482 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Pliotograpli by George Shiras. 3rJ 



A MINK TAKING ITS OWIM IMCTURE CY I'LASHIJGIIT 



This is one of many remarkable nature studies which have been made possible by Dr. 

 George Shiras 3rd's invention and development of animal flashlight photography, with the 

 animals themselves as the photographers. The naturalist may have to spend hours, some- 

 times days, waiting in swamp or desert to study his quarry, but by means of flashlight photo- 

 graphs the inhabitants of the wild are revealed in their native haunts to all who read a story 

 told in pictures. Dr. Shiras's notable contributions to this magazine have always won hearty 

 appreciation from members of the National Geographic Society. 



tory law of might and are at times hunted 

 by the larger carnivores, as the great- 

 horned owls, the wolves, foxes, fishers, 

 bobcats, and mountain-lions. 



To most people the majority of small 

 rodents are classed as "rats" or "mice" 

 and are viewed with the prejudice born 

 of long familiarity with those omnipres- 

 ent pests, the house rats and mice. The 

 small beasts of field and forest are com- 

 monly of remotest kinship to these re- 

 pulsive household parasites and are of 

 entirely difTerent lineage, having nothing 

 in common but their size. 



ANI^tAL IXTlCLLlGKXCIv AKIN TO MAN'S 



When viewed with unbiased attention, 

 these little animals of the \vilds are cer- 

 tain to charm the observer either by their 

 beauty and grace or by their varied and 

 interesting habits. No one can long study 



mammals, large or small, without observ- 

 ing many traits of intelligence so akin to 

 his own that they awaken feelings of 

 friendly fellowship. 



The modes of life of small mammals 

 are much more varied than those of the 

 larger species. At times radical differ- 

 ences in habits may be noted among dif- 

 ferent individuals of the same species, as 

 instanced by the wood-rats of Santa Mar- 

 garita Island, some of which live in bur- 

 rows dug by themselves in the ground 

 and others in nests built of sticks in the 

 tops of mangroves rising amid the waters 

 of a lagoon. 



An even mcjre extraordinary variation 

 is shown among the heavy - bodied 

 meadow-mice of the genus Phcnacomys, 

 most of whicli live in underground bur- 

 rows ; but one member of the group in 

 Oregon builds its nests in the tops of tall 



