Wild beast

“ To assume that every wild beast and bird is a sacred creature, peacefully dwelling in an earthly paradise, is a mistake. They have their wisdom and their folly, their joys and their sorrows, their trials and tribulations. ”

“ The Beast that dwells under every man's skin, in a greater or less degree, was in the full ascendancy at last. The unnamable ferocity that marks the death-leap of the wild hunters was in his face. In his eyes was cunning,—such craft as marks the pack in its hunting. All over him was written that unearthly rage that is alone the property and trait of the woods creatures: the fury with which a she-wolf fights for her cubs or a rattlesnake avenges the death of its mate. Mercy, remorse, compassion there was none. ”

“ And I was standing on the sand of the sea, and saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and on his heads names of reviling. And the wild beast, which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world admired and followed the beast. ”

“ How easily or to what extent this was done we cannot decide; for to imagine that a wild beast could come out of the forest, and instantly become an experienced master of an entirely new set of circumstances and have the ability to take advantage of every opportunity and overcome all opposition, is preposterous; is nothing less than to suppose an effect without a cause. ”

“ That these creatures act under the influence of playful moods is certain, but that a wild beast should come out of the woods and in pure lightness of heart invite a perfect stranger to romp, appears to be improbable. ”

“ In his realm of that ideal world so little of which has been explored by man, subjective processes transpired such as we have no clue to and no measure for. The contents of mind, however, must be derivations from experience in a wild beast as much as in a human being. What he had observed, seen, felt, and remembered in that form which his own organization conferred, were manifested characteristically: that is to say, when vivid imaginations excited, or external sense-notices aroused him, the beast of prey awoke at once. ”

“ More is implied than said, and the implication is that an elephant is self-controlled by sentiments that are as foreign to its mind as a pair of wings would be to its body. A wild beast, which while free to follow its own devices and desires, does not conduct itself like a wild beast, is an impossibility in actual life. ”

“ But it is to the terrible character of its attack, to the fact that this is so frequently fatal, and to the awe-inspiring appearance of the beast as it comes on with dilated form and fire-darting eyes, that much of its reputation for more than ordinary ferocity is due. ”

“ As we sit aloft watching, a gleam of water, where when gorged the beast will drink, is visible, and towards that also, each with infinite precaution, and guided by senses of whose range and delicacy of perception human beings cannot conceive, the thirsty denizens of this wilderness take their way. ”

“ The bestiarii, or wild beast fighters, were a class apart from other gladiators. So far as our meagre supply of information goes, these men did not meet a royal tiger as a Ghoorka now does; that is to say, did not trust to perfect nerve, training, and activity, to avoid the brute’s onset, and slay it by striking at advantage; they appeared in armor and actually fought with sword or spear. Considering the style in which lions and tigers combat, one cannot divine the use made of any defensive panoply, which, so far as we can judge, would seem to have been more of an encumbrance than an aid. ”

“ In what possible way can a wild beast that has not been hunted know anything about a man, except that he is an unaccountable-looking little creature, who walks like a bird, and has a very singular odor?
A rogue who infested the Balaghat District is described by Baker as a captured elephant who after a considerable detention escaped to the forest again. “Domestication,” he remarks, “seems to have sharpened its intellect and exaggerated its powers of mischief and cunning.... There was an actual love of homicide in this animal.” ”

“ Shortly he sprang up and began to cut extraordinary capers, at the same time setting up “the most hideous noise, neither a roar nor a growl, but something between the two.”
The beast was trying to frighten off these unwelcome135 visitors who might keep game at a distance and interfere with his supper. No one who watches young wild beasts, and more particularly those of the cat kind, can fail to notice that they continually rehearse the chief acts of their lives under the influence of imagination. A lion’s memory is good, and he can be taught much. ”

“ The First Wild Beast, or the Spirit of Worldliness.—In the chapter of the Revelation which precedes the appearance of the beasts (Revelation xii, 12) the warning had been given, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath.” We are now to witness the fulfillment of this warning. The apostle saw two wild beasts rise, one from the sea, the other from the land, both of them formidable foes and intense in their hostility to the kingdom of Christ. ”

“ The opinion that a wild beast that has tasted human blood is thereby metamorphosed morally, “undergoes a transformation of emotional psychology,” as Professor Romanes expresses it, scarcely deserves a serious refutation. There is not the slightest reason why any such change of character should take place, and of course it does not. But the fact of a wild beast’s taking to man-eating is a sufficient cause for an alteration in habit. What modifies the animal then, however, is not the fact of killing a man, but the discovery of the ease with which he can be destroyed. ”

“ How splendid was her going,
⁠How happy was her joy,
I felt I could not chide her
⁠Nor dared her play destroy.
Yet oft I called “Come hither,
⁠I fear lest thou displace
Some hidden beast or reptile
⁠All savage for the chase.” ”

“ It will never be anything but a wild beast; but if this is done, it will be such an one as cannot otherwise be met with. Above all, if the interest of this occupation is not enough to affect the risk necessarily incurred, if such a pursuit cannot be followed without apprehension, give it up at once. A loose beast of prey is not a fit associate for a nervous man. ”

“ He knew the game, the bitter, cruel game of death, as it is played throughout the wild. With man the inexorable law is, "Get on or get out." In the wild they phrase it another way: "Kill or be killed." Man puts it more politely, perhaps, but it's all the same old natural law, I guess.
The head and snaky neck developed a long, creamy, tawny-spotted body, and the body a long, banded, tapering tail—all set on legs so short, they scarcely kept the owner off the ground; and the name of that beast was genet. ”

