CHAPTER X
Deer and Antelope: Their Special Gifts
You have learned by this time that every animal has some special gift, that is, he can do one thing better than most other animals. The deer and the antelope have their special gifts.
First, there is their gift of hearing. I have already told you that the wild buffaloes can hear a long way; but the deer and the antelope can hear still farther.
Let us suppose that a tiger is trying to creep up to a deer through the jungle, as quietly as he can. The tiger is still a long way off, and quite hidden by the bushes, so the deer cannot see him at all. But the deer can hear him coming, even if the tiger takes each step very lightly. Why? Because the deer's ears are so sharp that he can hear even a leaf rustling under the tiger's foot, a long way off. So the deer can run away in good time.
To make him hear still better, the deer can turn or bend his ears to the side from which the sound is coming. You have seen an ordinary cow prick up her ears when she heard somebody coming; and many other animals—even a dog—can do the same.
But the deer can do that best. The shape of his ear is like that of a funnel, so as to pour the sound into his ear, as it were. Then even if there is only a single drop of sound, it gets right into his ear.
And by turning or bending his ear, the deer knows which way the sound is coming. You also can tell which way a sound is coming, if it is loud enough; but the deer can do that even when the sound is very faint. That is very useful to him, as he then knows exactly which way a sneaking tiger is coming, and can run the other way.
I must now tell you that the tiger himself, tries to come so quietly that the deer may not hear him at all; and to help him to do so, his feet are padded with muscles, just like cushions. So it is a kind of trial between the tiger and the deer as to which is the more clever. If the tiger can come so quietly that the deer cannot hear him, then the tiger is more clever than the deer. But if the deer can hear the tiger, even if the tiger comes most quietly, then the deer is more clever than the tiger.
That kind of trial between two different animals as to which is the more clever, goes on in the jungle all the time: and the more clever one wins every time. If the tiger is more clever than the deer, the tiger eats the deer; but if the deer is more clever than the tiger, the deer escapes being eaten. And that is true of all other animals. In fact, one of the great wonders of the jungle is that the animal which is the fittest wins the oftenest; and so he goes on living, whatever may happen to the others.[1]