Initiative in Evolution

A Side-Issue.

This conclusion brings me to the piece of gratuitous advice I offer to the unmarried reader. It will be more likely to appeal to the woman than the man, I believe. Let such an one who is contemplating matrimony make a short study of wrinkles and the long hairs if possible—unfortunately she cannot do this of her prospective mate if he be at all young, for neither of these features will be pronounced as yet. I recommend instead a study of the wrinkles and hairs of the father and mother and a deliberate summing-up of the evidence in this way. If she wishes to have a cheery, genial, hopeful companion in life like B. W. (Fig. 26) let her seek as many arched wrinkles in his parents as possible and avoid very deep vertical wrinkles. If she be herself of that disposi­tion she will want a mate of different qualities and may venture on one whose balance of family wrinkles inclines to the vertical, see Fig. 28, R. N. She can risk that, and perhaps get a more capable and strenuous comrade in life’s battle. But let her beware of him whose wrinkles are all of the vertical kind; for he will be thoughtful, moody, abstracted and not too good-tempered. I would rather myself join my fortunes to one who could claim a large share of arched wrinkles.

CHAPTER IX.
HABITS AND HAIR OF UNGULATES.

Horses.

The Ungulate order has been variously divided by zoologists, and is still said to be composed of two main sections, even-toed and odd-toed Ungulates, with the addition of a good many “outsiders” if one may use the term.

These sections form two sub-orders, and the division suits my purpose here very well. I take the odd-toed sub-order of the Ungulata Vera first.

Lessons from the Domestic Horse.

The domestic horse is the only member of this section that requires detailed attention, and its value for studying the direction of the mammalian hair is great, on account of the immense number of specimens available, the quality and varied distribu­tion of its hair, the size of the animal, and, most of all, our intimate knowledge of its habits of life for many thousands of years.

Many volumes have been written by man about this, his best and second oldest friend among lower animals. His ancestry, his story as servant of man, his virtues, strength, speed, intelligence, his use for war and peace, his colour, varieties of breed and money value; his anatomy, physiology, pathology, his medicine and surgery have all been written by many able men. Indeed before the great revela­tion of what man can be and do that the great war has given us, many observers of mankind were prepared to adapt the saying of a French cynic and to declare: “The more I see of men the better I like horses.” Swift at any rate came near this in his bitter account of a voyage to the Houyhnhnms, which lasted sixteen years and seven months, towards the end of which he said: “For who can read of the virtues I have mentioned in the glorious Houyhnhnms without being ashamed of his own vices, when he considers himself as the reasoning governing animal of his country?” But in all these writings, even in that last striking book by Mr. Roger Pocock, Horses, little or no attention is given to the patterns of its coat from the point of view of science. I remember reading a paper on this subject many years ago before a distinguished company of veterinary surgeons, and though they had glanced at these patterns in a passing way, as peculiarities, no real knowledge of them nor attempt to understand them was shown by this body of experts. They were too “practical” for this view of things. I may remark here that many of the most vocal and active among us, and especially the Germans, have been overmuch disposed to study science ad hoc, for its commercial and military value, though here, as elsewhere one must be tolerant and each follow his own taste, seeking light, more light. One must live and let live.

The horse does his work coram publico in every street of every town, in fields, roads and race-courses, and displays on his hairy coat some graceful patterns which are at the same time subjects for scientific inquiry, and brands of his long servitude to man. I have examined many thousands of horses in some twenty years with never failing interest. Belonging to the large family of Equidæ, including asses, zebras and quaggas, he is the most highly-developed of them all. His habits first, and then the most notable of his hair-patterns must now be considered.

Some Habits of the Horse.

He has few habits which bear on the present subject, and of these his active habits of locomo­tion are far the most important. He has his share of passive habits, for he stands many hours a day, and often sleeps standing, and he does his share in lying down, though Mr. Roger Pocock says he takes no more than four hours’ sleep in this attitude. His rule in lying down is to “lie anyhow,” if one may so describe it, and thus his two passive attitudes of standing and lying, have little or no bearing on the questions before us. His glory is in his gallop, canter, trot and walk. His business is indeed a going concern in more than one sense, perhaps in three. The world is moving fast in its old age, and some men are calculating how long it may take for him to become as nearly extinct as the quagga.

