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
At the end of a half-hour of fierce struggle, head-to-head, Black
Beauty was overpowered by Apache, and fled from him into the open
range. To emphasize his victory, Apache followed him around and
around at a quiet walk, for several hours; but the beaten bull
always kept a factor of safety of about two hundred feet between
himself and the master of the herd. Convinced that Black Beauty
would no longer dispute his supremacy, Apache at last pronounced
for peace and thought no more about the late unpleasantness. His
rival seemed to accept the situation, and rejoined the herd on the
subdued status of an ex-president.
For several days nothing occurred; but all the while Black Beauty
was biding his time and watching for an opportunity. At last it
came. As Apache lay dozing and ruminating on a sunny hill-side,
his beaten rival quietly drifted around his resting-place,
stealthily secured a good position, and, without a second's
warning plunged his sharp horns deep into the lungs of the
reclining bull. With the mad energy of pent-up and superheated
fury, the assassin delivered stab after stab into the unprotected
side of the helpless victim, and before Apache could gain his feet
he had been gored many times. He lived only a few minutes.
It was foul murder, fully premeditated; and had Black Beauty been
my personal property, he would have been executed for the crime,
without any objections, or motions, or appeals, or far-fetched
certificates of unreasonable doubt.
During the past twenty years a number of persons have been
treacherously murdered by animals they had fed and protected. One
of the most deplorable of these tragedies occurred late in 1906,
near Montclair, New Jersey. Mr. Herbert Bradley was the victim.
While walking through his deer park, he was wantonly attacked by a
white-tailed buck and murdered on the spot. At Helena, Montana, a
strong man armed with a pitchfork was killed by a bull elk. There
have been several other fatalities from elk.
The greater number of such crimes as the above have been committed
by members of the Deer Family (deer, elk, moose and caribou). The
hollow-horned ruminants seem to be different. I believe that
toward their keepers the bison, buffaloes and wild cattle
entertain a certain measure of respect that in members of the Deer
Family often is totally absent. But there are exceptions; and a
very sad and notable case was the murder of Richard W. Rock, of
Henry's Lake, Idaho, in 1903.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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