52 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



This bird was one of the most remarkable creatures with 

 which I have ever become intimately acquainted, and I have 

 been fortunate in such acquaintances I may say friendships 

 with birds and beasts. He seemed to have for me a measure of 

 affection independent of any expectation of food, that I have 

 never seen in any other bird. He would sit on my knee and let 

 me stroke him as a dog would do, yet his instincts would lead 

 him to attack me if I meddled with his hens. On one occasion I 

 found a pullet of his harem imprisoned in a picket fence, where 

 she had managed to get her wings through a space not wide 

 enough for the pelvis to pass. It was a matter of some difficulty 

 to release her, and she squawked lustily as I strove to do it. All 

 the while the cock was near by, watching me with his one eye 

 and dancing with excitement. At length, when the pullet gave 

 a louder scream, his impetus carried him away and he planted 

 his spur in the back of my hand, making a wound the scar of 

 which I can faintly trace to this day. 



I tell this seeming overmuch concerning game-cocks, in part 

 for the reason that it is through them that I came to an intense 

 interest in the actual life of animals, which has been to me a 

 source of great enlargement, and in part that I may make again 

 my plea for keeping what we can of our domesticated animals 

 near the primitive stock. Those who know only the degrada- 

 tions of our supercivilized domesticated birds and beasts, have 

 very little idea what a natural animal is. The game-cock is one 

 of the few which retain a fair semblance of what the wilderness 

 breeds ; he is perhaps the most interesting of all birds. 



On another occasion "the farm," so called to distinguish it 

 from certain larger and more remote places, gave me a most 

 instructive experience with animals. The owner of a menagerie 

 placed there for a summer under a keeper a fine specimen of an 

 elephant, named Hannibal, and also a camel. With the elephant 

 I became promptly and most intimately acquainted. He was 

 commonly chained to a tree on the edge of a wood, and thereto 

 I went every day for many weeks. The noble beast had a rather 



