly dispatched it. In this case if the 



