The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal ObservationsHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Science
The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Animal behavior
Accordingly, we first opened the doors to both outside cages, to
afford for the moment a free circulation of baboons, and then we
opened the partition door. Instantly the two animals rushed
together in raging combat. With a fierce grip each seized the
other by the left cheek; and then began a baboon cyclone. They
spun around on their axis, they rolled over and over on the floor,
and they waltzed in speechless rage over every foot of those two
cages. Strange to say, beyond coughing and gasping they made no
sounds. Never before had we witnessed such a fearsome exhibition
of insane hatred and rage.
As soon as the horrified spectators could bring it about, the wild
fighters were separated; and strange to say, neither of them was
seriously injured. It was a drawn battle.
It is quite difficult to weigh and measure the independent and
abstract courage inherent in any wild animal species. All that can
be done is to grope after the truth. On this subject there can be
almost as many different opinions as there are species of wild
animals.
What animal will go farthest in daring and defying man, even the
man with a gun, in foraging for food?
Unquestionably and indisputably, the lion. This is no idle
repetition of an old belief, or tradition. It is a fact; and we
say this quite mindful of the records made by the grizzly bear,
the Alaskan brown bear, the tiger, the leopard and the jaguar.
"The Man-Eaters of Tsavo" opened up a strange and new chapter in
the life history of the savage lion. That truthful record of an
astounding series of events showed the lion in an attitude of
permanent aggression, backed by amazing and persistent courage.
For several months in that rude construction camp on the arid
bank of the Tsavo River, where a railway bridge was being
constructed on the famous Uganda Railway line of British East
Africa, lions and men struggled mightily and fought with each
other, with living men as the stakes of victory. The book written
by Col. J.H. Patterson, under the title mentioned above, tells a
plain and simple story of the nightly onslaughts of the lions, the
tragedies suffered from them, the constant, the desperate though
often ill-consideredefforts of the white engineers to protect
the terrorized black laborers, and finally the death of the man-
eaters. During a series of battles lasting four long months the
two lions _killed and carried of a total of twenty-eight
men!_ How many natives were killed and not reported never will
be known. The most hair-raising episode of all had a comedy touch,
and fortunately it did not quite end in a tragedy. This is what
happened:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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