nce and protection
best adapted to it. Most of the larger animals are of themselves so
powerful that they need no protection other than that afforded by their
strength, while most of the weaker and less aggressive animals are
provided with some special method of defence.

The tiger, lion, panther, and wolf have formidable claws and teeth;
while the shark has such immense jaws that he can sever the head of a
goat at one bite. And most of them are in reality tyrants. They rule by
tyranny--the oppression of the weak by the strong, whether that strength
be physical or mental,--a trait as common in animals as in man. Among
the animals it takes the commonest form, and they not only oppress the
weak, but actually kill and eat them, even though they oftentimes are
members of the same family. They are exactly like human cannibals, no
better and no worse.

Flight is perhaps the simplest and most natural method of defence. The
swifter animals, however, such as deer, gazelles, and hares, which may
easily escape by running their fastest, do not always use this method,
but have other means so ingenious as to be real arts. Wolves, when they
see that they are outnumbered, will sometimes escape by following the
exact tracks of a single leader through the snow, and from all
appearances only one has passed the way over which a hundred may have
gone. Hares will separate and run in opposite directions, while
gazelles, if too closely pursued, will jump to one side and lie flat on
the earth to escape notice, and as soon as the enemies have passed, run
in the opposite direction.

It oftentimes happens that aggressively disposed animals, like cowardly
men, are apt to try battle with the unlikeliest adversaries. A
missionary from India tells the story of an alligator who was enjoying a
noonday sleep on the bank of a river, when an immense tiger emerged
from the jungle, made straight for the sleeping saurian until within
leaping distance, when he sprang on the alligator's back, and gained a
strangle hold before the sleeping monster could awake. At first the
tiger was master, for the alligator could not bring his huge jaws into
action, and while lashing viciously at the tiger with his tail, he was
dragged into the jungle. What happened there no one could see, but in a
few moments the tiger dashed out of the jungle and disappeared in the
cane brakes, and the alligator reappeared and crawled into the water.

The ape and the baboon are the most s