The fact that many birds have developed special “signal organs” for eliciting this type of social inhibition, shows convincingly the blind instinctive nature and the great evolutionary age of these submissive gestures. The young of the water-rail, for example, have a bare red patch at the back of their head which, as they present it meaningly to an older and stronger fellow, takes on a deep red colour. Whether, in higher animals and man, social inhibitions of this kind are equally mechanical, need not for the moment enter into our consideration. Whatever may be the reasons that prevent the dominant individual from injuring the submissive one, whether he is prevented from doing so by a simple and purely mechanical reflex process or by a highly philosophical moral standard, is immaterial to the practical issue. The essential behaviour of the submissive as well as of the dominant partner remains the same: the humbled creature suddenly seems to lose his objections to being injured and removes all obstacles from the path of the killer, and it would seem that the very removal of these outer obstacles raises an insurmountable inner obstruction in the central nervous system of the aggressor.
And what is a human appeal for mercy after all? Is it so very different from what we have just described? The Homeric warrior who wishes to yield and plead mercy, discards helmet and shield, falls on his knees and inclines his head, a set of actions which should make it easier for the enemy to kill, but, in reality, hinders him from doing so. As Shakespeare makes Nestor say of Hector:
Thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ the air,
Not letting it decline on the declined.
Even to-day, we have retained many symbols of such submissive attitudes in a number of our gestures of courtesy: bowing, removal of the hat, and presenting arms in military ceremonial. If we are to believe the ancient epics, an appeal to mercy does not seem to have raised an “inner obstruction” which was entirely insurmountable. Homer’s heroes were certainly not as soft-hearted as the wolves of Whipsnade! In any case, the poet cites numerous instances where the supplicant was slaughtered with or without compunction. The Norse heroic sagas bring us many examples of similar failures of the submissive gesture and it was not till the era of knight-errantry that it was no longer considered “sporting” to kill a man who begged for mercy. The Christian knight is the first who, for reasons of traditional and religious morals, is as chivalrous as is the wolf from the depth of his natural impulses and inhibitions. What a strange paradox!
Of course, the innate, instinctive, fixed inhibitions that prevent an animal from using his weapons indiscriminately against his own kind are only a functional analogy, at the most a slight foreshadowing, a genealogical predecessor of the social morals of man. The worker in comparative ethology does well to be very careful in applying moral criteria to animal behaviour. But here, I must myself own to harbouring sentimental feelings: I think it a truly magnificent thing that one wolf finds himself unable to bite the proffered neck of the other, but still more so that the other relies upon him for this amazing restraint. Mankind can learn a lesson from this, from the animal that Dante calls “la bestia senza pace”. I at least have extracted from it a new and deeper understanding of a wonderful and often misunderstood saying from the Gospel which hitherto had only awakened in me feelings of strong opposition: “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other.” (St Luke VI, 26). A wolf has enlightened me: not so that your enemy may strike you again do you turn the other cheek toward him, but to make him unable to do it.
When, in the course of its evolution, a species of animals develops a weapon which may destroy a fellow-member at one blow, then, in order to survive, it must develop, along with the weapon, a social inhibition to prevent a usage which could endanger the existence of the species. Among the predatory animals, there are only a few which lead so solitary a life that they can, in general, forego such restraint. They come together only at the mating season when the sexual impulse outweighs all others, including that of aggression. Such unsociable hermits are the polar bear and the jaguar; owing to the absence of these social inhibitions, animals of these species, when kept together in Zoos, hold a sorry record for murdering their own kind. The system of special inherited impulses and inhibitions, together with the weapons with which a social species is provided by nature, form a complex which is carefully computed and self-regulating. All living beings have received their weapons through the same process of evolution that moulded their impulses and inhibitions; for the structural plan of the body and the system of behaviour of a species are parts of the same whole.
