Hearing a great
commotion among them, I climbed on to one of the high exposed roots,
and, looking over, saw a cow on the ground, apparently unable to rise,
moaning and bellowing in a distressed way, while a number of her
companions were crowding round and goring her.
What is the meaning of such an instinct? Darwin has but few words on the
subject. "Can we believe," he says, in his posthumous _Essay on
Instinct, "_when a wounded herbivorous animal returns to its own herd
and is then attacked and gored, that this cruel and very common instinct
is of any service to the species?" At the same time, he hints that such
an instinct might in some circumstances be useful, and his hint has been
developed into the current belief among naturalists on the subject. Here
it is, in Dr. Romanes' words: "We may readily imagine that the instinct
displayed by many herbivorous animals of goring sick and wounded
companions, is really of use in countries where the presence of weak
members in a herd is a source of danger to the herd from the prevalence
of wild beasts." Here it is assumed that the sick are set upon and
killed, but this is not the fact; sickness and decay from age or some
other cause are slow things, and increase imperceptibly, so that the
sight of a drooping member grows familiar to the herd, as does that of a
member with some malformation, or unusual shade of colour, or altogether
white, as in the case of an albino.
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