MY FRIEND, THE WOODSMAN. 129 



a score of other little jobs which to the average 

 farmer are impossible. A fine shot with the 

 rifle has he been and a fair fisherman for big 

 fish, but liking best to spear, shoot or seine 

 them, rather than to take them with a hook. 

 A great lover of nature and a close observer of 

 all things out of doors, the lack of training and 

 education has made him a woodsman rather 

 than a naturalist. Three such men it has been 

 my privilege to know, and I count it a great 

 good fortune to have had their friendship and 

 at times their companionship for days. 



How many forms of animal life there are 

 about us on these bright June days. Every- 

 where on leaf or twig, beneath bark and chips 

 and stones, . in nature 's forest pathways and 

 along man's dusty roadsides, in the rippling 

 waters of the stream and in and on the placid 

 pools of lake and pond, in the air above and 

 the caverns of earth below, doth life abound. 

 Living energy combined with inorganic matter, 

 has formed bone, muscle, brain and skin, the 

 union begetting power of motion and thought 

 or instinct. The sole ideas of many forms, if 

 they may be called ideas, are the seeking of 

 food, the quest for a mate. The earth has yield- 

 ed the material, the sun his energy. Blot out 

 or destroy the perfect union whose actions we 

 call "life;" remove a wheel here or a connect- 



