Chapter C: B. Brown, speaking of the causes, whatever these may be, which (4)

Forks, for instance, those queer talons that were picked up and laid down, excited his curiosity. He examined them, he ate from one with propriety, their glitter attracted him, but he did not understand the rationale of such devices, and their use never failed to fix his attention. Moreover, on occasions when the amenities of social intercourse were in order, he was peaceable enough; not affable by any means, for he never noticed the attendants or appeared to be conscious of their presence. Smoking afforded this observant creature much satisfaction. Smoke itself, if puffed in his face, displeased him, but the preliminaries, striking a match, and the wreaths that floated away and vanished, all this he liked and pondered upon, as he did on certain pictures hung around, and everything that for reasons which can only be guessed at, excited wonder. Professor Prantl lays down the law that a beast cannot think logically; nevertheless, and apart from other facts which refute that decision, it was perfectly plain that Gato solved some problems implying this power. After a course of observations and experiments, it was discovered by him that shadows were not alive because they moved, and then these ceased to be pursued. Much study was requisite to arrive at a conclusion that the sunbeams reflected from a mirror were of the same inanimate nature. This was settled to his satisfaction only after great research. The creature saw this thing done time and again before convincing himself of the resemblance between those luminous shadows and the dark spectra which had formerly deceived him.

Gato grew graver with age, and abandoned many amusements in which he had at one time taken delight. It seemed to his guardian that there was a steady development of his intellect, which showed itself in everything he did. It would be too much to say that he was capable of thinking about his own thoughts, but who shall decide that he was not? With consciousness, memory, and a strong sense of personal identity; filled with innate tendencies, through the medium of which he interpreted external impressions; prone to contemplations that, as his eye and changing attitudes indicated, were not vague, apathetic dreams, no one can know that he did not revive mental states and meditate on centrically initiated ideas.

Personally, and so far as mere individual opinion unsupported by proof goes, the conviction in his friend’s mind is that he did. Often, as with all cats, his brain was torpid. Unconscious cerebration, no doubt, went on, but only dim, transient images floated into the field of consciousness, and fragmentary, isolated, shadow-like pictures of outward things were presented to the “mind’s eye.” It was plain enough when he was in this semi-somnolent condition, and the difference between it and the active exercise of faculty upon something within himself, was unmistakable. He thought, but how, and about what? In his realm of that ideal world so little of which has been explored by man, subjective processes transpired such as we have no clue to and no measure for. The contents of mind, however, must be derivations from experience in a wild beast as much as in a human being. What he had observed, seen, felt, and remembered in that form which his own organization conferred, were manifested characteristically: that is to say, when vivid imaginations excited, or external sense-notices aroused him, the beast of prey awoke at once. The same most likely, or rather, most certainly, must have been true of all mental conditions, but while the animal remained impassive, the fact was indiscernible. When this savage warrior lay before his companion’s arm-chair, and looked straight in his eyes with fixed intensity, calling to mind, perhaps, the things he knew about this man, it was natural that recollections of trainers’ confidences, accounts given by travellers and hunters, one’s own experiences, the many superstitions of civilized and savage peoples, should suggest ideas which had a tendency to color and distort observation upon the part of his _vis-à-vis_.

No one, however, who was not under the influence of a fixed prejudice, could have looked into Gato’s unfaltering orbs and seen there any confirmation of the common belief that brutes such as he are only restrained by fear; or that they have an instinctive sense of reverence and awe in the presence of human beings. All the respect this one felt for his guardian he learned. Besides that, he had superstitions concerning him. In maturity his great size, and reports of the wisdom he had attained to, made the animal famous, so that many persons desired to see him--that is, through the grating at his door. But strangers found no favor with this misanthropist, and he disliked being stared at. Thus, after regarding such intruders with a stern countenance, and taking no notice of his friend under these degrading circumstances, he affected to be unconscious that anybody was there, or else deliberately turned his back upon the visitors. For a time it was supposed that this mark of contempt occurred accidentally. Gato could have had no conception of the significance of this act as it is understood in civilized society, but he did it for reasons of his own, and at length quite evidently on purpose.

As was said, curiosity, which is always indicative of mental development, was an unusually prominent trait in his character. There were numbers of things to which he paid no attention, but when an act attracted his notice and was constantly performed, it appeared to require investigation, and he applied himself to the subject in a manner quite different from that superior air with which ordinary matters were regarded. Books amazed Gato. Nothing could be made out with regard to them by means of scent or sight: they were dead apparently, and not fit to eat. What was in them that never came out? Why should they be watched so closely? This question he never found any satisfactory answer to, and one might see that it often perplexed him. When he was little, reading made him jealous, and he put his paws on the page and invited his friend to play. This mysterious occupation lost its novelty in time, and the desire to romp passed away, but frequently in after days when he observed his companion turn towards the bookcase and get up, he escorted him to the shelves, scrutinized the way in which he looked for a volume, or turned over the leaves of several, and went back to see if anything was at last coming to light about this strange and constant occupation.

