sometimes close at hand, men are committing a long list of
revolting crimes such as even the most debased and cruel beasts of
the field _never_ commit. I refer to wanton wholesale murder,
often with torture; assault with violence, robbery in a hundred
cruel forms, and a dozen unmentionable crimes invented by
degenerate man and widely practiced. If anyone feels that this
indictment is too strong, I can cite a few titles that will be
quite sufficient for my case.
Let us make a few comparisons between the human species (_Homo
sapiens_) and the so-called "lower" wild animals; and let it be
understood that the author testifies, in courtroom phrase, only
"to the best of his information and belief."
Only two wild animal species known to me,--wolves and crocodiles,
--devour their own kind; but many of the races of men have been
cannibals, and some are so today.
Among free wild animals, the cruel abuse or murder of children by
their parents, or by other adults of the tribe, is unknown; but in
all the "civilized" races of men infanticide and child murder are
frightfully common crimes. In 1921 a six-year-old Eskimo girl,
whose father and mother had been murdered, was strangled by her
relatives, because she had no visible means of support.
The murder of the aged and helpless among wild animals is almost
unknown; but among both the savage and the civilized races of men
it is quite common. Our old acquaintance, Shack-Nasty Jim, the
Modoc Indian, tomahawked his own mother because she hindered his
progress; but many persons in and around New York have done worse
than that.
Civil war between the members of a wild animal species is a thing
unknown in the annals of wild-animal history; but among men it is
an every-day occurrence.
Among _free_ animals it is against the moral and ethical
codes of all species of vertebrates for the strong to bully and
oppress the weak; but it is almost everywhere a common rule of
action with about ten per cent of the human race.
The members of a wild animal species are in honor bound not to rob
one another, but with 25 per cent of the men of all civilized
races, robbery, and the desire to get something for nothing, are
ruling passions. No wild animals thus far known and described
practice sex crimes; but the less said of the races of men on this
subject, the better for our feelings.
Among animals, save in the warfare of carnivorous animals for
their daily food, there are no exterminatory wars between species,
and even local wars over territory are of very rare occurrence.
Among men, the territorial wars of tribes and nations are
innumerable, they have been from the earliest historic times, and
they are certain to continue as long as this earth is inhabited by
man. The "end of war" between the grasping nations of this earth
is an iridescent dream, because of the inextinguishable jealousy
and meanness of nations; but it is well to reduce them to a
minimum. Nations like Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey and Russia will
never stand hitched for any long periods. Their peace-loving
neighbors need to keep their weapons well oiled and polished, and
indulge in no hallucinations of a millenium upon this wicked
earth.
In the mating season, there is fighting in many wild animal
species between the largest and finest male individuals for the
honor of overlordship in increasing and diffusing the species.
These encounters are most noticeable in the various species of the
deer family, because the fatal interlocking of antlers
occasionally causes the death of both contestants. We have in our
National Collection of Heads and Horns sets of interlocked antlers
of moose, caribou, mule deer and white-tailed deer.
Otherwise than from the accidental interlocking of antlers,--due
to the fact that an animal can push forward with far greater force
than it can pull back,--I have never seen, heard or read of a wild
animal having been _killed_ outright in a fight over the
possession of females. Fur seal and Stellar sea-lion bulls, and
big male orang-utans, frequently are found badly scarified by
wounds received in fighting during the breeding season, but of
actual deaths we have not heard.
The first law of the jungle is: "Live, and let live."
Leaving out of account the carnivorous animals who must kill or
die, _all the wild vertebrate species of the earth have learned
the logic that peace promotes happiness, prosperity and long
life._ This fundamentally useful knowledge governs not only the
wild animal individual, but also the tribe, the species, and
contiguous species.
Do the brown bears and grizzlies of Alaska wage war upon each
other, species against species? By no means. It seems reasonably
certain that those species occasionally intermarry. Do the big
sea-lions and the walruses seek to drive away or exterminate the
neighboring fur seals or the helpless hair seals? Such warfare is
absolutely unknown. Do the moose and caribou of Alaska and Yukon
Territory attack the mountain sheep and goats? Never. Does the
Indian elephant attack the gaur, the sambar, the axis deer or the
muntjac? The idea is preposterous. Does any species of giraffe,
zebra, antelope or buffalo attack any other species on the same
crowded plains of British East Africa? If so, we have yet to learn
of it.
