The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 339 
chances of recovery to perfect health would be 
thereby greatly increased. 
It remains now to speak of that seemingly most 
cruel of instincts which stands last on my list. It 
is very common among gregarious animals that are 
at all combative in disposition, and still survives in 
our domestic cattle, although very rarely witnessed 
in England. My first experience of it was just 
before I had reached the age^of five years. I was 
not at that early period trying to find out any of 
nature’s secrets, but the scene I witnessed printed 
itself very vividly on my mind, so that I can recall 
it as well as if my years had been five-and-twenty ; 
perhaps better. It was on a summer’s evening, and 
I was out by myself at some distance from the house, 
playing about the high exposed roots of some old 
trees ; on the other side of the trees the cattle, just 
returned from pasture, were gathered on the bare 
level ground. Hearing a great commotion among 
them, I climbed on to one of the high exposed 
roots, and, looking over, saw a cow on the ground, 
apparently unable to rise, moaning and bellowing in 
a distressed way, while a number of her companions 
were crowding round and goring her. 
What is the meaning of such an instinct ? Darwin 
has but few words on the subject. “ Can we believe,” 
he says, in his posthumous Tssay on Instinct, when 
a wounded herbivorous animal returns to its own 
herd and is then attacked and gored, that this cruel 
and very common instinct is of any service to the 
species ? ” At the same time, he hints that such an 
instinct might in some circumstances be useful, and 
his hint has been developed into the current belief 
z 2 
