WAYS OF NATURE 
them, as if the tree had taken an emetic, and came 
softly down to the water beside their mother. An- 
other observer assures ‘me that he once found a 
newly hatched duckling hung by the neck in the 
fork of a bush under a tree in which a brood of 
wood ducks had been hatched. 
The ways of nature, — who can map them, or 
fathom them, or interpret them, or do much more 
than read a hint correctly here and there? Of one 
thing we may be pretty certain, namely, that the ways 
of wild nature may be studied in our human ways, 
inasmuch as the latter are an evolution from the 
former, till we come to the ethical code, to altruism 
and self-sacrifice. Here we seem to breathe another 
air, though probably this code differs no more from 
the animal standards of conduct than our physi- 
cal atmosphere differs from that of early geologic 
time. 
Our moral code must in some way have been 
evolved from our rude animal instincts. It came 
from within; its possibilities were all in nature. If 
not, where were they? 
I have seen disinterested acts among the birds, or 
what looked like such, as when one bird feeds the 
young of another species when it hears them crying 
for food. But that a bird would feed a grown bird 
of another species, or even of its own, to keep it from 
starving, I have my doubts. I am quite positive 
that mice will try to pull one of their fellows out of a 
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