INTRODUCTION 



was probably a much more familiar animal 

 than it is now with us, and with its intense 

 vivacity and curious audacity, could not have 

 failed to interest greatly the subtle Greek 

 mind. Where everything out of the range 

 of proper human cognisance was preternat- 

 ural, the ways of the predecessors of Billy 

 and Hans could hardly escape the suspicion 

 of so much kinship with the lower gods, as 

 to induce the nature -loving Greek to make 

 Sciurus (ffKlovpoi — "Shadow-Tail") cousin 

 of the forest deities, perhaps in the fancy of 

 some unrecorded Darwin, the progenitor of 

 Faunus himself. 



