^^e &(X^ of tS)^ &CK\xi> 



at all. He slinks from some abandoned burrow, and, 

 if the owl and mink are not watching, dies alone in 

 the grass, and we rarely know. 



I shall never forget the impression made upon me 

 by those quiet bones. It was like that made by my 

 first visit to a great city hospital, — out of the busy, 

 cheerful street into a surgical ward, where the sick 

 and injured lay in long white lines. We tramp the 

 woods and meadows and never step from the sweet 

 air and the pure sunlight of health into a hospital. 

 But that is not because no sick, ill-formed, or in- 

 jured are there. The proportion is smaller than 

 among us humans, and for very good reasons, yet 

 there is much real suffering, and to come upon it, as 

 we will, now and then, must certainly quicken our 

 understanding and deepen our sympathy with the 

 life out of doors. 



No sensible person could for a moment believe 

 the animals capable of suffering as a human being 

 can suffer, or that there is any such call for our 

 sympathy from them as from our human neighbors. 

 But an unselfish sharing of the life of the fields de- 

 mands that we take part in all of it, — and all of it is 

 but little short of tragedy. Nature wears a brave 



92 



