That wild elephants will attack a distressed fellow seemed astonishing
to Darwin, when he remembered the case of an elephant after escaping
from a pit helping its fellow to escape also. But it is precisely the
animals, high or low in the organic scale, that are social, and possess
the instinct of helping each other, that will on occasions attack a
fellow in misfortune--such an attack being no more than a blunder of the
helping instinct.
Felix de Azara records a rather cruel experiment on the temper of some
tame rats confined in a cage. The person who kept them caught the tail
of one of the animals and began sharply pinching it, keeping his hand
concealed under the cage. Its cries of pain and struggles to free itself
greatly excited the other rats; and after rushing wildly round for some
moments they flew at their distressed companion, and fixing their teeth
in its throat quickly dispatched it. In this case if the hand that held
the tail had been visible and in the cage, the bites would undoubtedly
have been inflicted on it; but no enemy was visible; yet the fury and
impulse to attack an enemy was present in the animals. In such
circumstances, the excitement must be discharged--the instinct obeyed,
and in the absence of any other object of attack the illusion is
produced and it discharges itself on the struggling companion. It is
sometimes seen in dogs, when three or four or five are near together,
that if one suddenly utters a howl or cry of pain, when no man is near
it and no cause apparent, the others run to it, and seeing nothing, turn
round and attack each other.
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