Beware of setting up for wild animals impossible mental and moral
standards. The student must not deceive himself by overestimating
mental values. If an estimate must be made, make it under the mark
of truth rather than above it. While avoiding the folly of
idealism, we also must shun the ways of the narrow mind, and the
eyes that refuse to see the truth. Wild animals are not superhuman
demigods of wisdom; but neither are they idiots, unable to reason
from cause to effect along the simple lines that vitally affect
their existence.

Brain-owning wild animals are not mere machines of flesh and
blood, set agoing by the accident of birth, and running for life
on the narrow-gauge railway of Heredity. They are not "Machines in
Fur and Feathers," as one naturalist once tried to make the world
believe them to be. Some animals have more intelligence than some
men; and some have far better morals.

What Constitutes Evidence. The best evidence regarding the ways of
wild animals is one's own eye-witness testimony. Not all second-
hand observations are entirely accurate. Many persons do not know
how to observe; and at times some are deceived by their own eyes
or ears. It is a sad fact that both those organs are easily
deceived. The student who is in doubt regarding the composition of
evidence will do well to spend a few days in court listening to
the trial of an important and hotly contested case. In collecting
real evidence, all is not gold that glitters.

Many a mind misinterprets the thing seen, sometimes innocently,
and again wantonly. The nature fakir is always on the alert to see
wonderful phenomena in wild life, about which to write; and by