Correspondents and Critics. 291 



alone will lead you to. Indeed, the action con- 

 tradicts the knife ; the mouse doing that which 

 it has not, in one sense, the ability to do, or 

 not the facilities wherewith to do it. It has an 

 emergency to meet, and must we cover up our 

 ignorance by prattle about instinct? These 

 mice are everywhere in the meadows, and not a 

 punky log in the marsh but has been tunnelled 

 by them and made a snug harbor against attacks 

 from enemies, and he is rash who claims full 

 knowledge of all the dangers to which they are 

 subjected. We have stopped short in our in- 

 vestigations of the habits of our most familiar 

 forms of wild life, and continually forget that 

 the constantly changing surroundings must have 

 some effect upon an animal's mentality. Less 

 closely observed, mammals have given rise to 

 some wrong impressions, and the untechnical 

 observer is irritating because of his obstinacy. 

 Many farmers insist, and probably always will, 

 that our common mole eats sweet potatoes and 

 the seed of watermelons that have so often to 

 be replanted. Appearances are against the 

 moles, for they do go through the very spots 

 where the seeds and plants are placed, and how 



