s are, to children, what the wasp and the rat were
to Gulliver. Put bodily fear out of the case, it required all uncle
Toby's benevolence to bear the buzzing of a gnat while he was eating
his dinner. Children, even when they have no cause to be afraid of
animals, are sometimes in situations to be provoked by them; and the
nice casuist will find it difficult to do strict justice upon the
offended and the offenders.

October 2, 1796. S----, nine years old, took care of his brother
H----'s hot-bed for some time, when H---- was absent from home. He was
extremely anxious about his charge; he took one of his sisters to look
at the hot-bed, showed her a hole where the mice came in, and
expressed great hatred against the whole race. He the same day asked
his mother for a bait for the mouse-trap; his mother refused to give
him one, telling him that she did not wish he should learn to kill
animals. How good nature sometimes leads to the opposite feeling!
S----'s love for his brother's cucumbers made him _imagine_ and
compass the death of the mice. Children should be protected against
animals, which we do not wish that they should hate; if cats scratch
them, and dogs bite them, and mice devour the fruits of their
industry, children must consider these animals as enemies; they cannot
love them, and they may learn the habit of revenge, from being exposed
to their insults and depredations. Pythagoras himself would have
insisted upon his exclusive right to the vegetables on which he was to
subsist, especially if he had raised them by his own care and
industry. Buffon,[88] notwithstanding all his benevolent philosophy,
can scarcely speak with patience of his enemies the field mice; who,
when he was trying experiments upon the culture of forest trees,
tormented him perpetually by their insatiable love of acorns. "_I was
terrified_," says he, "at the discovery of half a bushel, and often a
whole bushel, of acorns in each of the holes inhabited by these little
animals; they had collected these acorns for their winter provision."
The philosopher gave orders immediately for the erection of a great
number of traps, and snares baited with broiled nuts; in less than
three weeks nearly three hundred field mice were killed _or taken
prisoners_. Mankind are obliged to carry on a defensive war with the
animal world. "Eat or be eaten," says Dr. Darwin, is the great law of
nature. It is fortunate for us that there are butchers by profession
in the