Animals

“ I might speak of the use of animals to man for food, for clothing, to bear his burdens, to delight him with their beauty and affection animal. He has animal instincts, desires, passions, tastes, habits, powers, in a word, an animal nature. He possesses not merely the special faculties of one animal. The qualities of all animals are embodied in him. Plants and animals are special forms and qualities of life, all of which are combined in every human being. ”

“ The animals that had forced their way into the centre of the mass to the spot where the blood was, pawed the earth, and dug it up with their horns, and trampled each other down in their frantic excitement. ”

“ Nowhere, perhaps, will you see a bigger and handsomer, healthier, better-groomed, more efficient set of human animals; but their straight-ahead, phlegmatic, expressionless gaze, the want of animated talk, the absence of any show of intelligence, emphasises our feeling that they are animals. ”

“ One occasionally meets with certain wild animals, both male and female, scattered over the country; black, livid and parched by the sun, bound to the soil which they scratch and dig up with desperate obstinacy. They have something which sounds like speech, and when they raise themselves up they show a human face. And, as a fact, they are human beings. ”

“ In a word, their world, like a child's, is full of foreshortening, as of a short cut to fairyland. Their maps are more provocative than pictures. Their half-fabulous animals are monsters, and yet are pets. ”

“ If I write about pets, what kind of pets are they most interested in—dogs or cats, horses or birds, squirrels or fishes? If I write about wild animals, must it be about their homes and what they do, or about the best ways to hunt and trap them? ”

“ Thus the soul is filled with thought images that assume the form of vicious animals, homely visaged fowls, rabid and snarling cats and dogs, leprous and virile serpents, cankerous lizards, slimy intestine worms, hairy and malicious insects. ”

“ Not a book for learning the classification, anatomy, and nomenclature of animals, but to show how animals reached their present development, the effects of environment, their place in Nature, their relations to one another and to the human race. ”

“ Animals differ as widely in their instinctive faculties as men in their judgments; which partly explains why one setter readily follows his master’s word or hand, or enters into his mood, while another remains hopelessly dumb or unresponsive. The telepathic faculty appears more frequently, as we shall see, among birds or animals that habitually live in flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its most striking or impressive manifestation between a mother animal and her young, as if some prenatal influence or control were still at work. ”

“ The wonderful world in which we live is full of animal life. In the great forests, under the ground, on the steep mountainsides, in the depths of the oceans, rivers, streams, from the frigid north to the torrid south, in the parched deserts, are animals of every size, colour, and form, all of which are, in their general form, adapted to their [Pg 211] peculiar places in nature. Their lives and habits undeniably demonstrate proofs of divine wisdom, intelligence, and beneficence. In fact they show an aptitude in many arts and sciences second only to that shown in man. ”

“ I do here understand by the name of Animals all such things as have life, and a vital motion, as Men, all kinds of Beasts, Worms, and Insects, either in the Earth or above the Earth, the Fishes in the Water, the Birds in the Air, and all the Creatures that can move themselves, and that do partake of a visible life. ”

“ From such experiences I judge that the feeling of unsensed danger, or the more subtle feel of a living thing, is as variable in the animals as are their instincts or their social habits. It may be dull in one creature and keen in another of the same species, or alternately awake and asleep in the same creature; but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that it is a widespread gift among birds and beasts. ”

“ The lower animals when subjected to civilized conditions respond to them in precisely the same way as do human creatures. I have examined many domestic and menagerie animals, and have found them, in many cases, myopic, although they neither read, nor write, nor sew, nor set type. ”

“ The Shakesperian conception of the human world as a stage may be paralleled in the animal world. Animals, like human beings, have all a definite rôle to play in the drama of life. Each is given certain equipment in form, colour, voice, demeanour, ambitions, desires, and natural habitat. ”

“ Starting from this base, it may be observed that the liturgical interpreters of the animal world distinguished beasts from animals, including under the former head wild and untamable creatures, and under the second gentle and timid creatures and domestic animals. ”

“ The irresistible and constant apprehension of a purpose in the forms and functions of animals has introduced into the writings of speculators on these subjects various forms of expression, more or less precise, more or less figurative; as, that ‘animals are framed with a view to the part which they have to play;’—that ‘nature does nothing in vain;’ that ‘she employs the best means for her ends;’ and the like. ”

“ The proper place in which to study the minds, manners and morals of wild animals is in the most thickly populated haunts of the most intelligent species. The free and untrammeled animal, busily working out its own destiny unhindered by man, is the beau-ideal animal to observe and to study. ”

“ How wonderful would the human race become, if it had the strength of a lion, the power of a bear, the wisdom of an elephant, the cleverness of a fox, and the health of the wild boar! But these qualities are found chiefly among the animals because of the marvellous knowledge of the laws of health and self-preservation. ”

“ But what are we to say in the case of other animals, as the dog, the cat, and the horse, travelling back from a great distance to their home, without having gained the experience of the pigeon by soaring aloft, and surveying a wide extent of land below? ”

“ You will better understand what I mean by the animal’s aliveness, his uncloying pleasure in the sensation of living, if you can forget any tragical theories or prejudices of animal life which you have chanced to read, and then frankly observe the first untrammeled creature you meet in the outdoor world. Here at your back door, for example, is a flock of birds that come trooping from the snowy woods to your winter feast of crumbs. ”

“ Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. No animal shall wear clothes. No animal shall sleep in a bed. No animal shall drink alcohol. No animal shall kill any other animal. All animals are equal. ”

