WAYS OF NATURE 
exactly what they see; so few persons can draw a 
right inference from an observed fact; so few per- 
sons can keep from reading their own thoughts and 
preconceptions into what they see; only a person 
with the scientific habit of mind can be trusted to 
report things as they are. Most of us, in observ- 
ing the wild life about us, see more or see less than 
the truth. We see less when our minds are dull, or 
preoccupied, or blunted by want of interest. This 
is true of most country people. We see more when 
we read the lives of the wild creatures about us in 
the light of our human experience, and impute to 
the birds and beasts human motives and methods. 
This is too often true of the eager city man or 
woman who sallies out into the country to study 
nature. 
The tendency to sentimentalize nature has, in our 
time, largely taken the place of the old tendency to 
demonize and spiritize it. It is anthropomorphism 
in another form, less fraught with evil to us, but 
equally in the way of a clear understanding of the 
life about us. 
