vi Preface. 



animal individuality, and love turns to instinct, and senti- 

 ment vaporizes into sentimentality. 



This mother fox or fish-hawk here, this strong mother 

 loon or lynx that to-day brings the quick moisture to your 

 eyes by her utter devotion to the little helpless things which 

 great Mother Nature gave her to care for, will to-morrow, 

 when they are grown, drive those same little ones with 

 savage treatment into the world to face its dangers alone, 

 and will turn away from their sufferings thereafter with 

 astounding indifference. 



It is well to remember this, and to give proper weight to 

 the word, when we speak of the love of animals for their 

 little ones. 



I met a bear once- — ^but this foolish thing is not to be 

 imitated — with two small cubs following at her heels. The 

 mother fled into the brush ; the cubs took to a tree. After 

 some timorous watching I climbed after the cubs, and shook 

 them off, and put them into a bag, and carried them to my 

 canoe, squealing and appealing to the one thing in the woods 

 that could easily have helped them. I was ready enough to 

 quit all claims and to take to the brush myself upon induce- 

 ment. But the mother had found a blueberry patch and was 

 stuffing herself industriously. 



And I have seen other mother bears since then, and foxes 

 and deer and ducks and sparrows, and almost all the wild 

 creatures between, driving their own offspring savagely 



