e will, we cannot comprehend why it is so--why Nature requires the
sacrifice of one of her creatures for the sustenance of another. But
although we cannot understand the cause, we must not condemn the fact as
it exists; nor must we suppose, as some do, that the destruction of
God's creatures for our necessities constitutes a crime. They who think
so, and who, in consistency with their doctrines, confine themselves to
what they term "vegetable" food, are at best but shallow reasoners. They
have not studied Nature very closely, else would they know that every
time they pluck up a parsnip, or draw their blade across the leaf of a
lettuce, they cause pain and death!

How much pain we cannot tell; but that the plant feels, as well as the
animal, we can clearly _prove_. Probably it feels less, and it may be
each kind of plant differs from others in the amount, according to its
higher or lower organism. Probably its amount of pleasure--its
capability of enjoyment--is in a direct proportion to the pain which it
endures; and it is highly probable that this double line of ratios runs
in an ascending scale throughout the vegetable kingdom, gradually
joining on to what is more strictly termed the "animal." But these
mysteries of life, my young friend, will be interesting studies for you
when your mind becomes matured.

Perhaps it may be your fortune to unravel some of them, for the benefit
of your fellow-men. I feel satisfied that you will not only be a student
of Nature, but one of her great teachers; you will far surpass the
author of this little book in your knowledge of Nature's laws; but it
will always be a happiness to him to reflect, that, when far advanced
upon the highway of science, you will look back to him as one you had
passed upon the road, and who _pointed you to the path_.

Though Basil had shot the wolf, it was plain that it was not the first
nor yet the second time he had discharged his rifle since leaving the
camp. From his game-bag protruded the curving claws and wing-tips of a
great bird. In one hand he carried a white hare--not the Polar hare--but
a much smaller kind, also an inhabitant of these snowy regions; and over
his shoulders was slung a fierce-looking creature, the great wild-cat or
lynx of America. The bird in his bag was the golden eagle, one of the
few feathered creatures that brave the fierce winter of a northern
climate, and does not migrate, like its congeners, the "white-head" and
the osprey,