WAYS OF NATURE 



practicing its steps by the light of the moon. This is 

 just as credible as many of the animal stories one 

 hears nowadays. 



Many of the actions of the lower animals are as 

 automatic as those of the tin rooster that serves as 

 a weather-vane. See how intelligently the rooster 

 acts, always pointing the direction of the wind with 

 out a moment s hesitation. Or behold the vessel 

 anchored in the harbor, how intelligently it adjusts 

 itself to the winds and the tides ! I have seen a log, 

 caught in an eddy in a flooded stream, apparently 

 make such struggles to escape that the thing became 

 almost uncanny in its semblance to life. Man him 

 self often obeys just such unseen currents of race or 

 history when he thinks he is acting upon his own 

 initiative. 



When I was in Alaska, I saw precipices down 

 which hundreds of horses had dashed themselves in 

 their mad and desperate efforts to escape from the 

 toil and suffering they underwent on the White Pass 

 trail. Shall we say these horses deliberately com 

 mitted suicide ? Suicide it certainly was in effect, but 

 of course not in intention. What does or can a horse 

 know about death, or about self-destruction ? These 

 animals were maddened by their hardships, and 

 blindly plunged down the rocks. 



The tendency to humanize the animals is more 

 and more marked in all recent nature books that aim 

 at popularity. A recent British book on animal life 

 146 



