OPOSSUMS AND OTHER SMALL ANIMALS 327 

 NATURE FAKING. 



Philosophers tell us that human thought creates 

 that which it imagines. That is a tough proposi- 

 tion, but we know it to be true in dreams and de- 

 lirium and can believe that even when we are wide 

 awake and in good health, to a certain de- 

 gree, we see just what we are educated to believe 

 exists. In other words 



WE SEE WHAT WE THINK WE SEE. 



In olden times almost any sort of improbable, 

 impossible story would be accepted as truth, espe- 

 cially if it were told in regard to Nature and her 

 children, and in every old book of Natural His- 

 tory we see the results. 



The old illustrators' eyes were as good as ours, 

 their minds were as keen and their brains weighed 

 as much as that of the modern illustrator, but 

 when they drew a picture of the narwhal, for in- 

 stance, because of its one tusk, they gave it 



THE HEAD OF A UNICORN, 



and because it lived in the water, the scales of a 

 fish! 



When they made a picture of a sea-cow, they 

 gave it the trunk and head of a woman with the 

 tail of a fish and called it a mermaid. These things 

 had no existence outside of the brains of the peo- 

 ple and yet even 



