Travels in a Tree-top 



45 



fancy of the world were forced to pit their 

 energy and skill against the cunning of the 

 animals needed for food or of such that by 

 reason of their fierceness endangered human 

 life, so the country boy of to-day puts his 

 intelligence to work to circumvent the supe- 

 riority of such animal life as by fleetness of 

 foot or stroke of wing can avoid the pursuer. 

 It is a question largely of brain against ana- 

 tomical strudlure. No Indian, even, ever 

 outran a deer, nor savage anywhere by mere 

 bodily exertion stopped the flight of a bird. 

 Men were all sportsmen, in a sense, when 

 sport, as we call it, was necessary to human 

 existence. As centuries rolled by, such 

 animals and birds as came in daily contaft 

 with man necessarily had their sleepy wits 

 aroused, and now it is a case of cunning 

 against cunning. We are all familiar with 

 such phrases as wild as a hawk" and shy 

 as a deer." In the morning of man's career 

 on earth there were no such words as shy" 

 and wild." They came into use, as words 

 are constantly coming into our language, be- 

 cause circumstances make them a necessity ; 

 and as men were trappers before they were 

 traders or tillers of the field, so the words 



