THE FIGHTING POWER OF ANIMALS.
liNTHEN the 3rd Battalion of the West Surrey Regiment were welcomed at Guildford on their return from two years of valuable service in South Africa, they brought with them a tame baboon, which had joined them from the Nieuwveld Mountains, affording a gratifying instance of loyalty among the original inhabitants of that part of Cape Colony. The animal was so well able to take care of itself that, though frequently attacked by dogs, it always beat them in single combat, and once, when chased by a pack of nearly twenty, it succeeded, according to a regimental report now before the writer, in " besting them at all quarters." For their size baboons and some of the various macaque monkeys are probably the most formidable fighters in the animal world, except the cat tribe. This is the more remarkable because these powers are not developed " professionally." They do not use violence to obtain their food, and only employ their extraordinary quickness and powers of biting in self- defence. Those who have seen them attacked by dogs say that they never lose their heads, and that they can spring in any direction from a sitting position and inflict a disabling bite with absolutely no indication that they mean to take the offensive. A baboon kept in Cape Town would gather up in one hand the long chain by which he was taken out for walks or tied to a waggon, and so appear to be a close captive as he went along the road. This would tempt the local dogs to make demonstrations within range, when the baboon would fling down the chain, spring on to the nearest dog and nearly bite his foot off. A small monkey, weighing only twelve pounds, used to be backed to fight dogs in Birmingham. It always won against dogs of twice its own weight.
The comparative fighting powers of different animals can only be seen when they have actually been pitted against each other, and such encounters are not common, except when one forms the prey of the other. But there are sufficient instances of battles between rival carnivora to
give material for an estimate. The bravest, and un- doubtedly the fiercest, fighter is our own bull-dog or bull- terrier. Tradition and popular opinion are quite correct in the estimate made of them, and breeders both of grey- hounds and other sporting dogs who wished to strengthen the courage and fibre of their dogs have given practical effect to it by crossing with the bulldog. Mr. Saunderson, of elephant-catching fame, had a mixed pack of dogs which he taught to attack big game. To these he added some bull-dogs, The older dogs always caught their game if possible by the nose, and would hold on whether the animal ran or stopped. One was carried several hundred yards by a buffalo without letting go, and three would render a large bear. helpless. The most astonishing feat achieved by these bulldogs was that one, alone, caught a wild elephant. It was a young one, which the bulldog seized by the root of the trunk, and held on until the animal was overtaken and roped by the men. The success of the bull-dog in these en- counters with large animals is the more remarkable because it is so light in comparison with the creatures attacked that shock does not assist it in any degree. But it counterbalances this disadvantage by attacking the muzzle, where what weight it has is most effective both in aiding the attack and in embarrass- ing its opponent when seized.
The results of fights between wild animals in captivity are only partial evidence of the prowess of the respectiv& combatants, because there is, as a rule, not sufficient room on the battleground for the display of activity or resource. But the list of accidental combats, which grows as menageries become more numerous, suggests that the battle is not always to the strong. In a Continental collection a fight took place recently between a Polar bear and an Indian sloth bear. The advantage in size and activity was so far on the side of the white bear that the result of the fight was somewhat unexpected. The smaller and awkward sloth bear killed the white bear without difficulty, and suffered very little itself.
Lookers-on are perhaps apt to underrate the physical effort which any kind of fighting at close quarters involves. Two timber-porters were having a quiet but properly conducted "mill " in a street by the riverside, each with a second to "give him a knee," and a group of moderately interested spectators looking on. Some one suggested that a policeman should be fetched to stop this dangerous and disgusting fight. "Fight," said a critical onlooker, "why they ain't fighting fast enough to keep themselves warm!" The same cannot be said of most animal combats, when the parties generally fight for all they are worth. But it must be admitted that the combats of deer have a good deal of sham about them. Fallow bucks will go on stupidly pushing at each other and clashing their horns for two or three hours at a time, neither being any the worse afterwards. Red deer, which have pointed antlers, and can kill a dog, and injure and probably kill a man, seldom seem to hurt one another with their horns, though the struggle looks rather terrific. Among the few instances recorded of the death of a stag in such an encounter was that of a red deer at Powerscourt. It was killed by a hybrid stag, a cross between the red species and the Japanese deer introduced into the wild park by the Dargle. In this case the horns of the hybrid were of quite a different kind from those carried by the red stag, which enabled it to get inside the other's guard and pierce its skull. Among the antelopes there is one species, the sable antelope, which is not only a bold fighter in self-defence, but has devised a system quite as ingenious as those taught in schools-of-arms. It has very long, pointed horns bending backwards. If wounded or attacked by dogs it lies down, thus protecting all the exposed under parts, but abandoning apparently both the power of movement and the advantage of height. But by swinging its neck or tossing its head it can cover its whole body by strokes of its powerful and sharp horns, just as a fencer covers the body with his foil. Mr. J. G. Millais says that it will kill any dog which attacks it in this position, which it probably also adopts when defending itself against wild enemies. In the pitched battles which sometimes take place between the great carnivora and the largest and most powerful of the ox tribe the forces of animal courage, desperation, and bodily strength must be exhibited on a scale never elsewhere seen. Such combats do occur, but have seldom been witnessed, and still less frequently described. Two or three lions sometimes combine in such an attack, but from the marks seen on buffalo it is probable that sometimes there is a single combat, for it can hardly be supposed that the buffalo could escape from more than one lion. The number of foot pounds of energy put into such a struggle must be something extraordinary. The efforts of a lion which can strike a man's arm from the shoulder and leave it hanging by a strip of skin, or which can carry a cow over a high stockade, endeavouring unsuccessfully, in close grips, to drag down or disable a buffalo bull, must be on a gigantic scale, and the strength which can shake him off, and, as it is believed, occasionally crush the lion afterwards, must be even more amazing. What a study in muscular action and the pro- pelling or striking forces of limbs, neck, and feet such a combat must exhibit. A buffalo bull has been credited with engaging three lions in mortal combat, and making a good fight before he was disabled by one of the lions hamstringing him by biting his legs from behind.
Real combats of giants, though not of such a desperate and deadly kind as these fights between the great carnivore and the buffalo, are the combats of the hippopotami. The gigantic size and huge mouths of these creatures, larger than those of any mammal but the whales, and armed with teeth and tusks larger than those of whales, are elements in the fighting .not equalled by any other pitched battles in the
animal world. An elephant fight is carried on with far less formidable weapons, so long as the creatures meet only face to face. The " hippo " fights usually take place at night and in the water, but are often witnessed by day, when the river is a mass of foam, and later of blood, round the place where the two leviathans are fighting like bulldogs. Sir Samuel Baker says that he often saw these fights, in which the fury of the combatants was such that they cared nothing for his presence, and that once a bull which he had wounded, and which came to the surface, was seized by the neck by another bull which rose beside it, and worried it until both were shot.
If there is a conclusion to be drawn from animal combats, it is that brains are of mctre value than mere strength. The monkey, which thinks when fighting, and will keep a reserve even of the length of its chain, is more efficient than a dog, which, if it wishes to fight when tied up, always strains at the end of its leash. A bull or buffalo, which puts its head down to charge, is easily pinned by a dog, which could not touch a sable antelope, and a cat which takes up a strategic position under a waterbutt or in a thick hedge is a match for a pair of dogs of thrice its size.
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