How Animals Talk 



so near is he to the unknown ; and mentally quiet, 

 because excitement is as contagious as fear or 

 measles, or any other disease of mind or body. 

 When I am alone in the woods wild animals are 

 rarely hard to approach, and when I am sitting 

 quietly by a runway they show no fear of me 

 whatever, drawing near with questioning eyes or 

 moving away reluctantly; but when I take an- 

 other with me, especially one who grows excited 

 in the presence of big game, the same animals 

 appear suspicious, uneasy, and end by bolting 

 away as if we had frightened them. 



One day there came to my camp a friend who 

 was eager to see a deer at close range, but who 

 was doubtful of my assurance that animals could 

 neither see nor smell him if he knew how to hold 

 still. When I promised him a deer at ten feet he 

 jumped for his camera, saying that in such an 

 incredible event he would get what he had always 

 wanted, a picture of the graceful creature against 

 a background of his native woods, in soft light and 

 shadow instead of the glaring black-and-white of 

 a flashlight. At that disturbing proposition all 

 his doubts moved into me, who have always found 

 camera folk a fidgety folk. What with their fussing 

 and focusing and everlasting uneasiness over dis- 

 tance or time or shutter, or something else which 

 is never right and ready, they are sure to bedevil 



Fi881 



