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5) 



PREFACE 



My reader will find this volume quite a departure 

 in certain ways from the tone and spirit of my pre- 

 vious books, especially in regard to the subject of 

 animal intelligence. Heretofore I have made the 

 most of every gleam of intelligence of bird or four- 

 footed beast that came under my observation, often, 

 I fancy, making too much of it, and giving the wild 

 creatures credit for more " sense " than they really 

 possessed. The nature lover is always tempted to 

 do this very thing; his tendency is to humanize the 

 wild life about him, and to read his own traits and 

 moods into whatever he looks upon. I have never 

 consciously done this myself, at least to the extent 

 of willfully misleading my reader. But some of our 

 later nature writers have been guilty of this fault, 

 and have so grossly exaggerated and misrepresented 

 the every-day wild life of our fields and woods that 

 their example has caused a strong reaction to take 

 place in my own mind, and has led me to set about 

 examining the whole subject of animal life and 

 instinct in a way I have never done before. 



In March, 1903, I contributed to "The Atlantic 

 Monthly " a paper called " Real and Sham Natural 

 History," which was as vigorous a protest as I could 



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