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
Wordsworth is right: there is only one being in possession of weapons which do not grow on his body and of whose working plan, therefore, the instincts of his species know nothing and in the usage of which he has no correspondingly adequate inhibition. That being is man. With unarrested growth his weapons increase in monstrousness, multiplying horribly within a few decades. But innate impulses and inhibitions, like bodily structures, need time for their development, time on a scale in which geologists and astronomers are accustomed to calculate, and not historians. We did not receive our weapons from nature. We made them ourselves, of our own free will. Which is going to be easier for us in the future, the production of the weapons or the engendering of the feeling of responsibility that should go along with them, the inhibitions without which our race must perish by virtue of its own creations? We must build up these inhibitions purposefully, for we cannot rely upon our instincts. Fourteen years ago, in November 1935, I concluded an article on “Morals and Weapons of Animals”, which appeared in a Viennese journal, with the words, “The day will come when two warring factions will be faced with the possibility of each wiping the other out completely. The day may come when the whole of mankind is divided into two such opposing camps. Shall we then behave like doves or like wolves? The fate of mankind will be settled by the answer to this question.” We may well be apprehensive.
INDEX
Alsatian xviii, 71, 76, 117–19
anteaters (Myrmecophaga Tridactyla Linn.) 39
antelope 101
ape, anthropoid 54–5, 178
avocet (Recurvirostra avocetta Linn.) 90
bears, cave 109; polar 186
beaver 97
beetle, water (Dytiscus) 16–18, 100; whirligig (Gyrinus) 91, 97–8
bird 160–1; Odin’s 6; song 2, 137, 140, 145, 163, see also individual species
blackbird 56, 69
black-cap xix boar, wild 170
buffalo 101
bullfinch 56, 58, 61
buzzard 44, 51
canary 22, 39, 57, 150
caterpillar 38
catfish (Amiurus Nebulosus) xvii, 100
cat 6, 64, 110, 116, 123; Angora 57; reactions of birds to 132–3, 138; Siamese 118
chaffinch 56, 68–9
chameleon 19, 39
chicken 30, 127–8, 139–40, 155, 176
chimpanzee 55
cichlid 22, 30–1, 35, 173; South American (Herichthys cyanoguttatus) 31–4
cockatoo xii, 1, 4, 51, 54; yellow-crested (Cocatoe galerita Linn.) 4, 43–7
condor, Andean 52
coot (Falica atra Linn.) 98
cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo Linn.) xvi, 37
coypu (Myocastor coypu Linn.) 97
crake, little (Torzana parva Linn.) 92
cranes 61
crayfish (Astacus) 14
crow 136–7, 163, 167, 177; hooded 83–4, 125–7
dabchick 56, 67, 68, 94
deer, red xvi, 180; roe xvi, 63, 180–1
dipper (Cinclus cinclus Linn.) 99
dog 6, 21; buying 56–9, 61; fighting between 175–7; as friends 110; language 75–7, 79; playing 64; social order 142
dog types/breeds: Airedale terrier 77, 117; Alsatian xviii 71–2, 76, 117–19; Aureus 111–17, 120; bulldog, miniature French 109; chow xviii, 111, 114, 116–19; dachshu
nd 78, 98; Esquimaux 111; great Dane 111; husky 110–11; jackal 109–10; Lapland 163; Lupus 112–14, 116–18, 120; malemut 111; mongrel 138, 175; Russian lajka 111; samoyede 111; sheep 159; sledge 110, 113, 116, 140; turf (Canis familiaris palustris) 108; wolfhound 111
dolphin 93
dove 21, 150, 174, 187; ring (Streptopelia risoria Pall.) 172–3, 179–82; turtle (Turtur turtur Linn.) xi, 27, 51, 172–3
dragonfly xix, 17; great (Aeschna) 18–20
duck xii, xvii, 94, 97, 99, 146; farmyard 40; golden-eye 6; mallard xvi, xix, 40–1, 132–3; Pekin 41
