ty, and love turns to instinct, and sentiment
vaporizes into sentimentality.

This mother fox or fish-hawk here, this strong mother loon or
lynx that to-day brings the quick moisture to your eyes by her
utter devotion to the little helpless things which great Mother
Nature gave her to care for, will to-morrow, when they are grown,
drive those same little ones with savage treatment into the world
to face its dangers alone, and will turn away from their
sufferings thereafter with astounding indifference.

It is well to remember this, and to give proper weight to the
word, when we speak of the _love_ of animals for their little
ones.

I met a bear once--but this foolish thing is not to be
imitated--with two small cubs following at her heels. The mother
fled into the brush; the cubs took to a tree. After some timorous
watching I climbed after the cubs, and shook them off, and put
them into a bag, and carried them to my canoe, squealing and
appealing to the one thing in the woods that could easily have
helped them. I was ready enough to quit all claims and to take to
the brush myself upon inducement. But the mother had found a
blueberry patch and was stuffing herself industriously.

And I have seen other mother bears since then, and foxes and deer
and ducks and sparrows, and almost all the wild creatures
between, driving their own offspring savagely away. Generally
the young go of their own accord as early as possible, knowing no
affection but only dependence, and preferring liberty to
authority; but more than once I have been touched by the sight of
a little one begging piteously to be fed or just to stay, while
the mother drove him away impatiently. Moreover, they all kill
their weaklings, as a rule, and the burdensome members of too
large a family. This is not poetry or idealization, but just
plain animal nature.

As for the male animals, little can be said truthfully for their
devotion. Father fox and wolf, instead of caring for their mates
and their offspring, as we fondly imagine, live apart by
themselves in utter selfishness. They do nothing whatever for the
support or instruction of the young, and are never suffered by
the mothers to come into the den, lest they destroy their own
little ones. One need not go to the woods to