WAYS OF NATURE 



cannot. We can make its impulses follow a rut, so 

 to speak, but we cannot make them free and self- 

 directing. Animals are the victims of habits inher 

 ited or acquired. 



I was told of a fox that came nightly prowling 

 about some deadfalls set for other game. The 

 new-fallen snow each night showed the movements 

 of the suspicious animal; it dared not approach 

 nearer than several feet to the deadfalls. Then one 

 day a red-shouldered hawk seized the bait in one 

 of the traps, and was caught. That night a fox, 

 presumably the same one, came and ate such parts 

 of the body of the hawk as protruded from beneath 

 the stone. Now, how did the fox know that the 

 trap was sprung and was now harmless ? Did not 

 its act imply something more than instinct? We 

 have the cunning and suspicion of the fox to start 

 with; these are factors already in the problem that 

 do not have to be accounted for. To the fox, as to 

 the crow, anything that looks like design or a trap, 

 anything that does not match with the haphazard 

 look and general disarray of objects in nature, will 

 put it on its guard. A deadfall is a contrivance that 

 is not in keeping with the usual fortuitous disarray 

 of sticks and stones in the fields and woods. The 

 odor of the man s hand would also be there, and 

 this of itself would put the fox on its guard. But a 

 hawk or any other animal crushed by a stone, with 

 part of its body protruding from beneath the stone, 

 222 



