THE TEMPER OF ANIMALS 
3 T 9 
the prairie-dogs, or rooks and starlings, rather to 
prefer than shun the society of the other. The 
choicest spots for homes are naturally the source of 
warfare among birds, and other animals frequently 
fight for the possession of some favourite breeding- 
place. Badgers and foxes which have shared the 
same earth during winter often fight for sole pos- 
session in the spring, when the fox invariably wins, 
a result which would hardly be expected from the 
relative physique of the two animals. But such 
quarrels are only for the sake of rearing their young, 
not for selfish reasons ; and even apprehended pressure 
of the food-supply rarely excites ill-will, except in the 
case of the largest carnivorous birds and animals, 
which require a wider range for hunting, and drive 
their young to other districts. The rodents and 
ruminants are less jealous ; and that strong social and 
gregarious instinct which the existence of ill-temper 
as a permanent characteristic would inevitably destroy, 
keeps them together in peace and harmony. They 
love society, and not the least marked difference 
between the temperament of animals and men, is that 
animals do not by mere contact irritate each other, — 
a positive and not unimportant compensation for the 
absence of the gift of speech. 
Since occasions of difference are so few, nothing 
but the assumption of an ancient and inbred malignity 
in animal minds, such as the author of Three Men in 
a Boat supposes in the case of fox-terriers to have 
been due to a double dose of original sin, could 
justify the view so generally held that animals are, as 
