6 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



made, make it under the mark of truth rather than above it. 

 While avoiding the folly of idealism, we also must shun the 

 ways of the narrow mind, and the eyes that refuse to see the 

 truth. Wild animals are not superhuman demigods of wis- 

 dom; but neither are they idiots, unable to reason from cause 

 to effect along the simple lines that vitally affect their existence. 



Brain-owning wild animals are not mere machines of flesh 

 and blood, set agoing by the accident of birth, and running 

 for life on the narrow-gauge railway of Heredity. They are 

 not "Machines in Fur and Feathers," as one naturalist once 

 tried to make the world believe them to be. Some animals 

 have more intelligence than some men; and some have far 

 better morals. 



What Constitutes Evidence. The best evidence regard- 

 ing the ways of wild animals is one's own eye-witness testimony. 

 Not all second-hand observations are entirely accurate. Many 

 persons do not know how to observe; and at times some are 

 deceived by their own eyes or ears. It is a sad fact that both 

 those organs are easily deceived. The student who is in doubt 

 regarding the composition of evidence will do well to spend a 

 few days in court listening to the trial of an important and 

 hotly contested case. In collecting real evidence, all is not 

 gold that glitters. 



Many a mind misinterprets the thing seen, sometimes inno- 

 cently, and again wantonly. The nature fakir is always on 

 the alert to see wonderful phenomena in wild life, about which 

 to write; and by preference he places the most strained and 

 marvelous interpretation upon the animal act. Beware of the 

 man who always sees marvelous things in animals, for he is 

 a dangerous guide. There is one man who claims to have 

 seen in his few days in the woods more wonders than all the 

 older American naturalists and sportsmen have seen added 

 together. 



Now, Nature does not assemble all her wonderful phe- 

 nomena and hold them in leash to be turned loose precisely when 



