llowstone Park, it paused
not to rend any of those present, but headed for the tall timber, and
with many an indignant "Woof! Woof!" it plunged in and disappeared. It
was two or three years before that locality was again troubled by
impudent grizzly bears.

And what is the mental attitude of _every_ Rocky Mountain black or
grizzly bear _outside_ of the Yellowstone Park? It is colossal suspicion
of man, perpetual fear, and a clean pair of heels the moment man-scent
or man-sight proclaims the proximity of the Arch Enemy of Wild
Creatures. And yet there are one or two men who tell the American public
that wild animals do not think, that they do not reason, and are
governed only by "instinct"!

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!"

TAMING WILD BIRDS.--As incontestable proof of the receptive faculties of
birds, I will cite the taming of wild birds in the open, by friendly
advances. There are hundreds, aye, thousands, of men, women, boys and
girls who could give interesting and valuable personal testimony on this
point.

My friend J. Alden Loring (one of the naturalists of the Roosevelt
African Expedition), is an ardent lover of wild birds and mammals. The
taming of wild creatures in the open is one of his pastimes, and his
results serve well to illustrate the marvelous readiness of our wild
neighbors to become close friends with man _when protected_. I will
quote from one of Mr. Loring's letters on this subject:

"Taming wild birds is a new field in nature study, and one never can
tell what success he will have until he has experimented with different
species. Some birds tame much more easily than others. On three or four
occasions I have enticed a chickadee _to my hand_ at the first attempt,
while in other cases it has taken from fifteen minutes to a whole day.

"Chipping sparrows that frequent my doorway I have tamed in two days. A
nuthatch required three hours before it would fly to my hand, although
it took food from my stick the first time it was offered. When you find
a bird on her nest, it is of course much easier to tame that individual
than if you had to follow it about in the open, and wait for it to come
within reach of a stick. By exercising extreme caution, and approaching
inch by inch, I have climbed a tree to the nest of a yellow-throated
vireo, and at the first attempt handed the bird a meal-worm with my
fingers. At one time I had two house wrens, a yellow-throated vireo, a
chipping sparrow and a