The Wonders of the Jungle, Book One

elope: Their

ial gift, that is, he can do one thing better than most other

told you that the wild buffaloes can hear a long way

idden by the bushes, so the deer cannot see him at all. But the deer can hear him coming, even if the tiger takes each step very lightly. Why? Becau

om which the sound is coming. You have seen an ordinary cow prick up her ears wh

a funnel, so as to pour the sound into his ear, as it were. Then eve

a sound is coming, if it is loud enough; but the deer can do that even when the sound is very faint. That is

just like cushions. So it is a kind of trial between the tiger and the deer as to which is the more clever. If the tiger can come so quietly that the deer cannot hear

is more clever than the deer, the tiger eats the deer; but if the deer is more clever than the tiger, the deer escapes being eaten. And that is true of all other animals

r examples of the "Survival of the Fittest" am

and the antelope. If by any chance a deer cannot h

l the farthest. Even if a sneaking tiger is so cunning that he stops in a thicket and stands quite still for a minute, so that he

n smell the deer. But he cannot do that very

s to be moving. But the tiger cannot hear quite so fa

ttle better and farther than the others. And in the daytime, if a deer were feeding in a very big level field, and a tiger came to the field from the other side, the t

has the Gift

n hear farther and smell farthe

rful rule in the jungle that each an

e farther, and why the deer needs to hear f

e that is caught. So the tiger tries to get to t

he would only know that the deer was somewhere near, but could not find the exact spot; and to catch the d

quite enough for him to know from which side the tiger is coming, by just smelling him or hear

o be able to see the deer; and the deer's best

ways run away long before the tiger can g

ppens to make a mistake! And the deer can make only one mistak

er tries very hard never to

he deer hears the tiger coming, he does not listen quite carefully, and so he does not know which way the soun

loses his head, as it were, and goes just any way-and by ba

y's dinner, he can still catch some other animal for tomorrow's breakfast, even if he goes hungry to-night. But if the deer once gets eaten, there is no to-morrow for, him at all! Th

the wild pigs of the jungle are such careless animals, as I have told you before. Now and again the tiger gets mutton also

ch he can escape from the tiger at the last minute. Those two gifts are his quickness in getting started, and his speed in running. S

tiger can leap. Or it may happen that the deer is trying to escape from a tiger and has run to within twenty yards of the tiger, when he finds out his mistake. T

e tiger, the tiger can never catch him. For the

her. About that other animal I shall tell you some wonderful things in the next boo

faster than other animals?" you may ask. "Ha

and the greyhound beat the horse in the race. Then they took that greyhound, and ran a race between him and an English deer; and the deer beat the greyhou

other animal trying to catch and eat him; so he does not try to be as fast as he could be. But the deer that lives in the jungle has to try very hard all

s they can. And as their fathers and grandfathers have been trying to do that, the wild