PREFACE 



When I was a boy on the farm, we used to thrash 

 our grain with the hand-flail. Our custom was to 

 thrash a flooring of sheaves on one side, then turn 

 the sheaves over and thrash them on the other, 

 then unbind them and thrash the loosened straw 

 again, and then finish by turning the whole over 

 and thrashing it once more. I suspect my reader 

 will feel that I have followed the same method in 

 many of these papers. I have thrashed the same 

 straw several times, but I have turned it each time, 

 and I trust have been rewarded by a few additional 

 grains of truth. 



Let me hope that the result of the discussion or 

 thrashing will not be to make the reader love the 

 animals less, but rather to love the truth more. 



June, 1905. 



