The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals

tion, distribution and anatomy are of secondary importance; but at the same time they help to form the foundation on which to build the psychology of spe

resight in self-preservation to the common brown rat,-the accursed "domestic" rat that has adopted man as his perpetual servant, and regards man's go

in his offensive fur. For him no place that contains food is too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. Many old sailors claim to believe that rats will desert at th

poisons have utterly failed, and left me faintly asking: Are rats possessed of occult powers? Once the answer to that was furnished by an old he-one who left his tail in my steel trap,

raps and new poisons. Six dead rats are, as a rule, sufficient to put any new trap out of business; but poisons and infections go farther before being found out. [Footnote: Fo

k appears, the adult bull and cow musk-oxen at once form a close circle, with the calves and young stock in the centre. That deadly ring of lowered heads and sharp horns, all hung precisely right to puncture and deflate host

camp-fires in the Canadian Rockies, the wolverine is one of the most cunning wild animals of all North Americ

or the bait or prey there is in them, without getting caught himself. He will follow up a trap line for miles, springing all traps and devouring all baits as he goes. Sometimes in sheer wantonness he will throw a trap

h upon it. The wolverine came in the night, started at a point well away from the trap, dug a tunnel through

n animal, and very keen of nose, eye, ear and brain. Mr. Wright says that "the grizzly bear far excels in cunning any other animal found throughout the Rocky Mountains, and, for that matter, he far excels t

izzly, in a pen of logs, well baited with fresh meat. On the second day they found the pen

its foot by a creek. On one side was a huge tangle of down timber, on the other side loomed some impassable rocks; and a tiny meadow sloped away at the top. The half-fleshed carcasses of two dead elk were thrown half way down the rock slide, to serve as a bait. On the two sides two bear guns were set, and to

essing the string sufficiently to set off its gun, he followed it to the barrier of trees. Being balked there, he turned about, retraced his steps carefully and followed the string to the barrier of rocks. Being

posed to be unclimbable. There he scrambled up the "impossible" rocks, negotiated the ledge foot by foot, and successfully got around the end of line No. 2. Getting b

t bear is there to this day, alive and well. No wonder Mr. Wrig

ght, or even to dig deeply, they are wholly dependent upon their wits in keeping their young alive by hiding them. Thanks to their keenness in concealment, the gray rabbit is pl

ow was like that of a small wash-basin, and when at rest in it with her young ones the neutral gray back of the mother came just level with the top of the ground. At the last, when her young were almost large en

buck is more keen- witted than the doe; but this is a debatable question. Throughout the year the buck thinks only of himself. During fully one-half the year the doe is burdened by the cares of motherhood, and the paramount duty of savin

-grounds of the United States. Thanks to its alertness in seeing its enemies first, its skill and quickness in hiding, and its mental keenness in recognizing and using deer sanctuaries, the white- tailed or "Virginia" deer will ou

les that can shoot and kill at a quarter of a mile. In the rutting season the bull moose of Maine or New Brunswick is easily deceived by the "call" of a birch-bar

bungling hunter can find him and kill him at long range. In the days of black powder and short ranges the sheep had a chance to escape; but now he has none whateve

nd attacks him in precipitous mountains, where running and hiding are utterly impossible. When discovered on a ledge two feet wide leading across the face of a precipice, poor Billy has noth

a strange divergence of reasoning power between the wild anima

ir" of the cold outdoors as they can attain by deep denning or burrowing. The prairie-dog not only ensconces himself in a cul-de-sac at the end of a hole fourteen feet deep and long, but as winter sets in

child enough fresh air to supply ten full-grown elephants, or twenty head of horses. And the final word is the "sleeping-porch!" It matters not how deadly damp is the air along with its 33 degrees of cold, or the velocity of the wind, the fresh

warm partly by the warmth of her own body. The wild fur-clad mother does not maroon her helpless offspring in an isolated cot in a room apart, upon a thin mattress and in an atmosphere so cold that it is utterly impossible

be forced upon defensel

that of an elephant. Besides, if Nature had intended that men should sleep outdoors in win