I have not set this explanation down merely because it does credit to my
friend's ingenuity, but because it strikes me that it is the only
alternative explanation that can be given of the animal's action in
coming home to die. Another fact concerning the ill-tamed and
barbarously treated horses of the pampas, which, to my mind, strengthens
the view I have taken, remains to be mentioned. It is not an uncommon
thing for one of these horses, after escaping, saddled and bridled, and
wandering about for anight or night and day on the plains, to return of
its own accord to the house. It is clear that in a case of this kind the
animal comes home to seek relief. I have known one horse that always had
to be hunted like a wild animal to be caught, and that invariably after
being saddled tried to break loose, to return in this way to the gate
after wandering about, saddled and bridled, for over twenty hours in
uncomfortable freedom.
The action of the riding-horse returning to a master he is accustomed to
fly from, as from an enemy, to be released of saddle and bridle, is, no
doubt more intelligent than that of the dying horse coming home to be
relieved from his sufferings, but the motive is the same in both cases;
at the gate the only pain the animal has ever experienced has invariably
begun, and there it has ended, and when the spur of some new pain
afflicts him--new and yet like the old--it is to the well-remembered
hated gate that it urges him.
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