《时代夏令营》完整版在线看

《 《时代夏令营》完整版在线看》

Like other herbivorous quadrupeds they are, generally speaking, quiet and harmless, intent solely upon providing for their wants, and never attacking man or other animals unless provoked or when under the influence of excitement. In this latter case they make use not only of their proboscis, which they wield with great dexterity as a weapon of offence, but also of their tusks, with which they inflict the most tremendous wounds. Their speed in pursuit corresponds rather with the cumbrousness than with the magnitude of their frame, the excessive weight of which soon renders them weary, and compels them to slacken their pace; which, when urged to the utmost, is barely equal to that of a horse of moderate fleetness. They will sometimes penetrate in quest of food into the rice fields and sugar plantations, in which they commit the most extensive ravages, not so much by the quantity which they consume as by that which they destroy. The solitary individuals, which are[172] occasionally met with separate from the gen

the blows of their powerful tail, which is their usual weapon of defence, but also from the claws of their hind feet, with which they have been known to lacerate the bodies of their assailants in a shocking manner. But, unless when thus driven to make use of such powers of self-defence as they possess, they are perfectly harmless and even timid; and, when domesticated, are not in the least mischievous. In several collections in this country, and particularly in the Royal Park at Windsor, from which the specimens in the Menagerie were obtained, they have become almost naturalized, and appear to be but little affected by the change of climate. When confined in a small enclosure, they uniformly make their path round its circuit, seldom crossing it or passing in any other direction except for the purpose of procuring their food. Their whole appearance, and especially their mode of progression, is singularly curious and even to a certain extent ludicrous.

Notwithstanding the brutal voracity of his habits and the savage fierceness of his disposition, there is scarcely any animal that submits with greater facility to the control of man. In captivity, especially when taken young, a circumstance on which much depends in the domestication of all wild animals, he is capable of being rendered exceedingly tame, and even serviceable. In some parts of Southern Africa the spotted species, which[76] is by nature quite as ferocious in his temper as the striped inhabitant of the North, has been domiciliated in the houses of the peasantry, among whom he is preferred to the dog himself for attachment to his master, for general sagacity, and even, it is said, for his qualifications for the chase. That the Striped Hy?na might be rendered equally useful is highly probable from the docility and attachment which he manifests towards his keepers, especially when allowed a certain degree of liberty, which he shows no disposition to abuse. If more closely restricted his savage nature