ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 



One of my critics has accused me of measuring all 

 things by the standard of my little farm of think 

 ing that what is not true of animal life there is not 

 true anywhere. Unfortunately my farm is small 

 hardly a score of acres and its animal life very 

 limited. I have never seen even a porcupine upon it ; 

 but I have a hill where one might roll down, should 

 one ever come my way and be in the mood for that 

 kind of play. 1 I have a few possums, a woodchuck 

 or two, an occasional skunk, some red squirrels and 

 rabbits, and many kinds of song-birds. Foxes oc 

 casionally cross my acres; and once, at least, I saw 

 a bald eagle devouring a fish in one of my apple- 

 trees. Wild ducks, geese, and swans in spring and 

 fall pass across the sky above me. Quail and grouse 

 invade my premises, and of crows I have, at least in 

 bird-nesting time, too many. 



But I have a few times climbed over my pasture 

 wall and wandered into distant fields. Once upon 

 a time I was a traveler in Asia for the space of two 

 hours an experience that ought to have yielded 

 me some startling discoveries, but did not. Indeed, 

 the wider I have traveled and observed nature, the 

 more I am convinced that the wild creatures behave 

 just about the same in all parts of the country ; that 

 is, under similar conditions. What one observes truly 

 about bird or beast upon his farm of ten acres, he 

 will not have to unlearn, travel as wide or as far as 



1 See comment on the story here alluded to on page 244. 



101 



