American Museum of Natural History, New York
DIPLODOCUS. THE PREHISTORIC ANIMALS, ALSO, UNDOUBTEDLY HAD THEIR SCAVENGERS AND CRIMINALS.
In spite of their valuable services, mankind hates the hyenas. This is probably because of their absolute cowardice, for they will never attack a living creature unless it is weak from illness. Sometimes they steal a baby, never killing it outright, but carrying it away to their dens to starve it to death before mutilating its body. If the courage of this beast equalled his strength, he would be the despot of the desert. But he is like his fellow workman, the jackal, cowardly to the last degree.
Neither of them ever attempts to put an enemy to flight by legitimate means. They resort to fakery: one howls, and the other wrinkles his face in great anger. The jackal's greatest asset and protection, when he meets with an enemy, is bluff. He raises his ugly mane, lifts his ungainly shoulders and assumes the look of a Jason, while in reality he is as harmless as a mouse, and the smallest child could drive him away with a twig. His bravery is all pose—a make-believe game—which he plays over and over again with every one he meets.
A noted American scavenger is the peccary, a species of wild hog, whose home ranges from Texas to the Pampas of South America. He is a devourer of creatures more obnoxious than himself. He moves with great rapidity, is always on the alert, and stops at nothing from mountains to a flowing river. When he attacks an enemy he makes short work of him.
Bands of these hogs are led by a chief, who is the swiftest and fiercest of the herd. This aggressive leader is followed by successive lines of males, behind which come the strong females, while the rear is brought up by the old, the sick, and the young. In marching, they have the discipline of a trained army, and turn neither to the right nor to the left but go straight ahead. If the leader, for any cause, decides to change his route, the fact is quickly made known in some way to his followers, and the turn is made at a direct angle, with the accuracy of a surveyor, and the peccaries go forward again directly toward their new destination. This is another evidence of a special sense unknown to man.
But whenever a stop is made, or wherever they go, they do their work as scavengers. Fallen fruits, dead animals, insects, snakes, and worms are their prey. Thus they are valuable forest sweepers.
Strangely enough, in the animal world, as in the human, the lower professions are filled with those of less mentality than the higher, and as a result we find scavengers are nearest allied to criminals. The idea of one creature killing and eating another seems terrible. Yet they do, and most often do human beings commit the same crime. Cannibalism among wild animals is a common occurrence. The demand for food usually causes one animal to kill and devour another. But in captivity there are other causes for cannibalism: fear and excitement will oftentimes cause a mother to destroy her offspring.
It is a case of dog eat dog! Badgers often kill and devour their young. Wolves, in cases of extreme hunger, will eat their puppies; and Arctic travellers, when food for their dogs is scarce, have to guard constantly against the stronger eating the weaker. I once caught a mother field mouse with her two young and placed them in a cage; the next day the young had strangely disappeared, but I am not sure that the mother had eaten them. Hogs, cats, and rabbits will sometimes kill and eat their young even when food is plentiful. Crocodiles show an occasional cannibalistic tendency, while water-shrews are very pugnacious and oftentimes fight until one is killed. The victorious one eats his enemy! Thus it appears that Nature does not entirely disapprove of cannibalism, or she would not allow so many of her creatures to practise it.