BOA 
. -^■^■yy^-,,)ng„ppW.,^ 
hide will be absolutely worthless if killed at this time oi 
the year. Two months from now it will be worth $ioo, 
and that's a good deal of money to me." 
That kind of argument was unanswerable; besides, I 
had shown up my courage bravely. So I said, "All right, 
then, we'll let him go." 
So we hitched up the horses and went our way. About 
five miles of comparatively level road was before us. 
Across the mesa green grass, green trees and thousands 
of wild flowers everyAvhere. The man that gave us tho 
camping permit had told us that about two inches of 
snow had fallen on August lo, which seemed mighty 
queer to me. It hadn't done any damage that I could see. 
The air was keen but the sun was warm. 
After crossing the mesa we began to descend. Down, 
down, down, nearly all the afternoon, through a rather 
unattractive country. About all of our attention was 
absorbed in hanging on. We made good time, and before 
sundown we pulled into the camping place selected by 
Lem for the night, on the bank of a raging torrent that 
Lem said was full of trout. So hastily getting things in 
shape for the girls to get supper, Lem and I got out our 
rubber boots and fishing outfit, and were soon in the 
water. Only about twenty minutes of daylight remained. 
I did my best, but did not get a bite. Lem landed three 
beauties, and we soon had them in the pan. 
That night we had a concert of wolves. It was a clear, 
frosty night, perfectly "calm, with millions of stars blazing 
down on us, and later a big moon came up. Sound car- 
ried well and for some time we lay enjoying the music, 
snugly tucked away in our sleeping bags. The next thing 
I knew the sun was shining brightly through the canvas, 
and a hundred blackbirds were twittering on the ground 
outside where we had fed the horses their oats. 
Hurrah ! the open season is here. We'll kill a deer to- 
day or bust. Everybody was hungry and happy. A little 
stiff in the joints at first, may be, but that soon wore off. 
More fish have to W caught while the coffee pot is do- 
ing business. "Where's Lem ?" "Get up, you lazy fellow, 
it's almost noon." (Lem slept in the wagon.) No 
answer. Going up to the wagon I find his nest empty and 
his fish pole gone. Soon he came out of the willows with 
four speckled beauties, one of them weighing 2^ pounds. 
Oh, why did I sleep so long 1 
Lem said that our permanent camp was only about 
twenty miles away now. With a fair road and with good 
luck we ought to be there soon after noon. 
If you had one of our appetites, you would enjoy read- 
ing about that breakfast— fried trout, hot biscuit, bacon 
and coffee. Ye gods, what a feast! But time flies. I 
must hasten on. 
[to be continued.] 
— » — 
The Intelligence of the Wild Things. 
False Natural History* 
BY HERMIT. 
I HAVE before rae the Atlantic Monthly for March, 
containing Mr. John Burroughs' attack on Ernest 
Thompson Seton and the Rev. William J. Long. 
I do not care to express an opinion on either side 
at present, but do desire to call attention to some of 
Mr. Burroughs' false natural history. Mr. Burroughs is 
a naturalist who is widely quoted by other writers, and 
should not, to use his own language, "Disseminate 
false notions of nature." 
Keen observers are springing up throughout the 
world, and their studies of nature are deeper, and far 
more logical and far beyond the knowledge of Mr. 
Burroughs' studies if one must judge by his writings. 
Mr. Burroughs is positive in his statements. Too posi- 
tive, for he is careless enough to contradict his state- 
ments in many cases. I will quote one of his positive 
statements: "There is nothing in the dealings of ani- 
mals with their young that in the remotest way sug- 
gests human instruction and discipline." 
This is a broad statement, but Mr. Burroughs con- 
tradicts it in the same paper. He contradicts it when 
he tells how the crows teach their young to forage; 
when he tells how birds induce their young to leave 
the nest, and when he relates how doves push their 
young from the dovecot to make them use their wings. 
If Mr. Burroughs will visit the Central Park menag- 
erie and the Zoological Park, up in The Bronx, in his 
own State, he will see animals chastise their young. 
Two' ways of chastisement are decidedly human. By 
spanking and by a box on the ear. 