If the races and nations of men were as peace-loving, honest and
sensible in avoiding wars as all the wild animal species are, then
would we indeed have a social heaven upon earth.
Now, tell me, ye winged winds that blow from the four corners of
the earth and over the seven seas, whence came the Philosophy of
Peace to the world's wild animals? Did they learn it by observing
the ways of man? "It is to laugh," says the innkeeper. Man has not
yet learned it himself; and therefore do we find the beasts of
the field a lap ahead of the quarrelsome biped who has assumed
dominion over them.
Day by day we read in our newspapers of men and women who are
moral lepers and utterly unfit to associate with horses, dogs,
cats, deer and elephants. Our big male chimpanzee, Father Boma,
who knows no wife but Suzette, and firmly repels the blandishments
of his neighbor Fanny, is a more moral individual than many a
pretty gentleman whose name we see heading columns of divorce
proceedings in the newspapers.
Said the Count to Julia in "The Hunchback," "Dost thou like the
picture, dearest?" As a natural historian, it is our task to hew
to the line, and let the chips fall where they will.
Among the wild animals there are but few degenerate and unmoral
species. In some very upright species there are occasionally
individual lapses from virtue. A famous case in point is the rogue
elephant, who goes from meanness to meanness until he becomes
unbearable. Then he is driven out of the herd; he becomes an
outcast and a bandit, and he upsets carts, maims bullocks, tears
down huts and finally murders natives until the nearest local
sahib gets after him, and ends his career with a bullet through
his wicked brain.
In my opinion the gray wolf of North America (like his congener in
the Old World) is the most degenerate and unmoral mammal species
on earth. He murders his wounded packmates, he is a greedy
cannibal, he will attack his wife and chew her unmercifully. On
the other hand, his one redeeming trait is that he helps to rear
the pups,--when they are successfully defended from him by their
mother!
The wolverine makes a specialty of devilish and uncanny cunning
and energy in destroying the property of man. Trappers have told
us that when a wolverine invades a trapper's cabin in his absence,
he destroys very nearly its entire contents. The food that he can
neither eat nor carry away he defiles in such a manner that the
hungriest man is unable to eat it. This seems to be a trait of
this species only,--among wild animals; but during the recent war
it was asserted that similar acts were committed by soldiers in
the captured and occupied villas of northern France.
The domestication of the dog has developed a new type of animal
criminal. The sheep-killing dog is in a class by himself. The wild
dog hunts in the broad light of day, often running down game by
the relay system. The sheep-killing dog is a cunning night
assassin, a deceiver of his master, a shrewd hider of criminal
evidence, a sanctimonious hypocrite by day but a bloody-minded
murderer under cover of darkness. Sometimes his cunning is almost
beyond belief. Now, can anyone tell us how much of this particular
evolution is due to the influence of Man upon Dog through a
hundred generations of captivity and association? Has the dog
learned from man the science of moral banditry, the best methods
for the concealment of evidence, and how to dissemble?
Elsewhere a chapter is devoted to the crimes of wild animals; but
the great majority of the cases cited were found among _captive_
animals, where abnormal conditions produced exceptional results.
The crimes of captive animals are many, but the crimes of free wild
animals are comparatively few. Whenever we disturb the delicate
and precise balance of nature we may expect abnormal results.
XIX
THE LAWS OF THE FLOCKS AND THE HERDS
Through a thousand generations of breeding and living under
natural conditions, and of self-maintenance against enemies and
evil conditions, the wild flocks and herds of beasts and birds
have evolved a short code of community laws that make for their
own continued existence.
And they do more than that. When free from the evil influences of
man, those flock-and-herd laws promote, and actually produce,
peace, prosperity and happiness. This is no fantastic theory of
the friends of animals. It is a fact, just as evident to the
thinking mind as the presence of the sun at high noon.
