38 The Cannibal Habit in the Male 



mined to put it to a test which would prove its truth 

 or falsehood. He consulted Mr. Bartlett, superin- 

 tendent of the Zoological Gardens in London, who was 

 then alive. He informed him that in the case of every 

 prolific carnivorous and herbivorous species the male 

 was always removed at the time of delivery ; if not, 

 the brood was straightway devoured. Paulin denies 

 that there is any reason to think that this is due to 

 confinement rendering them savage beyond their 

 wont in the free state. He has proved that internecine 

 strife and starvation do not exist among them to any 

 appreciable extent in the wild state. Again, if all the 

 young, protected as we know them to be by their 

 parents during their early youth, should appear as 

 devourers of their natural prey, what would happen ? 

 Their increase would be prodigious ; their natural prey 

 would shortly be exterminated. But the latter never 

 undergoes diminution, so long as they have no other 

 enemies than their carnivorous destroyers. Therefore 

 the enormous reproduction of the carnivora do not all 

 appear as food seekers ; by far the greater number are 

 eliminated before they go forth to hunt the antelope, 

 the zebra, or any other grass-eaters. This habit 

 accounts for the fact that the young carnivora found 

 in their native haunts never appear to be more numer- 

 ous in proportion to the adults than are required to 

 continue the species in undiminished numbers. The 

 absence of all knowledge of this process explains how 

 Darwin found the causes which check the increase of 

 these vigorous kinds, which ought otherwise to swarm 

 in great numbers, to be " most obscure." This elimi- 

 nation Paulin showed to be not an argument of 

 Nature's cruelty, but of her kindly care and regard for 

 her offspring, and is the mode by which she averts the 

 horrible fate contemplated for them in Darwin's 

 " struggle for existence." 