The two regions where the play of great forces comes most powerfully into action during locomo­tion are round about the elbow-joint (which we should be disposed to call the shoulder) and the hip-joint, in which regions the range of extension and flexion, as well as the number of muscles engaged, is much greater than at any other part of the limbs. It is in the neighbourhood of these two regions that the most characteristic of all the patterns of hair are found, and the names given to the patterns (whorls, featherings and crests) in these critical areas are Pectoral (Fig. 30) and Inguinal (see Fig. 31) with a third (G, H, I, Fig. 31) which is called Axillary, and is not constantly present. The main muscles involved in Figs. 30, 31 are shown in Fig. 33. The Frontal (Fig. 32) is another of the critical areas, indirectly concerned in locomo­tion, and will be considered first.

Fig. 32A shows the muscles of the fronto-nasal region of the horse and the manner in which the skin of this central region is pulled upon in divergent and opposing directions, by a long muscle, called the Maxillaris, downwards and outwards, by a small thick muscle, the Corrugator, inwards, by a deeper and more oblique muscle, the Nasalis, downwards and inwards, and a little more remotely by the Temporal muscle, and the intrinsic muscles of the mobile ears. There are thus at least five muscles on each side, all pulling more or less against one another on this much-disturbed area of skin. The struggle has been long ago given up and a compromise arrived at which is registered in the frontal pattern.

Now if anyone doubts whether these comparatively small muscles act often or strongly enough to produce effects on the hair over them he need only consult Mr. Roger Pocock’s book to understand the story of this battle of small forces and its result on the hair.

In his wild state the horse is dependent to a remarkable degree to his sense of smell for his safety from foes (Pocock), and very much less so on his sight. Indeed that writer says his range of good vision is about six yards. At that range his sight is of great value to him for protec­tion from certain of the dangers of his life, and we see in a domestic horse to-day the evidence of his past wild life by his rapid and keen glances at objects at the sides of the road, both when we ride and drive him. His corrugator muscle must be almost constantly in action. But his sense of smell is the sling and stone with which he encounters his Goliaths before they can get near him, and he ceaselessly expands and draws up his flexible nostrils employing his nasalis and his maxillaris for snuffing the air. He has also much useful protec­tion from his sense of hearing and we all know how those mobile ears of his are hardly ever at rest, pointing now forwards, now backwards, and again outwards, as he goes on his way. The degree of these movements is largely a matter of individual character and breeding. The case for a conflict of forces in this region is, I submit, fully made out, and it is easy to see that a radiating pattern of hair, such as there is in the simple whorl, is only the natural outcome of all this complex muscular action. The extension of the whorl upwards in the shape of a feathering which is sufficiently common, indicates that the struggle has been carried beyond the original battle-field by the muscles of the ears.

The pectoral (Fig. 30) pattern lies over the great fleshy masses formed by the pectoral muscles, which draw the fore-limbs upwards and inwards in conjunc­tion with others in the actions of flexion and extension of these limbs. The patterns, A. B. C., are wide expansions of reversed hair beginning in the whorl (A), extending (B) upwards and terminated in a crest (C). This pattern is, like the frontal, invariably present in a domestic horse, and is shared by many other ungulates such as deer and antelopes, as mentioned in the appendix of a small book49, I published in 1901. But in none is it so striking or definite as in the horse. The contractions of these pectoral muscles and their jolt at each step are easily observed in a trotting horse. It is interesting to compare this pattern on the horse’s pectoral region with what is found on the closely allied ass and mule. In the horse it is long and wide and never absent, and is especially well-developed in high-stepping horses whether cart-horses or others selected because of their high action in trotting. Its size, indeed, is a measure of the activity of the pectoral muscles and flexors of the fore-limb. In the ass it is often absent, and, when it is present, it is rudimentary; in the mule it is more frequently present than in the ass, but does not approach the pattern of the horse for size. These degrees of development in horse, ass and mule correspond closely with the locomotive habits of the three animals.