The first wild birds and quadrupeds found themselves beset by
climatic conditions of various degrees and kinds of rigor and
destructive power. In the torrid zone it took the form of
excessive rain and humidity, excessive heat, or excessive dryness
and aridity. In the temperate and frigid zones, life was a
seasonal battle with bitter cold, torrents of cold rain in early
winter or spring, devastating sleet, and deep snow and ice that
left no room for argument.
At the same time, the species that were not predatory found
themselves surrounded by fangs and claws, and the never-ending
hunger of their owners. The air, the earth and the waters swarmed
with predatory animals, great and small, ever seeking for the
herbivorous and traitorous species, and preferably those that
were least able to fight or to flee. The La Brea fossil beds at
Los Angeles, wherein a hospitable lake of warm asphalt conserved
skeletal remains of vertebrates to an extent and perfection quite
unparalleled, have revealed some very remarkable conditions. The
enormous output, up to date, of skulls of huge lions, wolves,
sabre-toothed tigers, bears and other predatory animals, shows,
for once, just what the camels, llamas, deer, bison and mammoths
of those days had to do, to be, and to suffer in order to survive.
With the aid of a little serious study, it is by no means
difficult to recognize the hard laws that have enabled the
elephant, bison, sheep, goats, deer, antelope, gazelles, fur-seal,
walrus and others to survive and increase. From the wild animal
herds and bird flocks that we have seen and personally known,
_we know what their laws are,_ and can set them down in the
order of their evolution and importance.
The First Law. _There shall be no fighting in the family, the
herd or the species, at any other time than in the mating season;
and then only between adult males who fight for herd
leadership._
The destructiveness of intertribal warfare, either organized or
desultory, must have been recognized in Jurassic times, millions
of years ago, by the reptiles of that period. Throughout the
animal kingdom below man the blessings of peace now are thoroughly
known. This first law is obeyed by all species save man. We doubt
whether all the testimony of the rocks added together can show
that one wild species of vertebrate life ever really was
exterminated by another species, not even excepting the predatory
species which lived by killing.
No one (so far as we know) has charged that the lions, or the
tigers, the bears, the orcas, the eagles or the owls have ever
obliterated a species during historic times. It was the swine of
civilization, transplanted by human agencies, that exterminated
the dodo on the Island of Mauritius; and it was men, not birds of
prey, who swept off the earth the great auk, the passenger pigeon
and a dozen other bird species.
The Second Law. _The strong members of a flock or herd shall not
bully nor oppress the weak._
This law, constantly broken by degenerate and vicious men, women
and children, very rarely is broken in a free wild herd or flock.
In the observance of this fundamental law, born of ethics and
expediency, mankind is far behind the wild animals. It would serve
a good purpose if the criminologists and the alienists would
figure out the approximate proportion of the human species now
living that bullies and maltreats and oppresses the weak and the
defenseless. At this moment "society" in the United States is in a
state of thoroughly imbecilic defenselessness against the new
type of predatory savages known as "bandits."
The Third Law. _During the annual period of motherhood, both
prospective and actual, mothers must be held safe from all forms
of molestation; and their young shall in no manner be interfered
with._
For the perpetuation of a family, a clan or a species, the
protection of the mothers, and their weak and helpless offspring
is a necessity recognized by even the dullest vertebrate animals.
As birth-time or nesting-time approaches the wild flocks and herds
universally permit the potential mothers to seek seclusion, and to
work out their respective problems according to their own judgment
and the means at their command. The coming mother looks for a spot
that will afford (1) a secure hiding-place, (2) the best
available shelter from inclement weather, (3) accessible food and
water, and (4) cover or other protection for her young.
During this period the males often herd together, and they serve a
protective function by attracting to themselves the attacks of
their enemies. For the mothers, the bearing time is a truce time.
There are fox-hunters who roundly assert that in spring fox hounds
have been known to refuse to attack and kill foxes about to become
mothers.