Gato resolutely refused to learn English. Why he preferred Spanish, no one knows, but he did, and would only respond to communications made in that tongue. Habit and association had much to do with this, no doubt, but there is reason to think that a distaste for our vernacular was one of the many prejudices which, in a measure, detracted from those qualities which embellished his character. His guardian discoursed to him at length; taught him to do and leave undone numerous things, but had to use the only idiom his pupil chose to acquire any knowledge of. If he were called in English, the perverse creature would not come. He stood and stared like an obstinate child. More than this, if he understood, as no doubt he sometimes did, and even wanted to do what was commanded, but could not, because he had made up his mind never to do anything unless spoken to properly, he got angry. There is no doubt in the writer’s mind that this is a fact, and that the prejudice referred to existed. Force might have been resorted to, of course, but that would have had the effect of deforming his nature after every effort had been made to leave it to its natural expansion, except in so far as its tendencies were prevented from expressing themselves in homicidal acts.

Langworthy, “the lion-tamer,” as the posters called him, used to say that feline beasts, after coming to know one, were infallible physiognomists, but that they had to learn a face before being able to understand its expressions; also that they only read the signs of anger and fear, and never looked for anything else, not caring about approval or kindness, because all the great cats were destitute of affection. Lions, tigers, leopards, and the rest, he believed, scrutinized the countenance chiefly to see if a man were afraid. If so, no assumed look could conceal the fact, and they instantly became dangerous. Privately he scouted the idea that there was any power to overawe animals in one person rather than another, and held that the sole difference between men in this respect depended upon quickness of observation, and especially upon fearlessness.

In the main this squares with what is known of comparative psychology, and of the _Felidæ_ in particular. But like most sweeping assertions upon beasts or men, it is not wholly accurate. Many animals are exceedingly vain, nearly or possibly quite as much so as savage men, and vainer they could not be. Now this trait is inseparable from a desire for praise, and although it is no more necessary to feel any respect or affection for the persons who gratify this longing, than it is to love people because they are able to excite jealousy, creatures with such a disposition will always solicit approbation, and be pleased when it is accorded. Certainly this was the case with Gato, who was fond of display, and delighted in being noticed and admired; who did many things for the express purpose of being praised, and claimed commendation as plainly as if he had been able to speak.

The faces of brutes, similarly with those of human races which differ greatly in appearance from the observer, at first all look alike. But afterwards one begins to discriminate, and finally distinguishes differences between them, and changes in the same individual at different times. While Gato lay by the fountain listening to the wind murmur through the great tamarind boughs that shaded him, heard the water fall, saw the fleecy trade-wind clouds sail slowly overhead, and was evidently neither asleep nor lethargic, but keenly observant of every sight and sound, how easy would it have been to fit his reflections to the scene; “to opine probably and prettily,” as Bacon expresses it, and provide the chained savage with poetic resignation, or indignant sorrow, to make him feel and think in forms as far from reality as the vapors that floated above him were far from being the substantial masses they seemed. Such writings, eloquent and interesting as they often are, do a positive disservice to science. Think, he did: that was to be seen in the eye that softened or grew stern; in its far-away or introverted expression, or quick scrutinizing glance; in the smoothed or corrugated brow, the quivering, contracted, or placid lips; in attitudes indefinably expressive, and variations of his ensemble that cannot be described.

How should human insight penetrate this underworld of the intellect? All things definite there were transmigrations of his own experiences under the stress of heredity. What was emotional, unformed, and yet operative, was the bequest of a wild and free ancestry that sent down their tendencies and traits, gave him his organization, and, with a certainty as inevitable as death, stamped everything that he could think or feel with their “own form and impress.” His ideas were reproductions; his emotions rose into consciousness from unknown depths. The latter set him upon the verge of what his predecessors realized, vaguely revealed their past, prompted those unrecognizable half-memories that are born with every being, prepared him for possibilities from which captivity cut him off, stirred his heart, and made life and the earth all that they were or could be to him.

Varying phases of mind as outwardly evinced, manifested themselves clearly in Gato’s behavior and in his changes of temper. Those serene meditations which had sway during beautiful days, and in the calm of tropical nights, bore little likeness to states of tension that sometimes possessed him when the storms of the rainy season set in. If an African lion is to be seen in his glory, he must be looked at by the lightning’s glare. It is amid tempest and gloom that the full proportions of his nature come forth. So with this lion of another world. Many a time in the course of those nightly interviews which have been referred to, he roused himself from an intense contemplation of his companion, disturbed by thunder and the tumult without. Then while the wind blew unequally, roared through swaying branches, or mourned around the walls that shut him in, he quickened under the influence of over-tones in nature which human beings cannot hear. Storm and darkness wrought upon him as they will not do upon man. Beyond what was visible or audible, there was something that came from within himself; something that wove “the waste fantasies” of his dreams together, and gave character and purpose to ideation. He showed it in profoundly suggestive pantomime. But what “air-drawn” shapes were followed with those long, swift, soft yet heavy steps, on what his eyes were fixed, what feelings and fancies engrossed and transfigured him, gave that fierce energy, and led him in their train, are unknowable. They had no voice, but only with mute motions pointed backward to a past in which humanity shared no part, and which it cannot explore.

