136 ON THE FOOD OF ANIMALS. 



field to a dead horse, you would hear nothing; 

 but the yells of the bitten, and the snarls of 

 others in possession of the food. 



Thus, then, instinct points out to carnivorous 

 animals the necessity of procuring subsistence 

 by solitary effort. And this is well ordained, 

 for the carcass of a deer would ill requite the 

 united efforts of forty lions to secure it. Were 

 they to try the experiment once, their mutual 

 lacerations in the conflict for a morsel of it 

 would teach them to adopt some more agree- 

 able and more productive plan in future. 



I consider the stories about wolves hunting 

 in packs as mere inventions for the nursery, to 

 keep cross children quiet. That these animals 

 may join on the road, and arrive at the same 

 point, is a casualty at best, and seldom to be 

 witnessed ; for their united voracious appetites 

 would soon have the effect of rendering federal 

 pursuit null and void, by the utter extermin- 

 ation of the object. A fructivorous flock, 

 however numerous at first, would eventually 

 fall a prey to a carnivorous one, as the last 

 would always be on the look out to appease its 

 hunger on the slaughter of the first ; and both 

 being inhabitants of the same district, they 