"The New Babies at The Bronx" is the title of a paper 
in Forest and Stream, March 28. The writer, when 
referring to Susie, the baboon mother, states in rela- 
tion to her baby: 
"When he got a bit obstreperous she gave him a 
dainty box on the ear, and then smoothed his head 
anxiously to make sure she hadn't hurt it. The baby 
squeaked, but he was good after that." 
Reads like human discipline, don't it? I will quote 
further: 
"It appears that chastisement is an important part 
of animal bringing up, as seen at the Zoo. All the 
animals have different ways of chastisement for their 
young, but all the children get it, and some of them 
get it hard." j- ■ a- u u u 
Last spring I saw an old crow discipline her baby. 
I was watching the nest from a bluff, which was nearly 
on a level with the nest. The three young crows were 
calling for food in dead earnest. A crow came and 
fed one of the youngsters. Another came and fed 
riumber two. This crow discovered nie, and instantly 
called to the babies to stop their cries. Two stopped, 
but the third, the hungry one, cried louder than ever. 
The old crow circled above me, then flew to the tree 
and knocked the baby crow into the bottom of the 
nest. This rough usage stopped its cries, but it was 
discipline just the same. The crows bring their young 
to my cabin door yard when I am absent. On my re- 
turn the old crows fly away calling the young to fol- 
FOREST* AND_S.THEAM. 
low. It often happens that the latter remain without 
fear of my approach. The old crows return and beat 
the youngsters until they are glad to obey. If these 
young crows were left to themselves, I would soon 
have them tame enough to eat from my hand, like 
the chickadees. But the old crows give them lessons 
in wildness until they become as wild as their parents. 
It is instruction beyond a doubt. 
A pair of towhec buntings come to my cabin for 
food. The male bunting takes charge of the first 
brood, while his mate rears a second brood. When 
the second family appears, the male bunting takes his 
charge to a bird resort. Lt sometimes happens that 
a young bird finds its way back. The old bunting 
pounces on the little one; gives it a severe whipping 
and takes it to the resort again. Truly, the young bird 
gets a lesson that is very much like human discipline. 
I could fill a volume with proof that animals chastise 
their young, but it is unnecessary, for any one can 
visit a Zoo and find proof for himself. So much for 
one of Mr. Burroughs' positive statements; here is 
another: 
"No bird teaches its young to fly." 
This is positive enough, but as usual, Mr. Bur- 
roughs contradicts it. He writes: "I have often 
thought that the parent birds sometimes withheld food 
for the purpose of inducing the young to leave the 
nest." Then he adds: "The common dove will un- 
doubtedly push its fully fledged young off the dovecot 
to make them use their wings." 
In the name of common sense, why did Mr. Bur- 
roughs, with this knowledge, positively assert that "No 
bird teaches its young to fly." That assertion will 
stand and be quoted by scores of writers. Thousands 
of persons have seen the swallows teach their young to 
fly. The parent swallows take their young, perhaps 
two broods, to the fences or telegraph wires, and at 
short intervals teach them to fly. Soon the birds will 
gather, in what might be called companies. They 
mount and wheel and drill until the young are hard of 
muscle, and can touch elbows, and are fitted for the 
long, dangerous journey South. In the face of these 
facts Mr. Burroughs asserts: "No bird teaches its 
young to fly." Here is another assertion: 
"The young of all the wild creatures do instinctively 
what their parents do and did." 
If this be true, why don't a tame crow fly to the 
clam flats; or to the beach when the tide is out; or to 
the carcasses of horses in the woods, as its parents do 
and did? Mr. Burroughs may claim that the change 
is due to tameness, but the argument will not hold. 
When farming in Maine, if I caught a young crow in 
the cornfield, in a foot trap, and tamed him, I found 
he would pull up corn the following spring. All 
through a long cold winter he had remembered the 
lesson taught him by his mother. Young crows taken 
from the nest would iiot pull up corn, although their 
parents before them did. They had been fed on 
sprouted corn, but without a lesson in the cornfield did 
not connect the food they craved with the rows of 
green blades. 
