LEAF AND TENDRIL 



been planed and painted, because sooner or later 

 they are sure to fall. We could teach the cunning 

 crow not to be afraid of a string stretched across the 

 cornfield, and the wary fox not to be barred from 

 a setting fowl by a hoop of iron, and we could teach 

 him to elude the hounds by taking to the highway 

 and jumping into the hind end of a passing farm 

 wagon on the way to the mill and curling up among 

 the meal-bags, as Mr. Roberts's fox did. We could 

 instruct the bird with broken legs how to make 

 clay casts for them, and to give the clay a chance 

 to harden, as the woodcock of Dr. Long did. The 

 wild animals do not need our medicine because 

 they are probably never ill, and only upon very rare 

 occasions could our surgery be of use to them. The 

 domestic animals sometimes need a midwife, but 

 probably the wild creatures never do. They all 

 learn slowly the things that it is necessary for them 

 to know. In time, I have no doubt, the migrating 

 birds will learn to avoid the lighthouses along the 

 coast, where so many of them now meet their death. 

 Animals know what they have to know in order 

 that the species may continue, and they know little 

 else. They do not have to reason because they do 

 not progress as man does. They have only to live 

 and multiply, and for this their instincts suffice 

 them. Neither do they require any of our moral 

 sentiments. These would be a hindrance rather than 

 a help, and, so far as I can see, they do not have them. 



