How Animals Talk 



one man, at least, repeated a hundred times in the 

 wilderness. I have been deep in the woods when 

 my food-supply ran low, or was lost in the rapids, 

 or went to feed an uninvited^ bear, and it was then 

 a question of shoot game or go hungry; but the 

 shooting was limited by the principle that a wild 

 animal has certain rights which a man is bound 

 to respect. I have always held, for example, that a 

 hunter has no excuse for trying long shots that are 

 beyond his ordinary skill; that it is unpardonable 

 of him to "take a chance" with noble game or to 

 "pump lead" after it, knowing as he does that the 

 chances are fifty to one that, if he hits at all, he 

 will merely wound the animal and deprive it of that 

 gladness of freedom which is more to it than life. 

 So when I have occasionally gone out to kill a 

 buck (a proceeding which I heartily dislike) I have 

 sometimes hunted for days before getting within 

 close range of the animal I wanted. But when, in 

 the same region and following the same trails, I 

 have entered the big woods with no other object 

 than to enjoy their stillness, their fragrance, their 

 benediction, it is seldom that I do not find plenty 

 of deer, or that I cannot get as near as I please to 

 any one of them. More than once in the woods 

 I have touched a wild deer with my hand (as 

 recorded in another chapter) and many times I 

 have had them within reach of my fishing-rod. 



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