How Of Two
Equally Matched Warriors Of The Herd One Will Give Way In The
Fight, While Still Uninjured, Before His Perhaps Badly Wounded
Antagonist.
The casual observer might-and often does-say that
all bears are cowardly, all bucks are easily killed, or the
reverse, according as the god of chance has treated him to one
spectacle or the other.
As well try to generalize on the human
race-as is a certain ecclesiastical habit-that all men are vile
or noble, dishonest or upright, wise or foolish.
The higher we go in the scale the truer this individualism holds.
We are forced to reason not from the bulk of observations, but
from their averages. If we find ten bucks who will go a mile
wounded to two who succumb in their tracks from similar hurts, we
are justified in saying tentatively that the species is tenacious
of life. But as experience broadens we may modify that statement;
for strange indeed are runs of luck.
For this reason a good deal of the wise conclusion we read in
sportsmen's narratives is worth very little. Few men have
experience enough with lions to rise to averages through the
possibilities of luck. ESPECIALLY is this true of lions. No beast
that roams seems to go more by luck than felis leo. Good hunters
may search for years without seeing hide nor hair of one of the
beasts. Selous, one of the greatest, went to East Africa for the
express purpose of getting some of the fine beasts there, hunted
six weeks and saw none.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 105 of 371
Words from 27233 to 27495
of 97210
