1883.] Unnatural Attachments among Animals, 359 
UNNATURAL ATTACHMENTS AMONG ANIMALS. 
BY JOHN DEAN CATON, LL.D. 
“THERE is no accounting for tastes” is an aphorism as appli- 
cable to the lower orders of animals as to the genus Homo. 
It had reference to exceptional incidents in connection with the 
affections, the inclinations, or social relations. 
I propose to make a few observations on abnormal exhibitions 
of these as occasionally exhibited in the lower animals. I should 
not refer to the devotion of the dog to his master or the attach- 
ment the canary bird manifests to its mistress who feeds and 
caresses it, for the first is so common as to suggest that it arises 
from a natural impulse in our nature, while the other may be an 
acknowledgment of benefits received. These, like the attach- 
ments of individuals for each other among the various species, 
being common, we may consider them as natural, or the result of 
some natural law; but it is the abnormal or unnatural attach- 
ments, those which seem to violate some natural law which at- 
tract our attention. 
A remarkable instance of this unnatural attachment occurred 
under my own observation in my acclimatization grounds at Otta- 
wa, Ill, between a male wapiti deer and a heifer. I will quote 
the account I gave of the occurrence in “The Antelope and Deer 
of America,” p. 315: “ When I had but one male elk with several 
females, a strong attachment grew up between the buck and a 
two-year-old Durham heifer, so that he abandoned the society of 
the female elk as the. heifer did that of the cows in the same in- 
closure with which she had been reared, and devoted themselves 
exclusively to each other. When they laid down in the shade fo 
ruminate they were always found close together, and when one 
§ot up to feed, the other would immediately follow. They kept 
SEF by themselves, always avoiding the society of all the other 
animals, Whenever the heifer was in season, which occurred 
Te regularly once a month; she accepted the embraces of the 
elk without showing an inclination to seek the other cattle; nor 
this seem to be the result of any constraint. This intercourse 
continued throughout the summer, during the entire season of the 
Srowth of the antlers of the elk, but unfortunately he was killed 
before the rut commenced with the female elk. It is hardly nec- 
sssary to state that no impregnation ever occurred from her 
