Bannertail 



* 



ft 



wisdom inherited from his forebears, and 

 his keen, discriminating nose. 



Scrambling up a rotten stub one day, 

 a flake of bark fell off, and here a-row 

 were three white grubs; fat, rounded, 

 juicy. It was instinct bade him seize 

 them, and it was smell that justified the 

 order; then which, it is hard to say, told 

 him to reject the strong brown nippers 

 at one end of each prize. That day he 

 learned to pry off flakes of bark for the 

 rich foodstuffs lodged behind. 



At another time, when he worked off a 

 slab of bark in hopes of a meal, he found 

 only a long brown millipede. Its smell 

 was earthy but strange, its many legs and 

 its warning feelers, uncanny. The smell- 

 guide seemed in doubt, but the inborn 

 warden said: " Beware, touch it not." He 

 hung back watching askance, as the evil 

 thing, distilling its strange pestilent gas, 

 wormed Snake -like out of sight, and Ban- 



[22] 