Those who have reared beasts of prey, must, it is probable, read works that describe the expression of their emotions with a certain dissatisfaction. Not for the reason that their authors lacked power, the art of observation, or scientific attainments, but merely because they themselves have seen and felt the influence of so much that is too evasive for definite detail. The grander passions may be painted; in virtue of the unstable equilibrium of nervous elements, and that comparatively imperfect system of connections existing between the centres, they are always explosive. But a world of complex, kaleidoscopic views interpose between fury and tranquility. Feeling cannot be continually intense, nor need it necessarily remain unexpressed because it is not violent. Only those emotions which are for the time absorbing have an unmistakable physiognomy, and these both brutes and higher beings feel but rarely. In attempting anything more than a suggestion of the impression produced by current feeling, the observer is liable to become constructive; to picture himself instead of the model, or to lose the subject in the midst of anatomical, physiological, and psychological details.

Unprovoked dislike, antipathy, permanent and constant in special directions, together with antithetical feelings, which are also said to be spontaneous, Gato possessed in abundance. He gave up trying to kill the Apostle John, but liked him no better than did those heathens who boiled the saint in oil. Whether on account of an animosity he had towards all men, or because in his own fashion he became superstitious about the statue, this much is certain, that if dragged up to it, he took offence. On the other hand, Gato made friends with a horse. Every morning when his groom let him out, Said trotted to the rear of the house, put his head over the half-door looking into the court-yard, and asked for a little wine and sugar with a gentle whinny. Sometimes Gato was chained to one of the buttresses of a tamarind and saw him. Often Said walked in on the stone floor and found him loose, as was customary while his guardian remained at home. At first, when actually confronted, the Arab showed a good deal of uneasiness. But the puma was then only half-grown, and upon being reassured, the horse concluded that it was all right, and paid no further attention to him. So this singular compact of neutrality was begun. On Said’s part, it never became anything else. He suffered Gato when a mature and very large animal to walk around him, without any special recognition of his presence, and that was all. On the other hand, the latter respected, or admired, or had some kind of a friendly feeling towards the horse.

In order that he might not remain in that benighted state in which his forefathers lived among wretched Olmecs, Chichemecs, and Otomies whom the Aztecs captured to sacrifice to their war god, it was deemed proper to instruct him in the use and effects of firearms. He approved of cartridges as playthings, and watched them put into the cylinder, but did not think for some time that they were the things that went off and made a noise and flash. When he saw a ball strike, he used to leap at the scar and look for fragments scattered by the shot. Finally, by dint of seeing ammunition exploded, and snuffing empty arms, Gato got some inkling that there was a connection between a pistol he saw charged, and certain effects. Still it is very doubtful whether in his opinion a loaded revolver was dangerous, until experience convinced him that it would kill. In other words, he was taught that which unreclaimed wild beasts find out for themselves everywhere on the face of the earth.

What finished his education in this way, was an incident that very nearly proved disastrous to himself. One summer morning while he was fastened in the court-yard, and his guardian sat reading in his sala, a large rabid dog dashed into the room from the street, and without noticing the motionless figure in a chair, rushed out by an opposite door towards the puma, who lay under a tree. Instant aid was necessary to prevent the latter from being bitten; for although at that time he would have torn the dog to pieces, as he had already done in the case of two or three others, this would not have saved him. He witnessed the whole affair; saw the revolver, the aim and flash, heard the report, beheld the dog fall, struggle a moment, and die. Afterwards its body was dragged nearer to him, so he could feel assured that life was gone. Then for the first time did a realizing sense of the potency of this instrument enter into his mind. Subsequent to this occurrence, it was for a while only necessary to wear a pistol to keep Gato at a distance. Once in an unlucky hour his guardian told a servant to aim one at him by way of experiment, and nothing but the promptest and most determined interference saved the man. Charles Darwin (“Expression of the Emotions,” etc.) says that the physiognomy of fear among cats is difficult to describe because it passes so quickly into that of rage. In this case the transition was instantaneous, and a fine fury it was.

The blare of cavalry trumpets, the roll of drums, and clang of bells, attracted Gato’s attention and made him restless, but he was not “moved by concourse of sweet sounds.” They possessed no meaning, and did not cause him to think or feel. To sing to him was a waste of time, and he looked upon a guitar as something that made an insignificant noise. If the strings were roughly and unexpectedly vibrated, the effect resembled any other sudden interruption of meditation or slumber. He was startled, and apprehension instantly took the form of anger, and then passed quickly when he saw what had disturbed his repose. All physiologists will agree with Spencer that “the existing quantity of nerve force liberated at any moment which produces in some inscrutible way the state we call feeling, _must_ expend itself in some direction, _must_ generate an equivalent manifestation of force somewhere.” The feeling excited, whatever it may be, will flow in accustomed channels, and manifest itself in what Darwin describes as “habitually associated movements.” This law, and that governing antithetical manifestations, is founded in the physical and mental organization of all creatures, and its expressions vary with the differences obtaining among those of different kinds.

