STRAIGHT SEEING AND THINKING 



difference in the disposition of squirrels, foxes, 

 coons, and other animals comes out, but in the wild 

 state their habits and traits are practically all the 

 same. A fox hunter who knows his territory well 

 will point out to you the course all foxes when pur- 

 sued by the hounds are very likely to take, genera- 

 tion after generation ; the conformation of the land 

 determining the course. Rarely does the fox run 

 wild and upset the calculations of the hunter. But 

 the differences between the behavior of hunted 

 animals under like conditions is not, I think, an 

 evidence of original traits and dispositions in the 

 hunted. One grizzly, or one moose, or one wild 

 boar will charge you when wounded, and another 

 will run away. So will one stick of dynamite ex- 

 plode in the handling while others remain inert ; so 

 will one swarm of bees be ugly to-day and docile 

 to-morrow. Slight differences in external condi- 

 tions, no doubt, determine the result in each case. 

 I see the herring gulls flying up the river above 

 the floating ice, as I write. Now aU those gulls may 

 not be absolutely alike to the last feather, but they 

 are as nearly alike in character as the fragments of 

 floating ice are alike in character. I would not dare 

 affirm any trait or characteristic of one that I would 

 not affirm of all the others. And the score or more 

 of crows perched upon the ice beneath them — what 

 one of those crows will do in its wild state, each and 

 every other crow will or may da. There are no 

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