The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals | Page 2

reader
in a hopelessly large collection of details. The most serious question
has been: What shall be left out?
Mr. A. R. Spofford, first Librarian of Congress, used to declare that
"Books are made from books"; but I call the reader to bear witness that
this volume is not a mass of quotations. A quoted authority often can be
disputed, and for this reason the author has found considerable
satisfaction in relying chiefly upon his own testimony.
Because I always desire to know the opinions of men who are writing
upon their own observations, I have felt free to express my own
conclusions regarding the many phases of animal intelligence as their
manifestation has impressed me in close-up observations.
I have purposely avoided all temptations to discuss the minds and
manners of domestic animals, partly because that is by itself a large
subject, and partly because their minds have been so greatly influenced
by long and close association with man. The domestic mammals and
birds deserve independent treatment.
A great many stories of occurrences have been written into this volume,
for the purpose of giving the reader all the facts in order that he may
form his own opinions of the animal mentality displayed.
Most sincerely do I wish that the boys and girls of America, and of the
whole world, may be induced to believe that _the most interesting thing
about a wild animal is its mind and its reasoning,_ and that a dead
animal is only a poor decaying thing. If the feet of the young men
would run more to seeing and studying the wild creatures and less to
the killing of them, some of the world's valuable species might escape
being swept away tomorrow, or the day after.

The author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Munsey's
Magazine, McClure's Magazine and the Sunday Magazine Syndicate
for permission to copy herein various portions of his chapters from
those publications.
W. T. H.
The Anchorage, Stamford, Conn. December 19, 1921.

ILLUSTRATIONS
Overpowering Curiosity of a Mountain Sheep Christmas at the
Primates' House The Trap-Door Spider's Door and Burrow Hanging
Nest of the Baltimore Oriole Great Hanging Nests of the Crested
Cacique "Rajah," the Actor Orang-Utan Thumb-Print of an Orang-Utan
The Lever That Our Orang-Utan Invented Portrait of a High-Caste
Chimpanzee The Gorilla With the Wonderful Mind Tame Elephants
Assisting in Tying a Wild Captive Wild Bears Quickly Recognize
Protection Alaskan Brown Bear, "Ivan," Begging for Food The
Mystery of Death The Steady-Nerved and Courageous Mountain Goat
Fortress of an Arizona Pack-Rat Wild Chipmunks Respond to Man's
Protection An Opossum Feigning Death Migration of the Golden
Plover. (Map) Remarkable Village Nests of the Sociable Weaver Bird
Spotted Bower-Bird, at Work on Its Unfinished Bower Hawk-Proof
Nest of a Cactus Wren A Peace Conference With an Arizona
Rattlesnake Work Elephant Dragging a Hewn Timber The Wrestling
Bear, "Christian," and His Partner Adult Bears at Play Primitive
Penguins on the Antarctic Continent, Unafraid of Man Richard W.
Rock and His Buffalo Murderer "Black Beauty" Murdering "Apache"

THE MINDS AND MANNERS OF WILD ANIMALS
MAN AND THE WILD ANIMALS
If every man devoted to his affairs, and to the affairs of his city and
state, the same measure of intelligence and honest industry that every
warm-blooded wild animal devotes to its affairs, the people of this
world would abound in good health, prosperity, peace and happiness.
To assume that every wild beast and bird is a sacred creature,
peacefully dwelling in an earthly paradise, is a mistake. They have their
wisdom and their folly, their joys and their sorrows, their trials and

tribulations.
As the alleged lord of creation, it is man's duty to know the wild
animals truly as they are, in order to enjoy them to the utmost, to utilize
them sensibly and fairly, and to give them a square deal.

I. A SURVEY OF THE FIELD
I
THE LAY OF THE LAND
There is a vast field of fascinating human interest, lying only just
outside our doors, which as yet has been but little explored. It is the
Field of Animal Intelligence.
Of all the kinds of interest attaching to the study of the world's wild
animals, there are none that surpass the study of their minds, their
morals, and the acts that they perform as the results of their mental
processes.
In these pages, the term "animal" is not used in its most common and
most restricted sense. It is intended to apply not only to quadrupeds, but
also to all the vertebrate forms,--mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians
and fishes.
For observation and study, the whole vast world of living creatures is
ours, throughout all zones and all lands. It is not ours to flout, to abuse,
or to exterminate as we please. While for practical reasons we do