In guarding against evils should we not be as fertile in expedients to
adapt our defense to the kind of weapons we possess as some cattle are:
The plainsmen on Western cattle-ranches have called attention
to an illustration of the adaptability of animal instinct to
emergencies.
The cattle of former days were of the long-horned kind. When the
herd was threatened with an attack by wolves, the calves were
placed in the middle of the bunch and the older animals formed
themselves into a solid phalanx about them, all facing outward.
The cattle of to-day are largely hornless. If, as occasionally
happens still, the herd is attacked by wolves, the calves are
guarded as before, but the herd faces in instead of out. Their
hoofs, not their horns, are now their weapons.
(1642)
=Instinct of Animals=--See FAITH BETTER THAN SIGHT.
=Instinct of Insects=--See SHELTER.