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
The young Kadiak, in full flesh and vigor, first attracted my
attention by her angry and terrified snorting, three quick snorts
to the series. On the top of the rocks she raced to and fro,
constantly eyeing the bear in the centre of the den. If he moved
toward the rocks, she wildly plunged down, snorting and glaring,
and raced to the front end of the den. If the bogey stopped to
lick up a fallen leaf, she took it as a hostile act and wildly
rushed past him and scrambled up the rocks at the farther end of
the den. This was repeated about fifteen times in twenty minutes,
accompanied by a continuous series of terrified snorts. She panted
from exhaustion, frothed at the mouth, and acted like an animal
half crazed by terror.
Not once, however, did the bogey bear pay the slightest attention
to her, and his sleepy manner was anything but terrifying.
These spells of hysteria (without real cause) at last became so
frequent that they seemed likely to injure the growth of a
valuable animal, and finally the bogey bear was removed to another
den.
XXIII
FIGHTING AMONG WILD ANIMALS
Quarrels and combats between wild animals in a state of nature are
almost invariably due to one of two causes--attack and defense in
a struggle for prey, or the jealousy of males during the mating
season. With rare exceptions, battles of the former class occur
between animals of different Orders,--teeth and claws against
horns and hoofs, for instance; and it is a fight to the death.
Hunger forces the aggressor to attack something, and the intended
victim fights because it is attacked. The question of good or ill
temper does not enter in. On both sides it is a case of "must,"
and neither party has any option. Such combats are tests of
agility, strength, and staying powers, and, in a few cases, of
thickness of bone and hide.
How Orang-Utans Fight. Of the comparatively few animals which do
draw blood of their own kind through ill temper or jealousy, I
have never encountered any more given to internecine strife than
orang-utans. Their fighting methods, and their love of fighting,
are highly suggestive of the temper and actions of the human
tough. They fight by biting, and usually it is the fingers and
toes that suffer. Of twenty-seven orang-utans I shot in Borneo,
and twelve more that were shot for me by native hunters, five were
fighters, and had had one or more fingers or toes bitten off in
battle. Those specimens were taken in the days when the museums of
America were one and all destitute of anthropoid apes.
A gorilla, chimpanzee, or orang-utan, being heavy of body, short
of neck, and by no means nimble footed, cannot spring upon an
adversary, choose a vulnerable spot, and bite to kill; but what it
lacks in agility it makes up in length and strength of arm and
hand. It seizes its antagonist's hand, carries it to its own
mouth, and bites at the fingers. Usually, the bitten finger is
severed as evenly as by a surgeon's amputation, and heals quite as
successfully.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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