CHAPTER V 

 SOME POPULAR ERRORS 



Fairy Stories Small Birds and the Cuckoo "God's Cock 

 and Hen" Naturalist Storytellers Dog and Boy 

 Cleverness of Dogs "The Cad" and "The Jester" 

 "Tears of Anguish "Prescient Cattle The Working 

 of Old Instinct Misleading " Science " Brushing Cows 

 Horse and Burning Stable Moaning of Dog Intelli- 

 gence of a Cock A Dog's " Remorse "Hooked Fish. 



THE most fruitful source of the difficulty which 

 we all encounter in trying to take a right view of 

 animal life is perhaps the nursery fairy story. I 

 do not refer so much to avowed fairy stories like 

 " Puss in Boots " which illustrates, by the way, 

 how a cat by cunning thefts and shameless lying 

 won a fortune and " happiness ever after " for its 

 master! or Little Red Riding Hood the moral 

 of which appears to be that your grandmother 

 may be eaten by a wolf and welcome so long as 

 you escape yourself as to the stories full of 

 worked-up sentiment about robins and other fa- 

 miliar birds, written with the good intention, no 

 doubt, of making children kind and sympathetic 

 towards wild life, but at the same time starting 



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