98 NOTES FROM THE PRAIRIE 



forgot prudence and forced her to climb up on 

 my shoulder. 



" In an extract from a London paper I see it 

 asserted that birds and snakes cannot taste. 

 As to the snakes I cannot say, but I know 

 birds can taste, from observing my canary when 

 I give him something new to eat. He will 

 edge up to it carefully, take a bit, back off to 

 meditate; then if he decides he likes it, he 

 walks up boldly and eats his fill. But if there 

 is anything disagreeable in what I offer him, 

 acid, for instance, there is such a fuss! He 

 scrapes his bill, raises and lowers the feathers 

 on the top of his head, giving one the impres- 

 sion that he is making a wry face. He cannot 

 be induced to touch it a second time. 



"I have taught him to think I am afraid of 

 him, and how he tyrannizes over me, chasing 

 me from place to place, pecking and squeaking! 

 He delights in pulling out my hair. When 

 knitting or crocheting, he tries to prevent my 

 pulling the yarn by standing on it; when that 

 fails, he takes hold with his bill and pulls with 

 all his little might." 



Some persons have a special gift or quality 

 that enables them to sustain more intimate 

 relations with wild creatures than others. 

 Women, as a rule, are ridiculously afraid of 

 cattle and horses turned loose in a field, but 

 my correspondent, when a young girl, had 

 many a lark with the prairie colts. " Is it not 

 strange," she says, "that a horse will rarely 

 hurt a child, or any person that is fond of 