The inguinal (Fig. 31) pattern is one which the most casual observer of a horse cannot fail to notice, and it is so graceful in its shape as to add to the many beauties of its possessor. But in spite of this no breeder of horses has ever taken this pattern as one of the “points” of the animal, so that here again selection, even of the artificial kind, has had no share in its development. It is but a by-product of the locomotive life of the horse, and a very ancient character, for it is present in Przewalski’s horse, a probable ancestor of Equus Caballus. A domestic horse without this pattern would be a freak of Nature. It occurs in equus hemionus, the Thibetan wild ass, but not in zebras or in the quagga.

The inguinal pattern deserves rather more descrip­tion than the two others. It is shown in Fig. 31 as A. B. C. and the muscles which produce it and govern its development are shown in Fig. 33. It starts in a whorl (A) at the fold of skin which passes from the lower part of the abdomen to the hind limb. This radiates and expands into a bilateral and symmetrical expansion shaped like the barbs of a feather. This proceeds upwards in the inguinal hollow in a direction which curves gently with the concavity forwards, dividing the trunk of the animal from the great rounded mass of muscle forming the hind quarters. It extends upwards to the level of the iliac crest where a projec­tion covered by muscles can always be recognised, and over this “iliac crest” of the anatomist it terminates abruptly in a ridge or crest of its own, lying parallel with the long axis of the trunk. It is very pretty to see above it the hair-streams from the back of the animal breaking away like two currents of water on either side of an outstanding rock, the anterior passing with a wide curve forwards and downwards along the flank and the hinder one losing itself more gradually in the original course of the hair-streams of the hind-quarters. No illustra­tion or verbal descrip­tion gives so good a picture as one can get from inspec­tion of the smooth coat of any well-developed domestic horse.

When a few trotting horses are watched by an observer who bears in mind the accompanying pictures of the muscles and the inguinal pattern it can be seen at once how all the conditions are present for fulfilling a gradual change from a primitive slope of hair to these highly-developed patterns, if he has also followed the conclusion reached in Chapter I. that muscular action can change the direction of hair in the individual. If at the same time the degree and extent of the jolt which occurs here at every step be noted, it is seen to be sharply limited to the area covered by this pattern, and ceasing, as it does, abruptly and significantly at the level of the iliac crest. The forward range of the jolt, easily seen in a thin horse, is much wider than the backward, and marks out very closely the extent of the forward curve taken by the anterior hair-stream as it descends from the crest. One may also remark that there is a small but interesting point which one can see during or after a shower of rain, for then the flank of a horse presents a curious distribu­tion of the moisture. At the very point where the forward stream joins the main stream from the thorax and abdomen a definite line of darker moist hair is to be seen and the moist-looking surface is limited to the stream of the trunk and separated from that of the flank. This line of demarca­tion clearly indicates the place where the forward jolt terminates during rapid movement.

The Domestic Ass and Mule.

There are two closely related animals, the domestic ass and the mule, which ought to show this inguinal pattern if affinity and variation could be fairly invoked to account for it on the theory of selection. These are also animals whose mode of life is locomotive, but in a much less degree than the horse and their paces are quieter and less free in character. What then is found in them as to the size or persistence of this pattern? In the ass it is absent or nearly so (I have found one example of its presence), and in the mule it is variable and never occupies more than half the area of that in the horse. These facts agree closely with the hybrid character of the mule and the differing activities of the horse, mule and ass. The pattern in Przewalski’s horse is small and oval and resembles that of the mule. The onager (equus asinus), which is very much like these three domestic animals in form, has an inguinal pattern, much less in size indeed than that of the horse, but well-defined, and this fact is in keeping with its character for remarkable fleetness of foot and activity. The three zebras, Mountain, Grevy’s and Burchell’s, show no inguinal pattern, in spite of their power of rapid locomo­tion and resemblance in size and form to the horse. Though they have that power they exercise it in their wild lives for their own sakes alone, in the intermittent way which is bound up with their habit of life, and not for the sake of man, as in the case of the horse.

