stone in the twilight she began by gently biting my fingers
without hurting me, as affectionate dogs do to their masters. She
then bit my arm, then my shoulder, and when she had worked
herself up into a passion she put her arms around my neck and bit
my cheeks. It was undoubtedly a curious way of making love, and,
when I had been bitten all over, and was pretty tired of the new
sensation, we retired to our respective homes. Kissing,
apparently, was an unknown art to her."

The significance of biting, and the close relationship which, as
will have to be pointed out later, it reveals to other phenomena,
may be illustrated by some observations which have been made by
Alonzi on the peasant women of Sicily. "The women of the people,"
he remarks, "especially in the districts where crimes of blood
are prevalent, give vent to their affection for their little ones
by kissing and sucking them on the neck and arms till they make
them cry convulsively; all the while they say: 'How sweet you
are! I will bite you, I will gnaw you all over,' exhibiting every
appearance of great pleasure. If a child commits some slight
fault they do not resort to simple blows, but pursue it through
the street and bite it on the face, ears, and arms until the
blood flows. At such moments the face of even a beautiful woman
is transformed, with injected eyes, gnashing teeth, and
convulsive tremors. Among both men and women a very common threat
is 'I will drink your blood.' It is told on ocular evidence that
a man who had murdered another in a quarrel licked the hot blood
from the victim's hand." (G. Alonzi, _Archivio di Psichiatria_,
vol. vi, fasc. 4.) A few years ago a nurse girl in New York was
sentenced to prison for cruelty to the baby in her charge. The
mother had frequently noticed that the child was in pain and at
last discovered the marks of teeth on its legs. The girl admitted
that she had bitten the child because that action gave her
intense pleasure. (_Alienist and Neurologist_, August, 1901, p.
558.) In the light of such observations as these we may
understand a morbid perversion of affection such as was recorded
in the London police news some years ago (1894). A man of 30 was
charged with ill-treating his wife's illegitimate daughter, aged
3, during a period of many months; her lips, eyes, and hands w