Where Silence Is Eloquent 



harmless fish-hawks or porcupines. 1 Repeatedly 

 I have watched game-birds or animals when their 

 enemies were in sight, and have wondered at 

 their fearlessness. The interesting question is, 

 How do they know, as they seemingly do, when 

 the full-fed satisfaction of their enemy changes 

 to a dangerous mood ? Why, for example, are deer 

 alarmed at the yelp of a she-wolf calling her cubs 

 to the trail, and why do they feed confidently in the 

 dusk-filled woods, as I have seen them do, when the 

 air shivers and creeps to the clamor of a wolf pack 

 baying like unleashed hounds in wild jubilation? 



I have no answer to the question, and no ex- 

 planation except the one suggested by human ex- 

 perience : that the hunting animal, like the hunt- 

 ing man, probably sends something of his emotional 

 excitement in a wave ahead of him, and that some 

 animals are finely sensitive enough to receive this 

 message and to be vaguely alarmed by it. 



The mating of animals, especially the calling of 

 an unseen mate from a great distance, brings us 



*In parts of the West, I am told, wolves often kill more than they need. 

 Formerly they fed on the abundant game and were wholly natural animals; 

 but their habits have changed with a changed environment. When the 

 game was destroyed by settlers or hunters the wolves began to feed on 

 domestic animals; and the descendants of these wolves, which killed 

 right and left in a crowding, excited herd of sheep or cattle, are now said 

 to kill deer wantonly when they have the chance. I cannot personally 

 verify the saying, and know not whether it rests on exceptional or typical 

 observation. In the North, where there are no domestic animals, I have 

 rarely known a timber-wolf to kill after his hunger was satisfied. 



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