The pectoral and inguinal regions of the domestic horse are two of the most valuable fields in the mammalian body for studying the formation by muscular action of patterns of hair, for this animal is the locomotive animal par excellence. Here the process has been carried to the extreme limit, and these two are prominent examples among the characters to which I drew attention in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, “On proposed additions to the accepted systematic characters of certain Mammals,” June 9th, 1904, Vol. I. I am still of the opinion that they deserve “Flag rank,” though they have not yet been promoted. Be that as it may I think it may be well here to compare two animals belonging to the family Equidæ, the horse and zebra, which resemble one another very closely in form—in respect of these patterns.

Horse and Zebra Compared.

If a horse of the hackney type and a zebra were skinned and the bodies of the two animals then examined I suppose a competent anatomist would find some difficulty in distinguishing one from the other so closely do these two allied species of equidæ, one wild and the other domesticated, resemble one another in structure. But in this as in many other questions form is not to be considered alone. The coloura­tion of the two animals is strikingly different, but, in its humble way, the difference of their patterns of hair-arrangement is worthy of notice. The horse in different specimens chosen from a large group will exhibit patterns in the frontal, pectoral and inguinal regions constantly, and variably in less common regions, axillary, cervical and gluteal, that is to say, in six different areas. I have examined many zebras, living and dead, and find no constant pattern in the whole of its large surface of skin except an ill-developed frontal and a very small cervical one—two in all. The mere numerical difference is not the only important one, for the insignificance of the size of the two zebra patterns and the constancy and high development of many of those of the horse are not less significant from the present point of view. I submit that these two animals carry about with them on their hairy coats indubitable records of their personal and ancestral habits. Attention to the facts of a horse’s life and certain related and contrasted facts of the lives of other animals, of which the zebra may be taken as a type, will show the reasons why these patterns are to be looked upon as registers of long-past and present activities of the species concerned. The horse has been developed out of a wild plastic stock with some such ancestors as the wild horse of Przewalski, lately brought to Europe, by a process of selection by man during a thousand generations, first in its Central Asian cradle and later all over the civilized world. It has been as much made by man for his purposes in locomo­tion as a locomotive engine has been made by him. The one has been produced in accordance with the laws of applied physics and the other by those of biology. His locomotive life has come to pass for the needs of higher, or at any rate more cunning creatures, who have availed themselves of the potentialities provided by Nature. The zebra in its habits differs from the horse in the simple, but fundamental point that the former lives the ordinary active life of a wild animal for its own needs of protec­tion against foes and search for food, the latter has not only this activity of life in its organisa­tion, but has, super-added to it by domestica­tion, all the locomotive life of a beast of burden. The zebra presents few, if any, of those phenomena which I have often termed Animal Pedometers,50 so characteristic of the hairy coat of the horse I am reverting here again to the region of metaphor for which I offer no excuse, but only a few remarks as to the use and value of that elusive method of illustra­tion. Metaphor is a figure of speech or writing which consists in a transference of thought from one idea to another. It is, therefore, not a simple substitu­tion of synonymous expressions, nor is it merely a simile. It is in hourly use in the speech and writing of common as well as highly educated persons, and adds much to the ease of communica­tion among us of our thoughts upon subjects which rise somewhat above the level of mere statement of obvious facts. So long as metaphors are not abused by being used as arguments to prove some proposi­tion, but only as illustrations of our meaning, we gain greatly by their legitimate use. It is not for nothing the well-drilled Press of Germany in their journals and its histrionic Emperor in his rhetorical outbursts, make extensive use of metaphors. We are everlastingly reading of Germany’s “biological necessity,” her “iron will to victory,” the “steel ring of field-grey heroes who guard her against a world of devils,” of her “brilliant second,” her “granite walls,” her “future on the water,” the “Admiral of the Atlantic,” “grasping the trident,” and so on in nearly every public utterance of her leaders. They know well their audience and employ these harmless, if often ridiculous, expressions with a definite and legitimate purpose, and are well qualified for creating the public opinion of a nation that dearly loves a phrase.

