The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wood Folk at School, by William J. Long

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Title: Wood Folk at School

Author: William J. Long

Release Date: July 19, 2007 [EBook #22101]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_Wood Folk at School_

[Illustration]

[Illustration: "THERE AT A TURN IN THE PATH, NOT TEN YARDS AHEAD, STOOD
A HUGE BEAR."]

WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL

BY

WILLIAM J. LONG

_WOOD FOLK SERIES
BOOK FOUR_

GINN & COMPANY
BOSTON . NEW YORK . CHICAGO . LONDON

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL

COPYRIGHT, 1902, 1903
BY WILLIAM J. LONG

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Athenaeum Press
GINN & COMPANY . CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS

PREFACE

It may surprise many, whose knowledge of wild animals is gained from
rare, fleeting glimpses of frightened hoof or wing in the woods, to
consider that there can be such a thing as a school for the Wood Folk;
or that instruction has any place in the life of the wild things.
Nevertheless it is probably true that education among the higher order
of animals has its distinct place and value. Their knowledge, however
simple, is still the result of three factors: instinct, training, and
experience. Instinct only begins the work; the mother's training
develops and supplements the instinct; and contact with the world, with
its sudden dangers and unknown forces, finishes the process.

For many years the writer has been watching animals and recording his
observations with the idea of determining, if possible, which of these
three is the governing factor in the animal's life. Some of the results
of this study were published last year in a book called "School of the
Woods," which consisted of certain studies of animals from life, and
certain theories in the form of essays to account for what the writer's
eyes had seen and his own ears heard in the great wilderness among the
animals.

A school reader is no place for theories; therefore that part of the
book is not given here. The animal studies alone