“ There were plenty of the wild and infuriated to commence the attack, by hurling stones and beating the unfortunate victim with any weapon with which they might have provided themselves for the occasion, and he was hunted to and fro like a wild beast, until the spark of life was nearly extinct ”

“ The wild beasts are masters of the situation, the men mere intruders, speedily worsted; and this is proved by the fact that where the wolves, lions, and bears are not struggling with human beings, they are devouring each another, the appearance of the poor little scared men being only an interlude in the everlasting massacre of one beast by another. The people who worked this frieze may have pretended, perhaps, that they were expressing the pleasures of hunting ”

“ This most formidable of beasts of prey is not in the least afraid of a man because he is a man; he does not quail at his glance—that enrages him; his voice will not always startle,—it often attracts; nor can the scent of a human being of itself turn him aside—on the contrary, it frequently guides the beast to his prey. ”

“ The beast held a wild-duckling in its jaws, and the little body, with its stuck-out webbed feet, flapped and flopped dismally from side to side, as the animal cantered along with a somewhat shuffling, undulating gait. ”

“ In the event of the barrier being bounded over, the result to the huntsmen depends greatly upon the way in which the beast attacks. Some animals of this species have a curious habit, under such circumstances, of trying to kill all their enemies at once. ”

“ Whenever and however the assault is made, it must needs be a terrible one, and to most creatures at once overwhelming. Imagine a beast like this, so active, so powerful, so armed,—five hundred pounds’ weight of incarnated destructive energy launched by such muscles as his against an enemy. “It has been the personification of ferocity and unsparing cruelty,” says Sir Samuel Baker. ”

“ He nodded to her, and she came and sat by him, and they had more drink, and then he went upstairs into a room with her, and the wild beast rose up within him and screamed, as it has screamed in the Jungle from the dawn of time. ”

“ Injuries are soon forgotten, and nobody ever knew a lion or tiger to act in this regard like an elephant. The feline beast never forgets, however, or becomes indifferent to the joy of torture. That is why it is fatal to fear it. The sight of this kind of suffering excites all their fell tendencies. Accidents with these animals are not results of abiding hate and premeditated vengeance, but very often of sudden impulse excited by the sight of apprehension. Deep, concentrated, persistent feeling is beyond the Felidæ. ”

“ The answer which my trainers have invariably returned to questions on this point of animal nature has been: The wild animal is afraid of man, recognizes him as a strange, dangerous enemy, and is willing to make a safe retreat from him. The carnivorous beast born in captivity is accustomed to the daily sight of man, and has not the wholesome and instinctive fear of him that dwells in the breast of the free-born denizen of the jungle. ”

“ They needed it, for, though clean, the punctures from the otter's canines had gone deep, and a red trail of drops marked the polecat's route to his lair—one of his lairs.
Not, be it noted, that he was entirely ignored. Blood-trails are always items of interest in the wild, especially in the dark hours while man sleeps. Thus there once came to the mouth of the hole scufflings, and the noise as of an eager, inquisitive crowd—rats, who hoped for a chance to get their own back on a detested foe. But one evil snarl from the wounded beast removed them, convinced that the time was not yet. ”

“ A surly beast, awakened suddenly from sleep, or disturbed while feeding, might be nasty; but he nearly always retreats before man, for the fear and the dread of one of Noah’s family are still a tradition with wild beasts. But even in the cases above mentioned his conduct very much depends on yours. In the daylight wild animals, especially the wildebeest and quagga, show but little fear, running up to within fifty yards, and gazing at him as if fascinated. ”

“ Take, for example, the average lion and place him, as he is placed in fact, under the opposite conditions of having been born and reared in a desert, or brought forth amid a cluster of villages and trained to prey upon human beings. That such specimens cannot be the same needs no saying, and if not these, then not any who are differently placed; so that to go into some large province and write about this beast as if the few individuals met with summarized all the possibilities of its race, is manifestly absurd. Actually, and as far as he goes, a lion is as much an individual as a man ”

“ Although somewhat advanced in years, he possessed incredible agility in running and leaping, the natural disposition and propensity of savage wild beasts. The neighboring villages held this man in so great fear that, whenever he entered one of them, all the people fled from him as from a wild beast, believing him to be a violent madman ”

“ Some are braver than others, but as soon as we attempt to find out from the literature of this subject which are the bravest,—young or old, male or female, trained or untrained, wild or tame,—hopelessly contradictory statements crowd upon us from all sides. The highest, the most complete, the severest discipline this beast receives is in the hunting-field, and Colonel MacMaster expresses the general tenor of opinion upon its results in saying, “I have never known an elephant who could be depended upon for dangerous shooting.” ”

“ This is very nearly what must be meant when a beast of prey is called a coward.
Wolves stalk their prey, ambush it, either alone or in collusion with others that drive the game, and they also run it down. The jaw is very powerful and formidably armed, and in proportion to its bulk this creature is exceedingly strong. A wolf, though structurally carnivorous, will eat anything—fish, flesh, or fowl, fresh or putrid, animal or vegetal. ”

“ A cougar’s padded foot, its short massive limbs, which prevent it from chasing prey, the brute’s great powers of concealing itself, and perfect physical adjustment to sudden and violent attacks, are recapitulated as though they had no necessary connection with its behavior, and were not inseparably associated with corresponding peculiarities of character and habit.
A beast of prey passes the active portion of its existence in projecting or executing acts of violence. Habitual success means life, and failure death. ”