WARINESS OF WILD ANIMALS. 179 



across the mirrowy surface of the water, or re- 

 fracted into its depths, begets in their simple 

 brains that fear, which is ever ready to express 

 itself in rapid movement to some place of shel- 

 ter. That wariness and the alertness accom- 

 panying it is an inheritance of all vertebrate 

 forms, however lowly, and also of many inver- 

 tebrates. All animals in a wild state feed with 

 ear, eye and nostril open, to hear, see or smell 

 an enemy. One can almost any day see this 

 wariness manifested, in a crow, a squirrel, a 

 marmot or a minnow. Watch a squirrel or a 

 marmot feeding on the ground, and note how 

 almost every minute, it rises on its haunches, 

 looks all about it and sniffs the air. Danger is 

 ever to be expected. Food is to be had only at 

 the risk of life. Success in the great struggle 

 depends upon hearing, seeing or scenting an 

 enemy before it comes in striking distance, and 

 then running from it, hiding from it or meet- 

 ing and overcoming it in the open, where stealth 

 and cunning count for naught. Wariness 

 coupled with alertness form, therefore, one of 

 the principal factors which enable one out of a 