Gato and the members of every species belonging to his family are primarily avatars of force. They inherit as predominant traits those feelings and faculties, those physical specializations and particular aptitudes, which tend to make violence successful. When any nervous shock let loose his energy, it flowed from the centres where it was stored through the most permeable tracts; those which had been most frequently traversed in the history of the individual and his race; and as this process was necessarily accompanied by corresponding movements, when the strings of a guitar aroused him suddenly, Gato involuntarily assumed the attitudes and exhibited the temper of an excited beast of prey. If startled, teased, or menaced, if impatient, angry, or even pleased, however different may have been the passing feeling, however variously it was expressed, his character always overshadowed him, and gave an air to every outward act; not always in those set forms which Camper, Le Brun, Bell, and Darwin set forth, but unmistakably, and, of course, by the same means through which the typical representations of passion take place.

That sedateness and inertia which, in _Felidæ_ especially, soon supervene upon the restlessness of kittenhood, showed themselves in Gato at an earlier period than usual. This was in a great degree attributable to his rapid and enormous growth. The energy which under ordinary physiological conditions would have remained free to manifest itself in movement, was expended in building his frame.

Many times on looking up and meeting Gato’s gaze as he lay upon a rug contemplating his friend, the expression of those fiery eyes suggested stories of fascination--Arab legends, African and Hindu superstitions about the mesmeric power possessed by tigers and lions. A good deal has been written on this subject which is not much to the purpose. But no one has shown, or can show, that this influence is impossible, or, as it suggested itself to the author in the course of some experiments upon his puma, that susceptible subjects might not, as in cases reported by Charcot and others, hypnotize themselves. Having no way of getting at the relations subsisting between the centres of his brain with any certainty, it occurred to his guardian that a physiological approximation to their state might be made by means of this kind of an impression, and that it would reveal, to a certain extent at least, what is called by French writers the “solidarity” of that organ. The difficulty lay in the first necessary step, according to Heidenhain; namely, in arresting attention. Czermak’s experiments at Leipzig were made upon creatures of a very different character from Gato. By all accounts, hypnotism is impossible except when attentiveness approaches to a wrapped degree of fixedness. The author tried to act upon his puma, but in vain. A bright object placed above him in front might or might not excite special curiosity. If his keeper held it, he looked at him, and probably wondered what new deviltry he was after then.

Often he grew uneasy, or disgusted perhaps, got up, and lay down with his head averted, or closed his lids. Sometimes he walked away, pretending not to notice his companion, though keenly observant of what he was doing all the while. But this eye-to-eye interview was quite as likely to bring the animal close, make him rub against his comrade, or present his head to be stroked. Whatever he did, however, was done of his own accord, and had no reference to the performances of his associate, or to the willpower exerted and wasted on such occasions.

It was easy to see when Gato was apathetic, and plain enough when he was intoxicated with what Willis and the old anatomists called “animal spirits.” In the mean between these extremes lay the mystery. Who was to decide when the panther patted you gently with his sheathed paw, or put his head before the book, whether these solicitations to take notice of him had their root in a need for sympathy, or were signs of a desire to enjoy some pleasant sensation, such as being scratched or played with? One could only guess at this from the clue given by a knowledge of his character.

Much uncertainty exists with regard to the degree in which his æsthetic sense was developed. Whoever has shown pictures to children and savages, knows the great uncertainty attending their recognition of things which are familiar to them. The puma liked glaring colors and bright objects, yet while capable of identifying a large statue, the preference he exhibited for certain paintings depended most probably on their florid style. If his guardian read a work illustrated with engravings while he looked over his shoulder, they made no perceptible impression upon him. He admired gorgeous parrots that cursed him, and for a long time made hostile demonstrations towards a raven who was too wise not to let him alone. Some of the great hunters have thought that those strong predilections exhibited by tigers for certain beautiful localities which otherwise had nothing to recommend them to the choice of such inmates, were evidence of appreciation upon their part of this advantage.

That conclusion is, however, a very uncertain one, and most likely comes under the head of those observations that Czermak designates as “events viewed unequally”; that is to say, the facts are true, but the inference unwarranted. Gato had not much opportunity of studying nature. When, as happened several times during early life, he was taken into wild and solitary places, his attention concentrated itself upon living things. Beside those he seemed to care for nothing, except, perhaps, to be perverse. He climbed trees and would not come down, hid, and pretended not to hear when he was called. Once, improbable as it seems, he lost himself, and when all hope of recovering him appeared to be gone, here came the little wretch, in a very bad temper, nosing out his friend’s trail, and convinced that he had been tormenting him, and done the whole thing on purpose.

It is time to close these memorabilia. Such facts as the records of his life contribute towards the ways of wild beasts, and illustrating their habits and character, have been now brought forward. A book might be written about his adventures and the traits he displayed, yet most of what was most interesting in his character lies on the border land of actual observation, and cannot be distinctly stated.

