LEAF AND TENDRIL 



into a "scrap" in trying to separate our dogs, 

 exercising no more reason in the matter than did 

 the orioles. 



When Hobhouse, the English psychologist and 

 philosopher, was trying to teach his elephant how 

 to draw a bolt to open a box that contained a sweet 

 morsel, the elephant used to lose its temper at times 

 and bang the box around like a petulant child — 

 a very human proceeding, I thought. 



My son had a duck that one fall behaved, as it 

 seemed to me, in quite a human way. He had a 

 wild strain in him, and was brought up near the 

 sea. He had lost his mate during the summer, and 

 when fall came, I suppose the migrating instinct 

 began to stir in him. He seemed uneasy and would 

 leave the hens and wander off alone, softly calling 

 as he walked. One night in eariy October he was 

 missing, and we fancied a fox had snapped him 

 up in the twilight. Days passed, till one evening 

 one of the men saw a solitary duck flying past low 

 over the buildings and fruit trees upon the lawn. 

 He said it looked like our lost duck. A few days 

 later the report came from our neighbor of a very 

 tame wild duck upon the river. The duck had 

 come ashore near his house, and he, not having 

 a gun, had tried to capture it by a slip-noose at the 

 end of a pole. But the duck took fright and flew 

 away down the river. A day or two later it ap- 

 peared again near our neighbor's house, and now, 

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