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 wliich 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 



