u have moved into his woods. But not from any desire to see you!
He is like a lazy man looking for work, and hoping devoutly that he may
not find it. A bear has very little curiosity--less than any other of
the wood folk. He loves to be alone; and so, when he goes hunting for
you, to find out just where you are, it is always with the creditable
desire to leave you in as large a room as possible, while he himself
goes quietly away into deeper solitudes. As this desire of his is much
stronger than your mere idle curiosity to see something new, you rarely
see Mooween even where he is most at home. And that is but another bit
of the poetic justice which you stumble upon everywhere in the big
woods.

It is more and more evident, I think, that Nature adapts her gifts, not
simply to the necessities, but more largely to the desires, of her
creatures. The force and influence of that intense desire--more intense
because usually each animal has but one--we have not yet learned to
measure. The owl has a silent wing, not simply because he needs it--for
his need is no greater than that of the hawk, who has no silent
wing--but, more probably, because of his whole-hearted desire for
silence as he glides through the silent twilight. And so with the
panther's foot; and so with the deer's eye, and the wolf's nose, whose
one idea of bliss is a good smell; and so with every other strongly
marked gift which the wild things have won from nature, chiefly by
desiring it, in the long years of their development.

This theory may possibly account for some of Mooween's peculiarities.
Nature, who measures her gifts according to the desires of her
creatures, remembers his love of peace and solitude, and endows him
accordingly. He cares little to see you or anybody else; therefore his
eyes are weak--his weakest point, in fact. He desires ardently to avoid
your society and all society but his own; therefore his nose and ears
are marvelously alert to discover your coming. Often, when you think
yourself quite alone in the woods, Mooween is there. The wind has told
your story to his nose; the clatter of your heedless feet long ago
reached his keen ears, and he vanishes at your approach, leaving you to
your noise and inquisitiveness and the other things you like. His gifts
of concealment are so much greater than your powers of detection that he
has absolutely no thought of ever seeing you. His surprise, therefore,
when you do meet unexpectedly is correspo