Well, this term, Animal Pedometers, is used here not for proving anything, but for the purpose of impressing on the mind of the reader the fact of certain patterns on the horse’s skin being intimately related to its locomotive life which, I hope I may assume, has been sufficiently demonstrated in this chapter. A pedometer is one of those works of men devised for his physical and mental advancement which are marked by a precision as well as purpose often absent from Nature’s handiwork. Just as a pedestrian, cyclist, or motorist carries with him his pedometer and tells you with some pride the number of miles he has “done” in a day or hour, so the horse displays urbé et orbi his rougher registers of the locomotive triumphs of his ancestors and himself, and these I call Animal Pedometers by way of metaphor, and patterns by way of fact.

The less striking and rarer patterns of the horse’s hair have been fully described elsewhere,51 and it would serve no useful end to refer to them at length, nor to multiply proofs of the position here maintained.

CHAPTER X.
HABITS AND HAIR OF UNGULATES.

Oxen.

The even-toed section of hoofed animals is a much larger group than the odd-toed, and the difference may be illustrated by looking at the great work on Natural History by Lydekker. There are 273 pages given up to this group and only 112 to the odd-toed, and when we remember that there are contained in it the hippopotamus, all the pigs, oxen, sheep, goats, antelopes, camels, llamas, giraffes and deer, we can see that Lydekker was well justified in the great amount of space devoted to them. But we all have our different forms of penchant, and I propose to say very much less about this section than about the other represented by the domestic horse. It is well to claim the shelter of a great name in such an apportionment of interest, and Professor Poulton has given a clear precedent in his great book called Essays on Evolution. It contains 393 pages and even though the subject of the work is Evolution, he has given up 330 pages approximately, or five-sixths, of his space to insects. This can be gathered from a rough analysis of his various essays, and no one need blame a great biologist for having a penchant for the subject he knows best, or a small one for writing of that he knows a little.

The reason that the even-toed ungulates require less study from the present point of view is that they are so much more marked by the normal or primitive slope of hair than the previous group of Chapter IX. They demonstrate very widely and thoroughly the empire of the primitive or “barbarian” forces and so far are valuable witnesses of the negative kind. No case can well be proved to satisfac­tion by a large series of negatives, and this was the hopeless task Weismann set out to prove, when he staked his all on the non-inheritance of acquired characters—and failed. But negative evidence is of great value in supporting an hypothesis when it is found to be the precise complement to extensive positive evidence brought in favour of that hypothesis. That is the case in regard to the patterns of hair found on oxen, sheep, antelopes, gazelles and deer, to say nothing of hippopotami, pigs and llamas. There are some of these patterns described in the previous group which appear in this larger one, but for size, persistence and frequency they cannot be compared to those of the horse, who has, if I may so say, inherited all the family property in his own person and added to it.

The variations in the present group are fully dealt with in the two earlier books already quoted,52,53, and I will not complicate this chapter by any further remarks on them.

Oxen.

Of the numerous divisions of even-toed ungulates the oxen present the best cases for study of the various ways in which the hair is disposed, and among them the best as well as the most accessible is the domestic ox. Again we have a familiar friend of man and innumerable specimens for examina­tion as in the case of the horse. So this chapter will, like the preceding one, resolve itself into the study of one typical animal, with whose habits of life we are intimately acquainted.

Before describing the habits and hair of the domestic ox or cow, I would like to point out why I value so highly the negative evidence which consists in the comparative rarity of whorls, featherings and crests in even-toed ungulates. This brings us back to the general fact of the raison d’être of the horse and his group on the one hand, and the ox and his numerous relatives on the other. There are deer, antelopes and gazelles which for a spurt would beat any horse and even the Thibetan wild ass, so I am not trying here to disparage the power of this graceful swift group in the matter of sprinting. But this term, however colloquial it may be, clearly marks off the powers and habits of deer, antelopes and gazelles from those of the horse, for, except when trying to escape from an enemy, no deer, antelope or gazelle is fool enough to sprint or even trot for mere pleasure or want of occupa­tion, and certainly not in the service of man. Thus it comes to pass that animal pedometers are few and small in this second group of ungulates, and I submit this negative fact gives strong support to the views advanced throughout this volume.