Wild fowl, bred on our northern lakes, will not go 
south without old birds to lead the way. I have 
hatched black duck's eggs under a hen, but the young 
did not go south, as their parents did before them, al- 
though their flight feathers were perfect. Farmers 
around me had flocks of wild black ducks, hatched un- 
der hens. I never heard a flock that went south. One 
flock foraged on a trout brook until cold weather. 
Their life was nearly that of the wild ducks, and I 
thought they might go south, but instead, they trooped 
to the farm buildings for food and shelter. They did 
not go south, as their parents before them did, be- 
cause they had no old bird to lead the way. 
"The bird sings at the proper age," asserts Mr. 
Burroughs, and then adds: "Without a hint from its 
parents." 
A song sparrow in my dooryard has failed to com- 
prehend this law of nature laid down by Mr. Bur- 
roughs. He is teaching his year-old boy to sing. I 
stop my writing to listen. The old bird sings the mat- 
ing song, note for note, but in a much lower key than 
usual. The young bird imitates the singer in an im- 
perfect song, he sings one song after another rapidly, 
while the old bird sings at short periods, just often 
enough to give the beginner a lesson. The old song 
sparrow has visited my dooryard for fourteen years. 
He would desert the fields for a life in the woods, if 
his wife would consent. As it is, he puts in many days, 
spring and fall, at the log cabin. He is usually alone, 
but sometimes he brings one of his children with him. 
If it is a female he does not teach it how to sing, but 
does teach the young males. When the old bird is 
alone he does not sing the mating song, but instead 
sings a low twitter by the house. 
I often take my visitors to a wood thrush's singing 
school. The old male sings the loud clear song, then 
the young males begin. Some sing one note, some 
two. Some notes are hoarse, others are shrill. As 
the birds forget their lesson, they drop out one by one, 
and when all are silent the old male sings again, and 
so it goes on for hours. 
It appears that Mr. Burroughs tried to discourage 
an amateur naturalist, who had discovered a fact in 
her observations. I quote from his paper: 
"The other day a lady told me she thought she had 
heard a robin in the summer teaching its j^oung to sing. 
But I said the young do not sing till the following 
year, and then only the males. If they are taught why 
don't the females sing?" 
The lady was right, robins do teach their young to 
sing, and teach them all the call notes besides. I hear 
the old males sing, for the purpose of teaching tlie 
young, every season. The singing is not in the loud 
notes of the mating time, but is confined to a minor 
key. One cannot go blundering through the woods 
and hear the robin teach its young. It takes hours of 
patient observation to overcome the fear of man, be- 
fore the robins will go on with their domestic affairs. 
When Mr. Burroughs flippantly asked: "If they are 
taught why don't the females sing?" the lady could 
have asked in return, why don't the females sing, any- 
way, like the males, if they are not taught? 
The little girl plays at housekeeping and imitates 
{April i8> t^j. 
hef niDther, Through observation and teaching she 
will in time become proficient in domestic affairs. The 
boy whistles and whittles and imitates the man. It is 
just the same in bird life. The young females learn 
nest building and how to rear a family, and the young 
males learn to sing. These young birds learn by ob- 
servation and by teaching. 
Mr. Burroughs asserts: "A young bird takes its 
appropriate food without a liint from its parents." 
Again Mr. Burroughs contradicts himself. Here is 
what he writes: 
"You may see the old ones (crows) with their young 
foraging about the fields, the young often being fed by 
their parents. It may be permissible to say that the 
old are teaching the young how to forage." 
Yes, and all the birds teach their young how to for- 
age, from warblers to crows. It would be a poor ob- 
server that could not understand that the old birds 
are teaching the young how to procure food. Robins, 
catbirds, buntings and oven birds bring their young 
to my dooryard and feed them on bread. When the 
young birds are old enough their parents give them 
a hint to feed themselves. An old bird will drop 
bread before the baby, with some sort of a clucking 
note, which may mean "help yourself." The young 
bird takes the hint when right down hungry and picks 
up the food. 
According to Mr. Burroughs, the old roosters do 
not teach the young to crow, and the cock grouse does 
not teach the young male to drum. Writers on nat- 
ural history, for many years, have called attention to 
the drumming of the grouse in the fall, heard mostly 
in the night time. Some have claimed that the old 
males were teaching the young, and my experience 
leads me to believe that this is the true solution to fall 
drumming. For eighteen years it has been my prac- 
tice to sleep in the open air from April to December. 