The Fourth Law. _In union there is strength; in separation
there is weakness; and the solitary animal is in the greatest
danger._
It was the wild species of mammals and birds who learned and most
diligently observed this law who became individually the most
numerous. A hundred pairs of eyes, a hundred noses and a hundred
pairs of listening ears increase about ten times the protection of
the single individual against surprise attacks. The solitary
elephant, bison, sheep or goat is far easier to stalk and approach
than a herd, or a herd member. A wolf pack can attack and kill
even the strongest solitary musk-ox, bison or caribou, but the
horned herd is invincible. A lynx can pull down and kill a single
mountain sheep ram, but even the mountain lion does not care to
attack a herd of sheep. It is due solely to the beneficent results
of this clear precept, and the law of defensive union, that any
baboons are today alive in Africa.
The grizzly bear loves mountain-goat meat; but he does not love to
have his inner tube punctured by the deadly little black skewers
on the head of a billy. It is the Mountain Goats' Protective Union
that condemns the silvertip grizzly to laborious digging for
humble little ground-squirrels, instead of killing goats for a
living. The rogue elephant who will not behave himself in the
herd, and will not live up to the herd law, is expelled; and after
that takes place his wicked race is very soon ended by a high-
power bullet, about calibre .26. The last one brought to my notice
was overtaken by Charles Theobald, State Shikaree of Mysore, in a
Ford automobile; and the car outlived the elephant.
The Fifth Law. _Absolute obedience to herd leaders and parents
is essential to the safety of the herd and of the individual; and
this obedience must be prompt and thorough._
Whenever the affairs of grown men and women are dominated by
ignorant, inexperienced and rash juniors, look out for trouble;
for as surely as the sun continues to shine, it will come. With an
acquaintance that comprehends many species of wild quadrupeds and
birds, I do not recall even one herd or flock that I have seen led
by its young members. There are no young spendthrifts among the
wild animals. For them, youthful folly is too expensive to be
tolerated. The older members of the clan are responsible for its
safety, and therefore do they demand obedience to their orders.
They have their commands, and they have a sign language by which
they convey them in terms that are silent but unmistakable. They
order "Halt," and the herd stops, at once. At the command
"Attention," each herd member "freezes" where he stands, and
intently looks, listens and scents the air. At the order "Feed at
will," the tension slowly relaxes; but if the order is "Fly!" the
whole herd is off in a body, as if propelled by one mind and one
power.
My first knowledge of this law of the flock came down to me from
the blue ether when I first saw, in my boyhood, a V-shaped flock
of Canada geese cleaving the sky with straight and steady flight,
and perfect alignment. Even in my boyish mind I realized that the
well-ordered progress of the wild geese was in obedience to
Intelligence and Flock Law. Later on, I saw on the Jersey sands
the mechanical sweeps and curves and doubles of flying flocks of
sandpipers and sanderlings, as absolutely perfect in obedience to
their leaders as the slats of a Venetian blind.
A herd of about thirty elephants, under the influence of a still
alarm and sign signals, once vanished from the brush in front of
me so quickly and so silently that it seemed uncanny. One single
note of command from a gibbon troop leader is sufficient to set
the whole company in instant motion, fleeing at speed and in good
order, with not a sound save the swish of the small branches that
serve as the rungs of their ladder of flight.
In the actual practice of herd leadership in species of ruminant
animals, the largest and most spectacular bull elk or bison is not
always the leader. Frequently it has been observed that a wise old
cow is the actual leader and director of the herd, and that "what
she says, goes." This was particularly remarked to me by James
McNaney during the course of our "last buffalo hunt" in Montana,
in 1886. From 1880 to 1884 he had been a mighty buffalo-hunter,
for hides. He stated that whenever as a still-hunter he got "a
stand on a bunch," and began to shoot, slowly and patiently, so as
not to alarm the stand, whenever a buffalo took alarm and
attempted to lead away the bunch, usually it proved to be a wise
old cow. The bulls seemed too careless to take notice of the
firing and try to lead away from it.
