How Animals Talk 



whom are no classes or species, concerning whom 

 there can be no "authority"; and when, after a 

 lifetime of study, you have made a small beginning 

 of knowledge, you find that, like All Gaul of misty 

 memory, it may be divided into three parts. 



One part is observation, which is a simple mat- 

 ter of the eye. Another is sympathy, which be- 

 longs to the mind or heart. In dealing with wild 

 creatures, as with civilized folk, one learns to ap- 

 preciate De Quincey's rule of criticism, "Not to 

 sympathize is not to understand/' A third part, 

 more rare and variable, may come from that pen- 

 etrating but indescribable quality which we call 

 a gift. A few men have it; the animals instinc- 

 tively trust them, and they understand animals 

 without knowing how they understand. The rest, 

 lacking it, must struggle against a handicap to 

 learn, substituting the slow wisdom of experience 

 for the quick insight of the gift. It is for the lat- 

 ter chiefly that I write these wood notes. 



One word more by way of preface, to express the 

 conviction that you can learn nothing worth know- 

 ing about birds or beasts so long as you seek them 

 with a gun in your hand. On that road you shall 

 find only common dust, and at the end of it a 

 valley of dry bones. Whether you carry the gun 

 frankly for sport, or delude yourself with the no- 

 tion that you can add to natural history by collect- 



[176] 