The manner in which Gato departed this life was worthy of himself, and may be taken as the last proof of his unchanged savagery of spirit. He had never come into actual conflict with a man, not because of unwillingness, but in consequence of the restraint imposed by confinement, bonds, or his guardian’s presence. On the evening of his death he was fastened by the fountain; when, as it is said, for unhappily the writer was absent, a strange dog appeared, whom he sprang at, breaking his chain close to the collar, and killed. Afterwards he climbed a tree, and while the servants shut themselves up in their apartments, stretched himself out on a limb, and looked down upon the mangled remains of his victim. No doubt the ferocious feelings of his nature were all aroused, and unfortunately just at that time a man rode through the stone passage that in this country serves as a front door. Then the puma came down and flew at him, springing on to the croup of his horse, and wounding, though slightly, both it and its rider. The man being a nervous person, lost his head entirely, and not satisfied with making himself safe in a room whose door was opened to him, must needs fire out of the window with a carbine he found in the apartment. Some people become demented at the sight of their own blood, and this was one of them. He held straight, however, and the ball shattered the animal’s right shoulder and passed backwards into his body. Gato had got between two great roots of the tree when his friend arrived, and that saved him from another shot. The creature was desperate, but too intelligent not to know that he who approached had no part in what he suffered. It was a mortal wound, but death promised to be delayed till that splendid frame was wasted by morbid processes and his life was gasped out in agony. This was not to be endured. The hand of affection did him the last good office, and he died instantly.

Pumas do not charge men in masses. Their victims are chosen among those creatures they find alone. Individuals have sometimes been assailed by more than one. Im Thurn asserts that the “Warracaba tigers” of Guiana, who hunt in families, are pumas. Two persons occasionally appear in authentic records as having been assaulted. Mostly, however, the incidents of any serious adventure of this kind are only known to a single individual, and whether they are ever recounted depends almost entirely upon the way in which the attack is made. A hunter taken by surprise would generally lose his life. This animal is not difficult to kill, and the facility with which it may be disposed of is another reason for disparaging its prowess among the class who most commonly encounter it.

A source of misunderstanding is also found in the special habits of this animal. Those of the _Felidæ_ about which some more or less vague information is most generally diffused, do not climb. The puma is particularly given to doing so wherever forest lands are found within the range of its distribution. Quite as frequently as the Asiatic and African leopard, and more commonly than a jaguar, this beast resorts to trees when pursued. Its reasons for doing so cannot be doubted: it feels at home among the boughs; observation has taught the animal that none of those natural enemies it need avoid can follow. If dogs are on its track, it is well aware that, owing to their superior speed, they are certain to come up with it, and that in taking to the limbs above, its scent will be lost. For this habit but one reason has been commonly assigned; namely, that the puma is a poltroon.

In G. O. Shields’ compilation of monographs upon “The Large Game of North America,” he publishes some narratives that throw light upon the cougar’s character. Revenge is not a very powerful or persistent passion in the _Felidæ_, but cruelty is. Injuries are soon forgotten, and nobody ever knew a lion or tiger to act in this regard like an elephant. The feline beast never forgets, however, or becomes indifferent to the joy of torture. That is why it is fatal to fear it. The sight of this kind of suffering excites all their fell tendencies. Accidents with these animals are not results of abiding hate and premeditated vengeance, but very often of sudden impulse excited by the sight of apprehension. Deep, concentrated, persistent feeling is beyond the _Felidæ_. This is why Dio Cassius’ story of Androcles and his lion is untrue; quite as much a romance of the affections as Balzac’s “Passion du Désert.” Gérard’s touching account of his reunion with Hubert at the _Jardin des Plantes_ fails, in his version of the animal’s feelings, for the same reason--because it is impossible. No doubt the lion he had reared was glad to see him, but that is not what is conveyed. The picture presented is too like that drawn by Homer of the behavior of Ulysses’ dog, when his “far-travelled” master came back, an unrecognized stranger, to Ithaca. No wild beast of the cat kind ever sat for that portrait.

Shields and others inform us that on several occasions “panthers” have been known to accompany women and children for some distance, and play with them, caper about their paths, and pull at their clothes, without doing further harm than was produced by fright. That these creatures act under the influence of playful moods is certain, but that a wild beast should come out of the woods and in pure lightness of heart invite a perfect stranger to romp, appears to be improbable.

Without pretending to decide upon what the mental or emotional state under such circumstances really was, both the natural character of these beasts, and certain well-known devices, not only of theirs, but of allied species, suggest another explanation. One of the most common means for defence resorted to by this family at large, is an assumption of anger, and the pretence of attack--they try to frighten intruders whom they suspect of an intention to do them harm. When a puma crouches and bares its teeth it is not always enraged, but very frequently does this for the reason that it is uneasy, or dislikes what you are doing and wishes to put an end to something disagreeable by terrifying the objectionable person. It might then happen that a cougar would, when startled by an accidental meeting of this kind, assume an offensive attitude with the intention of intimidating the person met. If it succeeded, apprehension might easily give place for a time to its propensity towards torture, and the beast would then behave much in the same manner, apart from actual violence, as if in the course of its pursuit of prey this had been overtaken. Such situations, however, present none of the conditions that tend towards permanence. In default of speedy rescue, the partially aroused tendencies of the puma would soon become fully awakened, and its impulses break out in acts of bloodshed.

