ve the truth more.

June, 1905.

CONTENTS

PAGE
I. WAYS OF NATURE 1
II. BIRD-SONGS 29
III. NATURE WITH CLOSED DOORS 47
IV. THE WIT OF A DUCK 53
V. FACTORS IN ANIMAL LIFE 59
VI. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 87
VII. DEVIOUS PATHS 109
VIII. WHAT DO ANIMALS KNOW? 123
IX. DO ANIMALS THINK AND REFLECT? 151
X. A PINCH OF SALT 173
XI. THE LITERARY TREATMENT OF NATURE 191
XII. A BEAVER'S REASON 209
XIII. READING THE BOOK OF NATURE 231
XIV. GATHERED BY THE WAY
I. THE TRAINING OF WILD ANIMALS 239
II. AN ASTONISHED PORCUPINE 242
III. BIRDS AND STRINGS 246
IV. MIMICRY 248
V. THE COLORS OF FRUITS 251
VI. INSTINCT 254
VII. THE ROBIN 261
VIII. THE CROW 265

INDEX 273

I

WAYS OF NATURE

I was much amused lately by a half-dozen or more letters that came to
me from some Californian schoolchildren, who wrote to ask if I would
please tell them whether or not birds have sense. One little girl
said: "I would be pleased if you would write and tell me if birds have
sense. I wanted to see if I couldn't be the first one to know." I felt
obliged to reply to the children that we ourselves do not have sense
enough to know just how much sense the birds and other wild creatures
do have, and that they do appear to have some, though their actions
are probably the result of what we call instinct, or natural
prompting, like that of the bean-stalk when it climbs the pole. Yet a
bean-stalk will sometimes show a kind of perversity or depravity that
looks like the result of deliberate choice. Each season, among my
dozen or more hills of