THINK FOR THYSELF. 133 



startled him I know not, but, unknown to ine, 

 he was there while I was writing about his 

 breakfast. Perhaps he objected to some of the 

 things I had put down as forming his bill of 

 fare. 



In the writing of these my daily experiences 

 and doings, I rarely refer to the myths and 

 legends of old, the sayings and beliefs of peo- 

 ple dead and gone ten centuries and more. 

 What matters it to me here what then they did 

 and said ? Fifty years ago most people thought, 

 and even to-day a large number believe, that a 

 man is learned only when he can readily quote 

 the poetry or sayings of Aristotle, Plato, Shaks- 

 peare and Tennyson, or can recount the fables 

 and folk-lore of long ago. Out upon such rot! 

 It is second-hand or even twenty-third hand 

 knowledge, carried down through the centuries 

 from one generation to another all right to 

 read but nonsense to try to remember. The 

 true naturalist should think for himself; jot 

 down an account of the little things about him 

 in nature's realms, for nature was here a mil- 

 lion years before man came upon the scene. To 

 me the call of the Carolina wren, uttered first 

 hand unto my ear, is far more musical than 

 any of the poetry of the ages past. The things 

 which are now, not those which were; the 

 thoughts which are mine to-day, not those of a 

 wise man whose bones were dust long before the 