eagle 48, 50–2, 172–3; American bald-headed 52; golden 50–1; imperial (Aquila heliaca Sav.) 50
finch 69
fish, aquarium and 9, 11–12; disease and 21–2; shrews, food for 91–3, 99–100, 107; ‘symbolic inferiorism’ 148
fish, fighting (Betta splendens) xi, ix, 22–5, 27–30; goldfish 57; jewel (Hemichromis bimaculatus) 35–7; land-climbing (Periophthalmus) 39; trout 14
flea 138
fox 21, 50, 52, 70, 132–3, 172
frog (Rana esculenta Linn.) xix 91, 92, 93, 100–1
goldfinch 56, 62, 63, 162
goose ix, 61, 74, 79, 145; barnyard 127; bean 6; Egyptian xviii, xix; greylag xviii, xix, 1–3, 6–8, 38, 40–1, 73, 75, 90, 120, 146, 150, 154; white-fronted 6; wild 139, 146
goshawk 136 grasshopper 92
grebe 94, 97–8
gull x, 182
hamster, golden 64–6, 72
hare 171–2, 174
hawfinch 56, 61
hedgehog 89, 101
hen 142
heron xvii, 90, 145, 182
hoopoe 81
horse 77, 109
ibis, glossy (Plegadis falcinellus Linn.) 90
jackal 108–9, 112; golden (Canis aureus) 108, 111
jackdaw ix, x, 8, 42–3, 86; at play 122–4; language and 73–6, 79, 83, 178, 182; as pets 124–69
jaguar 186
leech 90–1
lemur 4, 70
leopard 170
lion 16, 48–50, 101, 172, 180
lizard x
magpie 80, 132–3, 158 human 75, 126–7; hares, watching 171–3; jackdaws and 145–6, 149–50, 153–4; mercy and 184–5
marten 162
martin, sand (Riparia riparia Linn.) 56, 70
merganser 6
minnow 14
mole 89, 93
mongoose 70–1
monkey 2, 4, 45, 54, 70–1, 142, 178; capuchin (Cebos capucinus Linn.) 4–5, 54; Javanese (Macacas cynomolgus Linn. or Pithecus fascicularis Raffi) 140; Nemestrinus 140; new world (Platyrrhinae) 4
mosquito 90–1
mouse 64, 96, 123
Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata Linn.) 4
muskrat xvii
nightingale 48, 56, 70, 162
oriole xvii
otter 97
owl 39; dwarf (Otus Scops Linn.) 64; little 56, 64
panther, black xx
parakeet, Blumenau’s (Bratogerys tirica Gmell) 85
parrot 2, 50, 53, 80–2, 85, 129; keeping 57, 61, 69–70; language and 80–3, 85
passerine 50, 70
peacock 128, 146, 183
penguin 93, 98
perch, American sun (Eupomotis gibbosus) xvii
pheasant 84
pigeon 85
pig 44; guinea 57, 64–5
pike xvii
puffer (Diodon hystrix) 39
python 101
quail 56, 69
rabbit 27, 51–2, 65
rail, water (Rallus aquaticus Linn.) 184
rat 1, 18, 64, 104
raven 4, 6, 8, 51, 135, 163; behaviour of 177–9, 181; keeping as pets 70–1, 85–7
redstart, common 163
robin 56, 60–1, 132, 162
rodent 18, 64, 70, 96, 101
rook 158
seal 97
sheep 139
sheldrake, ruddy (Casarca ferruginea Linn.) xviii
shrew (Insectivora) 88; water (Neomys fodiens Pall.) 91–107
shrike, red-backed 80
shrimp freshwater (Carinogammarus) 14
siskin 56, 60–2
skylark 146
smew 6
snail 38
sparrow, house 70, 127, 129, 147
spoonbill 90
squirrel 65, 132
stag, wild 109
starling 56, 58–62, 71, 80, 82
stickleback x, xi, 22, 25–8
stork 44
swan 52–3, 143, 153
tadpole 17, 99–100, 107
thrush 56
tiger 16, 180
tit, bearded 56, 66, 145–6
tortoise 5; Greek (Testudo graeca Linn.) 61
turkey 182–3
vulture 81
wapiti xvii
warbler 69, 150; yellow (Hippolais icterina Vieill.) 80
whale, killer (orca orca Linn.) 16, 93
whitethroat 55
wolf ix, 16, 18, 21, 50, 52, 112, 187; behaviour of 140, 172, 174, 179, 181–2, 185; Mowgli and 127; northern (Canis lupus) 111, 113; timber 174–7
worms 36, 89, 92; feeding author with 129–30, 147; feeding birds with 59–60, 67
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Foreword by Julian Huxley
Preface
1. Animals as a Nuisance
2. Something that does no Damage: The Aquarium
3. Robbery in the Aquarium
4. Poor Fish
5. Laughing at Animals
6. Pitying Animals
7. Buying Animals*
8. The Language of Animals
9. The Taming of the Shrew
10. The Covenant
11. The Perennial Retainers
12. Morals and Weapons
Index
King Solomon's Ring Page 19