138 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS 



must have known fear as a constant feeling. 

 Hence the prominence of fear in infants and 

 children when compared with the youth or the 

 grown person. Babies are nearly always afraid 

 of strangers. 



In the domestic animals also, fear is much 

 more active in the young than in the old. 

 Nearly every farm boy has seen a calf but a 

 day or two old, which its mother has secreted in 

 the woods or in a remote field, charge upon him 

 furiously with a wild bleat, when first discovered. 

 After this first ebullition of fear, it usually set- 

 tles down into the tame humdrum of its bovine 

 elders. 



Eternal vigilance is the price of life with most 

 of the wild creatures. There is only one among 

 them whose wildness I cannot understand, and 

 that is the common water turtle. Why is this 

 creature so fearful ? What are its enemies ? I 

 know of nothing that preys upon it. Yet see 

 how watchful and suspicious these turtles are 

 as they sun themselves upon a log or a rock. 

 While you are yet many yards away from them, 

 they slide down into the water and are gone. 



The land turtle, on the other hand, shows 

 scarcely a trace of fear. He will indeed pause 

 in his walk when you are very near him, but he 

 will not retreat into his shell till you have poked 