“ And such, in the main, is the condition of the animal world;—it consists of its two classes,—animals of prey, and the animals upon which they prey: its wars are simply those of the butcher and fisher, lightened by a dash of the enjoyments of the sportsman. ”

“ But both of these animals agree in possessing in common the capability of performing those processes such as taking food, breathing, reproducing, etc., to which attention has been called as being indispensable to all animal life. ”

“ The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends, from which all power proceeds. ”

“ Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous, and fond of ornament, as the peacock. ”

“ They seemed to hold some secret knowledge of and communion with nature that gave them a power over animals; they understood the language of horses, dogs, even insects; they had no fear of any living thing,—knew snakes, bees, spiders, toads, for their friends. ”

“ When we observe an animal possessing that physical form and construction peculiar to its species, we expect to find it practically exhibiting the nature, character, disposition, and habits peculiar to that class of animals. ”

“ The whole story of our dealings with the lower wild animals is the history of our taking advantage of the way in which they judge of everything by its mere label, as it were, so as to ensnare or kill them. Nature, in them, has left matters in this rough way, and made them act always in the manner which would be oftenest right. ”

“ That animals of the higher grades, at least, have this knowledge is very evident; gregarious habits, mutual recognition, the watch and ward system, characteristic of so many species both among mammalia and birds—a thousand circumstances which our readers may call to mind, prove it. ”

“ Every hour from this moment, excepting noon, calls into action new races of animals; and he who spends a day in the scene that environed my existence, when seated at my door, would not know which most to admire,—the forms, hues, or voices of the animals presented to his observation; as at intervals, wonder, admiration, and awe of the power that created them, are forced on the mind.
Forest animals
With the morning's dawn, the monkeys send forth their howl, the grasshoppers and locusts chirp, the frogs and toads give out their notes. ”

“ Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground, others do not; some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat, others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame, the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed. ”

“ Here we must make a distinction betwixt those actions of animals, which are of a vulgar nature, and seem to be on a level with their common capacities, and those more extraordinary instances of sagacity, which they sometimes discover for their own preservation, and the propagation of their species. A dog, that avoids fire and precipices, that shuns strangers, and caresses his master, affords us an instance of the first kind. ”

“ We have now arrived at the highest rank in the scale of animal life—the four-footed, hair-clad, milk-nursed denizens of our woods and fields—the subclass Mammalia, mammals.
These are the "animals" of popular speech, but accuracy requires a more distinctive expression, for every living thing not a plant is an "animal." ”

“ My conviction is that all animals distinctly see in those of other species, living, sentient, intelligent beings like themselves; and that, when birds and mammals meet together, they take pleasure in the consciousness of one [Pg_48] another's presence, in spite of the enormous difference in size, voice, habits, etc. ”

“ We could fill pages with the account of the differences existing between animals created for such different purposes and fitted to inhabit different climates, their mode of feeding and catching prey. The manner of bringing forth and rearing the young, and the temperament and temper of the animal creation would fill a volume, but we cannot now stay to examine these various characteristics. ”

“ but I’ll be even with him.—The Dog is leaky in his Liquor, so I’ll ply him that way, get the Secret from him, and turn this Affair to my own Advantage.—Lions, Wolves, and Vultures don’t live together in Herds, Droves or Flocks.—Of all Animals of Prey, Man is the only sociable one. ”

“ The animals, whether birds, beasts or fishes, insects, reptiles, etc., distinguishing those that are wild from those that are domesticated. The vegetables, and particularly those that are applicable to any useful purpose, whether in medicine, dyeing carpentry, etc. ”

“ Animals arrived, liked the look of the place, took up their quarters, settled down, spread, and flourished. They didn’t bother themselves about the past—they never do; they’re too busy. ”

“ This is especially the case with the many stories that can be told of their powers of thought and special habits and modes of action, and the reader will find here many striking anecdotes of animal intelligence selected out of the multitude that are on record. The story of the whole animal kingdom is pleasing and instructive, and that of the domestic animals, those which have come under man's special care, is specially so, as it is hoped the readers of this work will discover. ”

“ The same can be said of all the animals. Look at the feathers of birds, the leaves and branches of trees, which are given them by nature to preserve their being, and yet have also very great loveliness. ”

“ These animals possess a very acute sense both of sight and smell; and by the peculiar structure of their eyes, which sparkle in the dark, they are able to discover their prey, such as rats and mice, as well in the night as during the day ”

“ These animals, in general, delight in the thickest forests, and often frequent the borders of rivers, and the environs of solitary habitations, where they surprise their prey, and seize equally the tame and wild animals that come there to drink. ”

“ CHAPTER IV.—WITH THE ANIMALS. Children look upon animals as their particular friends and acquaintances. They talk to them and believe that the animals understand them. A desire to know the habits and habitats of animals is among their strongest interests. ”

“ The observant naturalist of the field has the sense—at least he has it if he be endowed with a little imagination—of [216] the immense pleasure which life gives to most wild animals. That instinctive, and in its foundations utterly irrational and animal joy which men have, or should have, in their day, is part of the birthright of all sentient beings. ”

“ These were followed by wild animals, and those remarkable for their beauty, from every part of the world, either led, as in the case of lions, tigers, leopards, by those who from long management of them possessed the same power over them as the groom over his horse, or else drawn along upon low platforms, upon which they were made to perform a thousand antic tricks for the amusement of the gaping and wondering crowds. ”