the day. I would name them according to the color or the shape
of the bill or their song or the appearance and locality of the
nest--in fact, anything about the bird that impressed me as
characteristic. I made many ridiculous errors, I must admit. He then
usually informed me of the correct name. Occasionally I made a hit and
this he would warmly commend.

He went much deeper into this science when I was a little older, that
is, about the age of eight or nine years. He would say, for instance:

"How do you know that there are fish in yonder lake?"

"Because they jump out of the water for flies at mid-day."

He would smile at my prompt but superficial reply.

"What do you think of the little pebbles grouped together under the
shallow water? and what made the pretty curved marks in the sandy
bottom and the little sand-banks? Where do you find the fish-eating
birds? Have the inlet and the outlet of a lake anything to do with the
question?"

He did not expect a correct reply at once to all the questions that he
put to me on these occasions, but he meant to make me observant and a
good student of nature.

"Hakadah," he would say to me, "you ought to follow the example of the
shunktokecha (wolf). Even when he is surprised and runs for his life,
he will pause to take one more look at you before he enters his final
retreat. So you must take a second look at everything you see.

"It is better to view animals unobserved. I have been a witness to
their courtships and their quarrels and have learned many of their
secrets in this way. I was once the unseen spectator of a thrilling
battle between a pair of grizzly bears and three buffaloes--a rash act
for the bears, for it was in the moon of strawberries, when the
buffaloes sharpen and polish their horns for bloody contests among
themselves.

"I advise you, my boy, never to approach a grizzly's den from the
front, but to steal up behind and throw your blanket or a stone in
front of the hole. He does not usually rush for it, but first puts his
head out and listens and then comes out very indifferently and sits on
his haunches on the mound in front of the hole before he makes any
attack. While he is exposing himself in this fashion, aim at his heart.
Always be as cool as the animal himself." Thus he armed me against the
cunning of savage beasts by teaching me how to outwit them.

"In hunting," he would resume, "you will be guided by the habits of the
animal you seek. Rememb