A Cow’s Habits.

A cow is a very restful animal except when disturbed by extraneous causes, and the active habits of her life are of little interest here, the chief importance of her for study being the passive side of her life or small minor tricks. As a domestic animal she lives to eat—and be eaten and drunk—but her wild ancestors and relatives have had far from an easy life, though this (in them even) has not expressed itself in animal pedometers. But on her neck, back, flanks, legs and haunches the cow has some interesting specimens of areas where the normal hair-slope is reversed in accordance with her habits.

The most striking of these is shown in Figs. 34 and 35, where the bare form of the animal is shown and the dark thick arrows are made paramount in order to make the remarkable arrangement of her hair along the back so clear, that little verbal descrip­tion is needed.

Behind the level of the horns the normal or backward slope proceeds until the middle of the length of the neck is reached, when it encounters transversely a sharp upstanding crest and beyond this the hair is directly reversed from a point over the shoulders, and here a whorl is found. From this point the stream returns to its ancient and normal course and so passes to the tail. When the base of the tail is reached a very significant and apparently whimsical arrangement of the hair down the centre of the tail is observed. This consists in a line of stiff hairs which stand up at right angles to the surface of the tail, and it gradually passes into the normal again when the more muscular part of the tail is passed. I should add here that the crest and reversed hair on the back are common to many wild ungulates of this ruminant group, and a good example of it is seen in an antelope, Oryx Beisa, which I figured and described in a paper at the Zoological Society of London.

Arrangements of its hair so audacious as these need explana­tion, and it is found in the mode of life of the cow. So large a part of its daily life is spent in the business of grazing with her muzzle close to the ground, during which the neck of the animal is constantly stretched downwards from the back at the level of the shoulders, that the skin, which is very loose in this and most other portions of its body, is dragged upon to allow of the extreme flexion of its neck. This traction is for all this time acting against the normal or backward slope of the hairs, and has given rise to this victory of a new force through a thousand generations. It is equally clear that a mechanical explana­tion of the line of erect hairs on the first nine or twelve inches of the tail is forthcoming, for one has only to watch a cow standing on a hot day, undergoing her torment of flies, to see it writ large. Very strong little muscles are found at the base of the tail, those along the more free portion becoming smaller and smaller until they disappear towards the tip. These give a powerful flicking action to the long heavy tail and I once made some observations as to this on a number of cows which were grazing in summer on a comparatively cool wind-swept hillside in the western end of the Isle of Wight. I watched several cows on different occasions and found that one would flick her tail 348 times and another 1082 times per hour. Giving these cows an eight hours’ working day, “working” for their living in grazing and ruminating by turns, one gains a vivid idea of the number of times per diem these powerful muscles of the tail contract. If we call it a day of four hours of grazing and four of ruminating, for the sake of argument, we get 1392 to 4328 flicks of the tail each day in the time of flies, leaving out of account the casual flicks in which she would indulge when flies were not tormenting her. It is hardly necessary to point out how the underlying muscles would drag upon the skin of the tail over them and gradually reverse more or less the “lie” of the hairs. They have not formed into a feathering or complete reversal, but have come near to it.

Further down the haunches of the cow there is on each side at the back of the thigh a curving reversed area of hair which turns upwards and towards the middle line. This is the place where the tail as it swings from side to side sweeps over the limb and brushes upwards the hair of the thigh towards which it is swinging. So that the activity of the tail is responsible for another of the patterns in which the cow’s hair is arranged.

The lower segment of the hind leg exhibits one more reversed area of hair due to the cow’s habit of lying on the ground slightly inclined to one side, for the more comfortable disposing of her limbs, the effect of this attitude being seen in the manner in which the hair on the back of the leg turns inwards.

