Wild beasts

The elephant--“My Lord the Elephant,” as he is called in India--takes precedence of other quadrupeds upon several counts. Among these appear conspicuously the facts that he belo...

There is one detestable trait, not uncommon among many species, and shared by a portion of savage mankind, which elephants do not display. They never destroy injured or disabled...

That “the reasoning elephant,” of whom Vartomannus (“_Apud Gesnerum_”) exclaims in terms that have been repeated for nearly two thousand years, “_Vidi elephantos quosdam qui pru...

A field naturalist coming from Africa to India, or any other part of Asia, would be at once struck by the inferior size, darker color, smaller ears, less massive tusks (rudiment...

Existence had its drawbacks, however. Elephants were not eaten in Asia, and not hunted for their ivory to any extent, but they were used in war, and the state of no native princ...

Barras left Neemuch with a number of elephants, and among the rest an old friend and favorite of his, Roghanath Gūj, whose mahout, Ghassee Ram, had been in charge of him for eig...

With respect to the lion of the Atlas, Major Leveson (“Hunting Grounds of the Old World”), General Daumas (“Les Chevaux du Sahara”), and Gérard (“Journal des Chasseurs”) have sh...

Moffat, Lichtenstein, Freeman, Rath, Galton, say with W. C. Kerr (“The Far Interior”) that “when a lion is thoroughly hungry there is no limit to his audacity and daring.” Every...

“I had already had breakfast when this news came, and to save time I took a hunter and a spoorer (tracker) with me and followed the lion. About two hundred yards off we found th...

“Again I crept forward, bending and sometimes crawling beneath the thorns, to avoid the smallest noise. As I approached, the scent became stronger, until at length I felt that I...

It is about time that the usual explanation given for this kind of exceptional conduct upon the part of a beast of prey by those writers who think it necessary to allude to thei...

This beast is very partial to dog meat, and the canine population of countries where panthers abound have an abiding fear of them. Sir Samuel Baker (“The Rifle and Hound in Ceyl...

“The method usually resorted to by old Bamanjee and other native shikáris for killing panthers and leopards, was by tying out a kid, with a line attached to a fish-hook through...

Those qualities which this creature exhibits in procuring food--the varied styles of attack and modes of destruction it makes use of--entitle the American tiger to be considered...

Although Buffon’s extravagances (“Histoire Naturelle”) about this brute’s disposition need not be seriously considered,--such expressions as “_sa ferocité n’est comparable à rie...

Except incidentally, technical details bearing upon character have not been mentioned; the tiger’s size, however, has no doubt a marked influence upon his mental traits. Looking...

Looking around once for a wounded tiger in the Nielgherries by night, Major Leveson and his party drove the beast into a patch of jungle, “not more than fifty yards long by twen...

“I spent nearly a week ... in the destruction of a famous man-eater, that had completely closed several roads, and was estimated to have devoured over a hundred human beings. On...

Like true panthers, these cougars, carcajous, catamounts or pumas (the native title is _sassu-arana_ or false deer) are, according to H. W. Bates (“The Naturalist on the River A...

Candor compels the admission that flattering as would have been some tokens of disinterested affection, he never gave any. What he did was to please himself. When he had no desi...

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...

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 t...

Now if one reads, not all, for that would be impossible, but a great many accounts of actual observations upon wolves, and has at the same time some personal knowledge of these...

There never has been any question with respect to the wolf’s intelligence. His sagacity and cunning are of the highest brute order; and although, if one looks at a longitudinal...

More to the south, and in the vicinity of white settlers, the coyote is oppressed and persecuted; subjected to like usage with that which the common wolf receives. This state of...

Nothing, so far as the author knows, has been advanced upon the subject of a male grizzly’s paternal virtues or conjugal affections. As is the rule with fierce beasts, offspring...

The grizzly is so difficult to kill that he has the reputation of being nearly invulnerable. It is quite true that the species possesses great tenacity of life, and that in extr...