200 BOMBAY DUCKS 
The howling of their companion has excited them so 
greatly that they have suddenly and momentarily lost 
their senses. So it may be with the cows or cattle 
when they attack a companion in distress. They rush 
up to the scene, maddened by the cries of their fellow, 
and see some object performing strange antics, so, 
without waiting to consider what they are doing, they 
attack it. 
The naturalist, Hudson, looks upon this strange 
instinct which makes animals kill a companion in dis- 
tress as the perversion, not of the instinct which teaches 
animals to mob all strange species, but of that which 
teaches gregarious creatures to go to the assistance of 
a companion attacked by some enemy. According to 
him, when the individuals of a family are-excited to a 
sudden deadly rage by the cries of distress of one of 
their fellows, or by the sight of its bleeding wounds, 
or when they see it frantically struggling on the 
ground, or in the cleft of a tree or rock, as if in the 
clutches of a powerful enemy, they do not turn on it 
to kill it, but to rescue it. But there is no enemy to 
see, so they, in their blind rage, attack the one living 
thing present—the wounded friend in this case—in 
mistake for an enemy. 
Whether the theory here put forward or that of 
Hudson meets with acceptance, it is obvious that this 
habit of attacking friends in distress is not wanton 
cruelty ; it is a blunder of a useful instinct. It may 
seem shocking to us that animals are so ready to de- 
stroy life. We must, however, remember that the char- 
acters of animals are moulded by natural selection ; 
