So numerous as are the instances of love shown by parents among the lower animals towards their offspring, yet it is a very singular fact that few, if any, trustworthy accounts of Filial Love, or the love of children toward their parents, are to be found. But we must look to man if we would understand the lower animals. Even human nature must attain a high state of development before filial love can find any place in the affections. In savages it barely exists at all, and certainly does not survive into mature years. It is the glory of the North American Indian boy, at as early an age as possible, to despise his mother and defy his father. And the women are just as bad as the men. Rejoicing in the pride of youth and strength, they utterly despise the elder and feeble women, even though they be their own mothers, and will tear from their hands the food they are about to eat, on the plea that old women are of no use, and that the food would be much better employed in giving nourishment to the young and strong. The Fijians have not the least scruple in burying a father alive when he becomes infirm, and assist in strangling a mother that she may keep him company in the land of spirits. Both the Bosjesmen of South Africa and the Australian seem to have not the least idea that any duty is owing to a parent from a child, nor have they much notion of duty from a parent toward the child. If the father be angry with any one for any reason, he has a way of relieving his feelings by driving his spear through the body of his wife or child, whichever one of the two happens to be the nearer. Even the mother treats her child with less consideration than a cow does her calf, and leaves the little creature to shift for itself at an age when the children of civilized parents are hardly thought fit to be left alone for a few minutes. This being the case with parental love, it may be readily imagined that filial affection can have not the slightest chance for development, and it is very much to be questioned whether in the savage it can really be said to exist at all in the sense understood by enlightened peoples. Therefore, as in the lower human races, we find that filial love either is very trifling, or is absolutely non-existent, need we wonder that in the lower animals such few, if any, indications of its presence should be found?