This failure of feeling righted itself in time, presumably by a vicarious and intenser sense being acquired by the skin of the outer side of the foot. In all other respects the loss of the toes discovered no inconvenience. =Animals' Bites.=--That there is something more serious than the mere wound in the bite even of a healthy animal is attested by Mr. Pagin Thornton, from a chapter in his own experience, and in the testimony of a number of his own friends who have suffered for weeks together from having been bitten. "And what is more surprising to me," he says, "is that some of us may have hands crippled for some time from bites of a man's teeth." Dog bites are always dangerous, but largely from the size of the wound which a dog biting in earnest will inflict. With men they usually fail to do their best. Animals recover from wounds more easily than men do; but Lord Ebrington says that deer bitten by the dogs in Exmoor hardly ever recover. Much of the poisoning caused by bites is supposed to be due to the state of the animal's teeth; and in this way the bite of a herbivorous animal, whose teeth are usually soiled, may cause worse after effects than that of a carnivore, whose wet mouth and wet tongue keep its teeth fairly clean. A similar difference is observable in the effects of being clawed and bitten by carnivora. Wounds made by the claws of leopards are poisonous, while those caused by the teeth are rarely septic. The force with which a bite in earnest is inflicted is an important element in its dangerous character. "It seems," says the London Spectator, "as if for the moment the animal threw all its force into the combination of muscular action which we call a 'bite.' In most cases the mere shock of impact, as the beast hurls itself on its enemy, is entirely demoralizing, or inflicts physical injury. A muzzled mastiff will hurl a man to the ground in the effort to fasten its teeth in his throat or shoulder. Then, the driving and crushing force of the jaw muscles is astonishing." Sir Samuel Baker noticed that the tiger usually seized an Indian native by the shoulder, and with one jaw on one side and the other on the other bit clean through chest and back. In nearly all cases the bite penetrates to the lungs. This kind of wound is characteristic of the bites of the _felidæ_. Hardly any bird recovers from a cat's bite, for the same reason. The canine teeth are almost instantly driven through the lung under the wing.