Various references have been made to that part of the education of feline beasts by which they are taught not to kill their human associates. One may read a great deal without finding much information on this subject. Most all of the professional trainers whom the writer has exchanged ideas with on this point were of opinion that fear alone would prevent these creatures from becoming dangerous; and it is customary to proceed upon this principle. As soon, however, as any single rule is attempted to be fitted to all cases, it becomes plain that it will not apply. The personality of a cat is not to be compared with that of a man; nevertheless, if one is reared without taking this into account, it will be ruined. Such beings differ so greatly in disposition and temper, in capacity, and the power and willingness to learn, that to force them all alike into a mould, causes mental and moral deformity with the same certainty that a similar proceeding would cause distortion of their bodies if the means used were material restraints to physical development. The system of terrorism is based upon the false assumption that fear is the only feeling which will affect the _Felidæ_ deeply and permanently, and that this can only be excited in one way; namely, by severity.

The intercourse of an average keeper with the animals he has in charge is in most instances of the most limited description. His observations, if he makes any, are more likely to relate to their behavior as either submission or otherwise, than to their general conduct towards himself, and usually, all he has to communicate possesses little interest except to the visiting public, who are easily satisfied, and ready to believe anything. A trainer or tamer, although often an interesting person in virtue of his experiences, is not always an instructive one. As a rule, all that he knows is confined to what has presented itself in the course of a few simple instructions. Experiments are rarely resorted to, both the knowledge of how to conduct them, and the attainments by which their results could be properly interpreted, being from the nature of the case most generally wanting.

A young savage of the cat kind will naturally bite and scratch when enraged, and the only means of discouraging such practices are those of punishment, and a clear demonstration that its hostile attempts are unavailing. No creature belonging to this class could comprehend the difference between right and wrong in an abstract form. But notwithstanding that what is bad in itself is hidden from them, things forbidden come to be quickly learned, and this _malum prohibitum_ no doubt influences their minds in much the same way that, allowing for the inequalities, ceremonial observances and rites affect those of savages. The latter are largely occupied in performing and avoiding a number of actions because they expect personal advantages to accrue in one case, and condign vengeance to be visited upon malpractice in the other. They are superstitious, and so is the brute. Over and above the benefits or penalties these know of, there are others which they imagine but do not know.

To become even in a measure acquainted with pumas, one must take a reasonably good-natured and intelligent specimen in its infancy, and train it as consistently as if it were a child; make it feel the folly and futility of violence towards its tutor, impress it with the constant experience that its tricks and stratagems always fail before that friendly but invincible being who watches over its life and sees everything. Excite the animal’s curiosity and wonder, show it the difference between yourself and others, be just and firm and calm. It will never be anything but a wild beast; but if this is done, it will be such an one as cannot otherwise be met with. Above all, if the interest of this occupation is not enough to affect the risk necessarily incurred, if such a pursuit cannot be followed without apprehension, give it up at once. A loose beast of prey is not a fit associate for a nervous man.

THE WOLF

The wolf represents the typical form among _Canidæ_, and it possesses all the ordinary characters belonging to this group in their highest degree of development. There is but one family in the _Cynoidea_, that of the dogs, and all species of his group fall within the limits of a single genus. “_Canidæ_ display likenesses in structure nearly as great as those which the cats exhibit,” remarks W. N. Lockington (“Riverside Natural History”). Professor Huxley has broken up the aggregate into two groups, dog-like or Thoöid animals, and the _Alopecoids_--those which most resemble wolves. These are marked off from each other by peculiarities of the base of the skull and those parts developed around it. _Canis_, moreover, is a genus which, while it varies very greatly among its included forms, is physiologically so nearly identical that, as Lockington observes, “there is no proof that any species of this family is infertile with any other.”

[_From a photograph by Ottomar Anschütz. Copyright._]]

Wolves are among the wildest, wariest, and most widely removed from human association of all animals. The question whether all kinds--red, black, white, and gray--are of one species or many, may be dismissed at once. Nobody is able to say what specific characteristics really are. _Canis lupus_ is one of the most widely distributed of living forms. His range encircles the world within the arctic zone, and it extends southward into the tropics in America; wolves roam over nearly all Asia, and at one time they were found throughout Europe.

“The common wolf,” says Lockington, “is the largest and fiercest animal of the group, and the only one that is dangerous to man.” Its average length is about four feet six inches, it stands rather more than two feet high at the shoulder, and it is a little higher behind than before. These dimensions vary in geographical varieties; the French wolf being smaller than the German, the Scandinavian larger, heavier, and deeper in the shoulder than the Russian; while wolves on this continent are not so large as those of the Old World. All Asiatic forms north of the Altai Mountains are modifications of the common wolf of Europe, and the same is true of black wolves in the Pyrenees and highlands of France, Spain, Italy, and Russia, as well as of the white, lead-color, black, and dull-red varieties of America. As a rule, the wolf dwindles and degenerates within the tropics. _Canis pallipes_, the Indian form, approaches the jackal, according to Huxley, more closely than the members of any other climatic group, and as Professor Baird remarks, the coyote--_Canis latrans_, replaces the jackal in the New World.

