And here we must take leave of the Herbivora, and turn our attention to that large army of flesh-feeders which we find throughout all past ages harassing and destroying the vegetable-feeders on all sides, killing their young, falling upon the stragglers, the weak and the aged, and keeping down their numbers by constant persecution. For, since the whole world is teeming with life, and countless new beings are coming into existence day after day, there is no creature on the earth which has not some other creature to prey upon it. Thus, for example, the whole host of small animals, rats and rabbits, moles, shrews, and small birds of all kinds, have their special pursuers in long wiry-bodied civets and ichneumons, weasels, pole-cats, ferrets, pine-martens, and paradoxures, which can work their way into a hole, give chase through the long grass, or climb the trees and feed on birds’ eggs or young birds. There is a vast multitude of these smaller flesh-eating animals, with teeth so sharp that a weasel will kill its prey in a second by piercing the skull by its bite; and they make sad havoc all over the world among young and weak creatures, while a great many of them, such as the weasel tribe, the pole-cat, and the skunk, are themselves protected from larger animals of prey by their disagreeable smell. [Illustration: Fig. 73. The Weasel[173]--a small, long, narrow-bodied carnivorous animal.] Then the birds again have their numbers greatly thinned by the wild cats, tiger-cats, and racoons; while the fox, the badger, and the glutton, do their share in devouring partridges and all ground birds, hares, rabbits, and even lambs and other young creatures. [Illustration: Fig. 74. The Egyptian Ichneumon,[174] a long-bodied carnivore, sucking crocodile’s eggs.] Lastly the fish, too, have their pursuers, for the mink and the otter, though true land animals, seek their food in the water, the sea-otter giving us a hint as to how such flesh-eating animals as seals, which are the great fish-devourers, took to a watery life. But though these smaller flesh-eaters are spread in great numbers over the world, the civets and ichneumons only in the Eastern Hemisphere, the racoons only in America, and the weasels and their relations everywhere, yet the war they carry on is but little seen compared with the ravages of their more imposing relations the wolves, the bears, and the lions, tigers, and their kin. For these animals seek their prey among the buffaloes, antelopes, horses, sheep, and hogs, and where they go they leave the track of blood behind them, and appear indeed as ruthless destroyers.