The Sixth Law. _Of food and territory, the weak shall have their
share._
While this law is binding upon all the members of a wild flock, a
herd, a clan or a species, outside of species limits it may become
null and void; though in actual practice I think that this rarely
occurs. Among the hoofed animals; the seals and sea-lions; the
apes, baboons and monkeys, and the kangaroos, the food that is
available to a herd is common to all its members. We can not
recall an instance of a species attempting to dispossess and
evict another species, though it must be that many such have
occurred. In the game-laden plains of eastern Africa, half a dozen
species, such as kongonis, sable antelopes, gazelles and zebras,
often have been observed in one landscape, with no fighting
visible.
With all but the predatory wild animals and man, the prevailing
disposition is to _live, and let live._ One of the few
recorded murders of young animals by an old one of the same
species concerned the wanton killing of two polar bear cubs in
northern Franz Joseph Land, as observed by Nansen.
The Seventh Law. _Man is the deadliest enemy of all the wild
creatures; and the instant a man appears the whole herd must fly
from him, fast and far._
In some of the regions to which man and his death-dealing
influence have not penetrated, this law is not yet on the statute
books of the jungle and the wilderness. Sir Ernest Shackleton and
Captain Scott found it unknown to the giant penguins and sea
leopards of the Antarctic Continent, I have seen a few flocks and
herds by whom the law was either unknown or forgotten; but the
total number is a small one. There was a herd of mountain sheep on
Pinacate Peak, a big flock of sage grouse in Montana, various
flocks of ptarmigan on the summits of the Elk River Mountains,
British Columbia,--and out of a long list of occurrences that is
all I will now recall.
It is fairly common for the members of a vast assemblage of
animals, like the bison, barren-ground caribou, fur seal, and sea
birds on their nesting cliffs, to assume such security from their
numbers as to ignore man; and all such cases are highly
interesting manifestations of the influence of the fourth law when
carried out to six decimal places.
The Eighth and Last Law. _Whenever in a given spot all men cease
to kill us, there may we accept sanctuary and dwell in peace._
This law comes as Amendment 1 to the original Constitution of the
Animal Kingdom. The quick intelligence of wild animals in
recognizing a new sanctuary, and in adopting it unreservedly and
thankfully as their own territory, is to all friends of wild life
a source of wonder and delight. With their own eyes Americans have
seen the effects of sanctuary-making upon bison, elk, mule deer,
white-tailed deer, mountain sheep, mountain goat, prong-horned
antelope, grizzly and black bears, beavers, squirrels, chipmunks,
rabbits, sage grouse, quail, wild ducks and geese, swans, pelicans
brown and white, and literally hundreds of species of smaller
birds of half a dozen orders.
In view of this magnificent and continent-wide manifestation of
discovery, new thought and original conclusion, let no man tell us
that the wild birds and quadrupeds "do not think" and "can not
reason."
The Exceptions of Captivity. When wild animals come into
captivity, a few individuals develop and reveal their worst traits
of character, and much latent wickedness comes to the surface. A
small percentage of individuals become mean and lawless, and a
still smaller number show criminal instincts. These Bolshevistic
individuals commit misdemeanors and crimes such as are unknown in
the wild state. One male ruminant out of perhaps fifty will turn
murderer, and kill a female or a fawn, entirely contrary to the
herd law; and at long intervals a male predatory animal kills his
mate or young.
Occasionally captivity warps wild animal or wild bird character
quite out of shape, though it is a satisfaction to know that the
total proportion of those so affected is very small. Long and
close confinement in a prison-like home, filled with more daily
cares and worries than any animal cage has of iron bars, has sent
many a human wife and mother to an insane asylum; but the super-
humanitarians who rail out at the existence of zoological parks
and zoos are troubled by that not at all.
XX
PLAYS AND PASTIMES OF ANIMALS
I approach this subject with a
feeling of satisfaction; but I would not like to state the
number of hours that I have spent in watching the play of our
wild animals.
Out in the wilds, where the bears, sheep and goats live and
thrive, the outdoorsmen see comparatively few wild animals at
play. No matter what the season, the dangers of the wilderness and
mountain summit remain the same. When kids and lambs are young,
the eaglets are hungriest, and their mothers are most determined
in their hunting. After September 1, the deadly still-hunters are
out, and strained watchfulness is the unvarying rule, from dawn
until dark.