when she hears me in the room, she makes a
sudden flapping and drumming sound with her wings to scare me away. It
is a very pretty little trick and quite amusing. If you appear above
the opening of the top of a chimney where a swift is sitting on her
nest, she will try to drum you away in the same manner. I do not
suppose there is any thought or calculation in her behavior, any more
than there is in her nest-building, or any other of her instinctive
doings. It is probably as much a reflex act as that of a bird when she
turns her eggs, or feigns lameness or paralysis, to lure you away from
her nest, or as the "playing possum" of a rose-bug or potato-bug when
it is disturbed.

One of the writers referred to above relates with much detail this
astonishing thing of the Canada lynx: He saw a pack of them trailing
their game--a hare--through the winter woods, not only hunting in
concert, but tracking their quarry. Now any candid and informed reader
will balk at this story, for two reasons: (1) the cat tribe do not
hunt by scent, but by sight,--they stalk or waylay their game; (2)
they hunt singly, they are all solitary in their habits, they are
probably the most unsocial of the carnivora,--they prowl, they
listen, they bide their time. Wolves often hunt in packs. I have no
evidence that foxes do, and if the cats ever do, it is a most
extraordinary departure. A statement of such an exceptional occurrence
should always put one on his guard. In the same story the lynx is
represented as making curious antics in the air to excite the
curiosity of a band of caribou, and thus lure one of them to its death
at the teeth and claws of the waiting hidden pack. This also is so
uncatlike a proceeding that no woodsman could ever credit it. Hunters
on the plains sometimes "flag" deer and antelope, and I have seen even
a loon drawn very near to a bather in the water who was waving a small
red flag. But none of our wild creatures use lures, or decoys, or
disguises. This would involve a process of reasoning quite beyond
them.

Many instances have been recorded of animals seeking the protection of
man when pursued by their deadly enemies. I heard of a rat which, when
hunted by a weasel, rushed into a room where a man was sleeping, and
took refuge in the bed at his feet. I heard Mr. Thompson Seton tell of
a young pronghorn buck that was vanquished by a rival, and so hotly
pursued by its antagonist that it sought shelter amid his horses and
wag