ssensions of those brutes in his country were owing to the same cause
with ours, as I had described them. For if," said he, "you throw among
five _Yahoos_ as much food as would be sufficient for fifty, they will,
instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single one
impatient to have all to itself; and therefore a servant was usually
employed to stand by while they were feeding abroad, and those kept at
home were tied at a distance from each other: that if a cow died of age
or accident, before a _Houyhnhnm_ could secure it for his own _Yahoos_,
those in the neighbourhood would come in herds to seize it, and then
would ensue such a battle as I had described, with terrible wounds made
by their claws on both sides, although they seldom were able to kill one
another, for want of such convenient instruments of death as we had
invented. At other times, the like battles have been fought between the
_Yahoos_ of several neighbourhoods, without any visible cause; those of
one district watching all opportunities to surprise the next, before they
are prepared. But if they find their project has miscarried, they return
home, and, for want of enemies, engage in what I call a civil war among
themselves.

"That in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of
several colours, whereof the _Yahoos_ are violently fond: and when part
of these stones is fixed in the earth, as it sometimes happens, they will
dig with their claws for whole days to get them out; then carry them
away, and hide them by heaps in their kennels; but still looking round
with great caution, for fear their comrades should find out their
treasure." My master said, "he could never discover the reason of this
unnatural appetite, or how these stones could be of any use to a _Yahoo_;
but now he believed it might proceed from the same principle of avarice
which I had ascribed to mankind. That he had once, by way of experiment,
privately removed a heap of these stones from the place where one of his
_Yahoos_ had buried it; whereupon the sordid animal, missing his
treasure, by his loud lamenting brought the whole herd to the place,
there miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing the rest, began
to pine away, would neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, till he ordered a
servant privately to convey the stones into the same hole, and hide them
as before; which, when his _Yahoo_ had found, he presently recovered his
spirits and good humo