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ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



The question whether there are any untamable animals 

 requires a nearer definition of the somewhat ambiguous 

 adjective. Untamable, in the sense of undomesticable, 

 I believe there are none. With the proviso of a guaran- 

 tee against socage-duty or a change of their natural 

 habits, few animals would decline the hospitality of the 

 homo sapiens, especially in countries where the sapient 

 one has become the monopolist of all the good things of 

 this earth. Let any one sweep the snow from his bal- 

 cony, scatter the cleared space with crumbs, and put the 

 balcony-key where the children cannot find it, and see 

 how soon his place will become the resort of feathered 

 guests, — not of town-sparrows only, but of linnets, tit- 

 mice, and other birds that are rarely seen out of the 

 woods. A little discretion will soon encourage them to 

 enter the window and fetch their lunch from the break- 

 fast-table, — by and by even in the presence of their host, 

 for the fear of man is a factitious instinct, unsupported 

 by the elder intuition that teaches animals to distinguish 

 a frugivorous creature from a beast of prey. With so 

 simple a contrivance as a wooden box with a round hole, 

 starlings, blackbirds, martins, crows, jays, and even owls, 

 can be induced to rear their young under the roof of a 

 human habitation ; squirrels, hedgehogs, and raccoons 

 soon find out a place where they can get an occasional 

 snack without having to pay with their hides. 



Hamman, the famous German sceptic, used to feed a 

 swarm of sea-gulls, often the only visitors to his lonely 