Finally, the wolf, though a flesh-eater and beast of prey, possesses traits of structure which distinguish carnivora less highly specialized than _Felidæ_. Unlike the cats, its limbs are long and less united with the body; freer in their movements, and adapted to running rather than to the short, bounding rush and spring of the latter. Wolves are very powerful animals in proportion to their size; active, hardy, with strong and formidably armed jaws. Their senses are all extremely well developed, their speed is great, and the tireless gallop of the wolf has given rise to stereotyped phrases and comparisons in many languages.

Leaving now the zoölogical relations of wolves, their habits, character, and capacity present themselves for consideration. At the commencement of such an inquiry we find sources of information upon some of these points which are valuable in themselves, and in their general tenor conclusive.

Cuvier (“Règne Animal”) asserts that the wolf is “the most mischievous of all the carnivora of Europe,” and it would have been possible to know this from the folk-lore of those countries alone. In mythology and minstrelsy, in fireside story and local legend, wolves stand foremost among wild beasts in nations of the Celtic and Teutonic stocks. Their fierce visages look out from all the darker superstitions of the Old World, and echoes of their unearthy cry linger in the saddest of its surviving expressions of dread, foreboding, and despair. Hans Sachs called them “the hunting dogs of the Lord”; but this is a conception restricted to a single religion, and nearly everywhere from Greece to Norway, the wolf has been an object of horror and hate, an incarnation of evil, the emblem, agent, or associate of those unseen beings under whose forms terror personified unknown and destructive forces.

All this is not meaningless; great masses of men do not combine to give a “bad eminence” to anything that is insignificant. They do not often fear harmless objects, and they never do so when these are familiar. Cuvier says in his description of the wolf, that “its courage is not in proportion to its strength.” But it is certain that packs once howled at night around Paris, and tore people to pieces in her streets; that they ravaged, and killed man and beast, in every part of Western Europe, made public highways unsafe, and put travellers by forest roads in constant peril of their lives. When the traditions and myths referred to were formed, things were much worse in this respect than in Cuvier’s time, and we may be absolutely sure that these animals’ reputation rests on a strong foundation of fact. It was not the accident of an idle fancy that pictured gaunt gray wolves, dripping with blood, that bore the spirits of death upon northern battle-fields. Geri and Freki, the wolves of Woden, battened on the fallen in Valhalla. On earth and on high, fantasy grouped its most tragic conceptions around “the dark gray beast” of early Sagas; and it was believed that chained in hell, the Fenris wolf awaited that day when the demons of the underworld should be loosed, and with the bursting of the vault of heaven, “the twilight of the gods” would come.

Very little good has ever been said about a wolf. But on the Western Continent there is an almost complete absence of evidence to show that imagination was affected by this creature in the same manner as was common among European nations.

Henry R. Schoolcraft (“Indian Tribes of North America”) remarks that “the turtle, the bear, and the wolf appear to have been primary and honored totems in most tribes.... They are believed to have more or less prominence in the genealogies of all who are organized upon the totemic principle.” None knew wolves better than the aborigines of this country, and it is most improbable that beasts which so powerfully affected the thoughts and feelings of men in a similar social phase elsewhere, failed to conduct themselves similarly here. The cause for this striking difference is probably to be found in the peoples and not in the animals; more especially as every element was present in the situation where the former were placed, that would have fostered the growth of superstition. “The Indian dwelling or wigwam,” says Schoolcraft, “is constantly among wild animals, ... whether enchanted or unenchanted, spirits or real beings, he knows not. He chases them by day, and dreams of them by night.... A dream or a fact is equally potent in the Indian mind. He is intimate with the habits, motions, and characters of all animals, and feels himself peculiarly connected at all times with the animal creation. By the totemic system, he identifies his personal and tribal history and existence with theirs; he thinks himself the peculiar favorite of the Great Spirit, whenever they exist abundantly in his hunting-grounds, and when he dies, the figure of the quadruped, bird, or reptile which has guarded him through life, is put in hieroglyphics on his grave post.”

This is not an exaggerated statement, and the fact is that the wolf was not only a tutelar of gentes and emblem of their confraternity, but also, as in case of the fabled founders of Rome, a protector of helpless innocence. In the cycle of legends and myths that gather around the culture-hero Hiawatha, we find the pretty tale of the “Wolf-brother.” When the orphan child had been forsaken by all who were bound through natural affection to cherish it, wolves admitted the deserted little creature to their company, and gave the food that supported its life.

With southern tribes the coyote takes the place of the northern wolf; and how it happened that this “miserable little cur of an animal,” as Colonel Dodge calls it (“Plains of the Great West”), became the guardian of anybody or anything, passes understanding, unless it be due to the fact that there is more cunning and rascality wrapped up in its skin than exists in that of any other creature whatever. Nevertheless, it is true that this jackal of the West undoubtedly occupies the position spoken of. Dr. Washington Mathews (“Gentile System of the Navajo Indians”) has shown that a coyote is the tutelar of at least three gentes in this great tribe, and Captain John G. Bourke (“Gentile Organization of the Apaches of Arizona”) traced this animal in the same capacity through several branches of the Tinneh family. He found coyote gentes in the Apache, Apache-Mojave, Maricopa tribes, and among the Pueblo Indians as well; at Zuñi, San Filipe, Santana, Zia, and other places. In his “Notes on the Apache Mythology,” Captain Bourke gives a clue to the undeserved honors which this beast has received. His researches make it plain that these natives fully appreciated its astuteness. The coyote made a bet with the bear and won it; and by its means, also, men were provided with fire. There was nothing Prometheus-like in his conduct on this occasion; not a trace of the spirit which prompted the Titan. Far from it; he stole a brand the celestial squirrel dropped, and set fire to the world.

