n _The Animal World_; the majority are
now printed for the first time.

In the following chapters I shall try to have quiet talks with my
readers and tell them in a simple way about the many pleasant
friendships I have had with animals, birds, and insects. I use the word
friendships advisedly, because truly to know and enjoy the society of a
pet creature you must make it feel that you are, or wish to be, its
friend, one to whom it can always look for food, shelter, and solace; it
must be at ease and at home with you before its instincts and curious
ways will be shown. Sometimes when friends have wished me to see their
so-called "pet," some scared animal or poor fluttering bird has been
brought, for whom my deepest sympathy has been excited; and yet there
may have been perhaps the kindest desire to make the creature happy,
food provided in abundance, and a pleasant home; but these alone will
not avail. For lack of the quiet gentle treatment which is so requisite,
the poor little captive will possibly be miserable, pining for liberty,
hating its prison, dreading the visits of its jailor, and so harassed in
its terror that in some cases the poor little heart is broken, and in a
few hours death is the result. In the following simple sketches of
animal, bird, and insect life, I have tried to show how confidence must
be gained, and the little wild heart won by quiet and unvarying
kindness, and also by the endeavour to imitate as much as possible the
natural surroundings of its own life before its capture. I must confess
it requires a large fund of patience to tame any wild creature, and it
is rarely possible to succeed unless one's efforts begin in its very
early days, before it has known the sweets of liberty.

In many cases I have kept a wild animal or bird for a few days to learn
something of its ways, possibly to make a drawing of its attitudes or
plumage, and then let it go, else nearly all my pets, except imported
creatures, have been reared from infancy, an invalid's life and
wakefulness making early-morning feeding of young fledglings less
difficult than it would have been in many cases, and often have painful
hours been made bearable and pleasant by the interest arising from
careful observation of the habits and ways of some new pet animal or
bird.

I have always strongly maintained that the love of animated nature
should be fostered far more than it usually is, and especially in the
minds of the young; and that,