On the dewlaps and flanks are certain variable curls and turns of hair produced by the frequent twitchings of a muscle situated just under the skin called the “Fly Shaker” or panniculus carnosus. This muscle is seen any day in the carcase of an ox hanging up in a butcher’s shop, and it is interesting to notice the fact that it is distributed over only the lower half of the flank, for the purpose of shaking off flies from a region which the tail does not reach efficiently. None of this sheet of muscle is found within the effective range of the cow’s light artillery, as on the haunches or hinder portion of the spine. This sums up the equipment of patterns of hair on the species of this group of ungulates, which is more adorned with them than any I have examined, and it will be admitted that compared with those of the horse, it is a poor exhibi­tion, but one which it is easy to understand if the fundamental principles of this inquiry are kept in mind.

Light Occupations of the Cow.

I watched lately a little act of this drama among a herd of cows on the Stray at Harrogate during a hot day. There were 105 of them and this was what they were doing all day—some were browsing with their muzzles close to the ground, their necks making a considerable angle with the line of their trunks, others standing stock still with their heads raised at a level with the body, gazing vacantly into space, others lying on the grass more advanced in the strenuous work of their day, ruminating with head level, also gazing at nothing in particular, with their bodies gently rolled to one side, their fore legs doubled straight under them and their hind legs planted to one or other side, and a fourth group still nearer the end of the cycle of work, lying with their chins resting on the ground. When this cycle was completed the stages would again be begun, continued and ended. They were flapping their wide ears in various directions, and twitching endlessly the skin of the flanks and dewlaps with their fly shakers. This large group afforded, if one may so describe it, a cinematographic picture of the lives of countless generations of this conservative animal. Conservative as she is, I doubt not that in the long-past ages her quiet though persistent habits had once a battle to wage for the produc­tion of even these mild innovations that I have described. These present fashions must have been well developed three thousand five hundred years ago and have adorned that “calf, tender and good,” which Abraham in the plains of Mamre fetched for the midday meal of his visitors.

CHAPTER XI.
HABITS AND HAIR OF CARNIVORES.

Cats.

Another large and important order of hair-clad mammals must now be considered, and the same course as in the case of the ungulates will be followed; the two leading families of Felidæ and Canidæ will be taken, and a type of each examined in reference to its hair-distribu­tion. Lydekker gives about 100 pages to the cats and 80 to the dogs, so from the point of view of general biology there seems little to choose between them. The bears, racoons, weasel tribe, seals and walruses may be put out of account. They are painfully old-fashioned or Normal as to the arrangement of their hair.

First things first is always a good rule, and there is little doubt where we ought to begin among the families and species Carnivores. Among Felidæ one cannot unfortunately choose the harmless necessary cat of tiles, areas, firesides and ladies’ laps, to say nothing of those lovers of cats like Huxley who would never eject his cat from his armchair if she had been there before him. It is true that we know much of her daily and nightly mode of life—many of us too much—and in that respect one could set to work with confidence in interpreting her hair patterns, but on account of her long and thick coat we can only speculate what patterns or innovations of her family uniform she might have devised; but here we are not concerned with romance or the “might have beens.” It will be remarked that one perforce unconsciously calls the domestic cat “she” as sailors do their ships. I understand that in Somersetshire they call everything of their common life “he” except the tom-cat who is always “she.” The reasons for the use of genders in different creatures would be an interesting little study.

Lion.

The King of Beasts will, therefore, be the hero of this chapter. Lydekker tells us that the lion, like many heroes of antiquity who are no heroes to their valets, in spite of his character for grandeur, nobility and courage, has been subjected to the merciless higher criticism of modern travellers, Selous, Livingstone, and others, and he has been shown up as cowardly by nature and mean in his general conduct. It remains for some learned scholar to whitewash the hyæna, as someone has done for Caesar Borgia, and to put him in the place of the lion. But Lydekker does not admit that this disparagement of the lion goes very far. He is the King of Beasts by grandeur of appearance, strength and ferocity.