Like other wild beasts, the wolf has suffered at the hands of those who have described him. Men who, according to their own showing, had the most limited opportunities for learning anything about them have so often pronounced authoritatively upon the character of this race, and have so constantly confounded observation with inference, that closet zoölogists are now provided with a body of extemporaneous natural history in which the real animal has become as purely conventional as an Assyrian carving.

Perhaps the only accusation which has not been made against this much abused creature is that of stupidity. Nobody ever suspected a wolf of want of sense; although Buffon (“Histoire Naturelle”) says, “_il devient ingénieux par besoin_,” as if he knew of other and more gifted animals who exerted their minds without any need for doing so.

The common representation which people make to themselves of wolves, and which they are most apt to see in pictures, is that of a pack. There is little doubt, however, that packs are accidental and temporary aggregates. They are not composed of family groups. Their members merely unite for an especial purpose, and disperse when this is at an end. Moreover, it is exceptional to find large numbers together in America under any circumstances. Wolves consort in pairs or small detached bands, and pack temporarily and rarely.

Captain James Forsyth (“Highlands of Central India”), speaking of _Canis pallipes_, an animal whose specific identity with the common form Sir Walter Elliot and Horsfield deny, while Blyth and Jerdon very properly insist upon it, remarks that it is a relatively small and slender beast with comparatively delicate teeth. He gives a narrative of his personal experience which is utterly subversive of many sweeping assertions which have been made upon the subject of their habits and temper.

In the provinces referred to, wolves are very numerous, and are “a plain-loving species.” They “unite in parties of five or six to hunt,” and so far as his observations go, more than these have not been seen together. “Most generally they are found singly or in couples.” The domestic animals upon which these chiefly prey are dogs and goats. “They are the deadly foes of the former, and will stand outside of a village or travellers’ camp, and howl until some inexperienced cur sallies forth to reply, when the lot of that cur will probably be to return no more....

“The loss of human life from these hideous brutes has recently been ascertained to be so great, that a heavy reward is now offered for their destruction. Though not generally venturing beyond children ... yet when confirmed in the habit of man-eating, they do not hesitate to attack, at an advantage, full-grown women, and even adult men. A good many instances occurred during the construction of the railway through the low jungles of Júbbulpúr, of laborers on the works being so attacked, and sometimes killed and eaten. The assault was commonly made by a pair of wolves, one of whom seized the victim by the neck from behind, preventing outcry, while the other, coming swiftly up, tore out the entrails in front. These confirmed man-eaters are described as having been exceedingly wary, and fully able to discriminate between a helpless victim and an armed man.

“In 1861, I was marching through a small village on the borders of the Damoh district, and accidentally heard that for months past a pair of wolves had carried off a child from the centre of the village, in broad daylight. No attempt whatever had been made to kill them, though their haunts were perfectly well known, and lay not a quarter of a mile from the town. A shapeless stone, representing the goddess Devi, under a neighboring tree, had been daubed with vermilion instead, and liberally propitiated with cocoanuts and rice. Their plan of attack was uniform and simple. The village stood on the slope of a hill, at the foot of which was the bed of a stream thickly fringed with grass and bushes. The main street, where children were always at play, ran down the slope of this hill, and while one of the wolves, that one which was smaller than the other, concealed itself among some low bushes between the village and the bottom of the declivity, the other would go round to the top, and, watching for an opportunity, would race down through the street, picking up a child by the way, and make off with it to the thick cover in the nálá. At first the people used to pursue, and sometimes made the marauder drop his prey; but finding, as they said, that in this case the companion wolf usually succeeded in carrying off another of their children in the confusion, while the first was so injured as to be beyond recovery, they ended, like impassive Hindus as they were, by just letting the wolves take away as many of their offspring as they wanted.

“A child of a few years of age had thus been carried off the morning of my arrival. It is scarcely credible that I could not at first get enough beaters to drive the cover where these atrocious brutes were gorging on their unholy meal. At last a few of those outcast helots, who act as village drudges in these parts, were induced to take sticks and accompany my horse keeper, with a hog spear, and my Sikh orderly, with his sword, through the belt of grass, while I posted myself, with a double rifle, behind a tree at the other end. In about five minutes the pair walked leisurely out into the open space within twenty yards of me. They were evidently mother and son; the latter about three parts grown, with a reddish-yellow, well-furred coat, and plump appearance; the mother, a lean and grizzled hag, with hideous pendant dugs, and slaver dropping from her jaws. I gave her the benefit of my first barrel, and she dropped with a shot through both shoulders. The whelp started off, but the second barrel stopped him also, with a bullet in the neck.”