I hear all the wild sounds that abound in the woods, 
and some of these sounds are very interesting. Not far 
from my cabin there is a boulder where the grouse 
drum. In the early fall, before the birds are scattered 
by hunters, I hear the old grouse teaching the young to 
drum. The old bird sends up the roll with as much 
force as in the mating season. The young birds, at 
first, make a poor imitation of the roll, but keep trying 
every evening, until they meet with fair success. Hear- 
ing I believe, and no assertions by Mr. Burroughs 
can make me discredit my sense of hearing. Mr. Bur- 
roughs asks: "Does the rooster teach its young to 
crow?" 
Certainly it does. I am surprised that Mr. Bur- 
roughs should express a doubt on the subject. I have 
understood that he was reared on a farm, and I sup- 
posed that all farmers knew the proverb: "The old 
cock crows and the young one learns." The old 
roosters confine their crowing mostly to the morning 
hours, until the young roosters are old enough to learn 
to crow. Then they crow throughout the day, at short 
intervals, to show the young the proper thing. The 
young birds slowly acquire the true notes, but the old 
ones patiently continue the lessons. Young birds re- 
moved out of hearing, will not learn to crow. A grass- 
hopper year, when I was farming, threatened the de- 
struction of a large field of cabbage. I put up a chicken 
house in the center of the field and stocked it with 
over a hundred chickens. There was a large number 
of males in the flock, but not one attempted to crow, 
although they remained in the field until cold weather. 
Their mates left at the poultry house had become fair 
Growers, under the teaching of several old roosters. 
As soon as the young roosters returned to the poultry 
yards they began to learn to crow. Every now and 
then, poultry papers bring out the fact that young 
roosters will not crow without a teacher. Mr. Bur- 
roughs and the cat: 
"The cat brings her kitten a mouse, but does she 
teach him how to deal with the mouse? Does he need 
to be taught?" 
That) a naturalist should ask such questions is beyond 
my comprehension. I thought every one knew that 
cats teach their kittens all the ways of cat life. It 
was my first lesson in natural history. In my boyhood 
days a fall confined me to the house. At the foot of 
my trundle-bed a litter of kittens in a basket afforded 
me amusement. I noticed the thin voice that gradually 
developed into the strong mew of the old cat, and I 
knew the mother was continually giving a lesson in cat 
language. When the kittens were old enough to leave 
the basket I was surprised to see the old cat playing 
with them. Pussy, as we called her, was a staid old 
cat, and I did not know that she had any play in her. 
I soon noticed that she played with each kitten. She 
had no favorites. After a while it dawned on me that 
Pussy was teaching her kittens how to fight. The 
arched back and spiteful spitting was soon acquired by 
the kittens, and they practiced together. The mother 
gradually dropped out of the game when the young 
ones took it up. Pussy's family was reduced to one 
kitten. As this kitten had no mates to practice with, 
the old cat gave it lessons again in self-defense and ag- 
gression. She taught the kitten how to deal with a 
mouse. She would drop a live mouse near the kitten 
and then stalk it when it attempted to escape. The 
kitten looked on several days and then tried to imitate 
the old cat. The mouse nearly escaped. Pussy caught 
it, just in time, and let the kitten try again. This time 
the kitten succeeded in catching the mouse. The old 
cat often brought in a mouse, but was a long time 
before she would allow the kitten to deal with it alone. 
When the kitten's education was completed. Pussy gave 
it to understand that it must strike out for itself. When 
the kitten persisted in following its mother, crying for 
its natural food, the old cat would turn and box its 
ears soundly. Very like a human mother when she 
boxes the ears of the child for over-teasing. 
Mr. Burroughs would have us believe that animals 
are born with a knowledge of the calls common to 
their parents. Messrs. Long and, Seton never promul- 
gated such an unnatural theory as this. As well claim 
that the human baby is born with a knowledge of the 
language common to its parents. Mr. Burroughs 
says: 
"Young chickens and, young turkeys understand the 
various calls arid signals of their mothers the first time 
