The New Hunting 143 



were known mostly in museums, or in books 

 that suggested museums. We now know them 

 in woods and fields where they live. We know 

 what they do, as well as what they are. Mak- 

 ing pictures from stuffed specimens will soon be 

 a thing of the past. Read any book of natural 

 history of fifty years ago; then read one of 

 to-day. Note the road by which we have come : 

 this may color your own attitude toward the 

 nature-world. 



A new literature has been born. It is writ- 

 ten from the out-of-doors viewpoint, rather 

 than from the study viewpoint. Man is not 

 the only, nor even the chief, actor. Even the 

 stories of animals of the old time do not have 

 the flavor of this bright new literature. Not 

 so very long ago animal stories were told for 

 the purpose of carrying a moral they were 

 self-conscious. Now they are told because they 

 are worth telling. The real moral is the inter- 

 est in the animal and the way in which it con- 

 trives to live, not in some literary custom that 

 tries to make an application to human conduct. 

 No longer can one write a good nature-piece 



