And yet, it was noticeable that during the whole of that astounding panorama of ferae naturae unalloyed by man's baleful influence, no species attacked another, there was no fighting, nor even any threatening of any kind. Had there been a white flag waving over that water-hole, the truce of the wild could not have been more perfect.
Effect of Fear in Captive Animals. Among captive wild animals, by far the most troublesome are those that are obsessed by slavish fear of being harmed. The courageous and supremely confident grizzly or Alaskan brown bear is in his den a good-natured and reliable animal, who obeys orders when the keepers enter the den to do the daily housework and order him to "Get up out of here." The fear-possessed Japanese black bear, Malay sun bear and Indian sloth bear are the ones that are most dangerous, and that sometimes charge the keepers.
Our famous "picture lion," Sultan, was serenely confident of his own powers, his nerves were steady and reliable, and he never cared to attack man or beast. Once when by the error of a fellow keeper the wrong chain was pulled, and the wrong partition door was opened, the working keeper bent his head, and broom in hand walked into what he thought was an empty cage. To his horror, he found himself face to face with Sultan, with only the length of the broom handle between them.
The startled and helpless keeper stood still, and said in a calm voice, without batting an eye.
"Hello, Sultan."
Sultan calmly looked at him, wonderingly and inquiringly, but without even a trace of excitement; and feeling sure that the keeper did not mean to harm him, he seemed to have no thought of attacking.
The keeper quietly backed through the low doorway, and gently closed the door. Had the keeper lost his nerve, and shown it, there might have been a tragedy.
Lions are the best of all carnivorous performing animals, because of their courage, serenity, self-confidence and absence of jumpy nerves. Leopards are the worst, and polar bears stand next, with big chimpanzees as a sure third. Beware of all three.
Exceptions to the Rule of Fear. Fortunately for the wild animal world, there are some exceptions to the rule of fear. I will indicate the kinds of them, and students can supply the individual cases.
Whenever a wild animal species inhabits a spot so remote and inaccessible that man's blighting hand never has fallen upon it, nor in any way influenced its life or its fortunes, that species knows no fear save from the warring elements, and from predatory animals. The wonderful giant penguins found and photographed near the south pole by Sir Ernest Shackleton never had seen nor heard of men, never had been attacked by predatory animals or birds. You may search this wide world over, and you will not find a more striking example of sublime isolation. Those penguins had been living in a penguin's paradise. The sea-leopard seals harmed them not, and until the arrival of the irrepressible British explorer the spell of that antarctic elysium was unbroken.