Wild Animals I Have Known quotes

The terrified rank broke at his charge, and he sprang in among them.

Then the cattle scattered like the pieces of a bursting bomb.

Away went the chosen victim, but ere she had gone twenty-five yards Lobo was upon her. Seizing her by the neck, he suddenly held back with all his force and so threw her heavily to the ground.

How many of us have ever got to know a wild animal?

I do not mean merely to meet with one once or twice, or to have one in a cage, but to really know it for a long time while it is wild, and to get an insight into its life and history.

Crows are, as you must know, our most intelligent bird—“wise as an old crow” did not become a saying without good reason.

Crows know the value of organization, and are as well drilled as soldiers⁠—very much better than some soldiers, in fact, for crows are always on duty, always at war, and always dependent on each other for life and safety.

Their leaders not only are the oldest and wisest of the band, but also the strongest and bravest, for they must be ready at any time with sheer force to put down an upstart or a rebel.

They know their drill now and have learned sentry duty. They have been taught guns and traps and taken a special course in wireworms and green-corn.

They know that a fat old farmer’s wife is much less dangerous, though so much larger, than her fifteen-year-old son, and they can tell the boy from his sister.

They know that an umbrella is not a gun, and they can count up to six, which is fair for young crows, though Silverspot can go up nearly to thirty.

Finally, each November sees the troop sail away southward to learn new modes of life, new landmarks and new kinds of food, under the guidance of the everwise Silverspot.

There is only one time when a crow is a fool, and that is at night. There is only one bird that terrifies the crow, and that is the owl.

When, therefore, these come together it is a woeful thing for the sable birds. The distant hoot of an owl after dark is enough to make them withdraw their heads from under their wings, and sit trembling and miserable till morning.

In very cold weather the exposure of their faces thus has often resulted in a crow having one or both of his eyes frozen, so that blindness followed and therefore death.

There are no hospitals for sick crows.

But with the morning their courage comes again, and arousing themselves they ransack the woods for a mile around till they find that owl, and if they do not kill him they at least worry him half to death and drive him twenty miles away.

The second lesson he learned was “freeze.” It grows out of the first, and Rag was taught it as soon as he could run.

“Freezing” is simply doing nothing, turning into a statue.

As soon as he finds a foe near, no matter what he is doing, a well-trained Cottontail keeps just as he is and stops all movement, for the creatures of the woods are of the same color as the things in the woods and catch …

There is magic in running water. Who does not know it and feel it?

The railroad builder fearlessly throws his bank across the wide bog or lake, or the sea itself, but the tiniest ril of running water he treats with great respect, studies its wish and its way and gives it all it seems to ask.

The thirst-parched traveller in the poisonous alkali deserts holds back in deadly fear from the sedgy ponds till he finds one down whose centre is a thin, clear line, and a faint flow, the sign of running, living water, and joyfully he drinks.

The thirst-parched traveller in the poisonous alkali deserts holds back in deadly fear from the sedgy ponds till he finds one down whose centre is a thin, clear line, and a faint flow, the sign of running, living water, and joyfully he drinks.

There is magic in running water, no evil spell can cross it.

Tam O’Shanter proved its potency in time of sorest need. The wildwood creature with its deadly foe following tireless on the trail scent, realizes its nearing doom and feels an awful spell.

This was the latest study that Rag took up with his mother—it was really a postgraduate course, for many little rabbits never learn it at all.

No wild animal dies of old age. Its life has soon or late a tragic end.

It is only a question of how long it can hold out against its foes.

Later, when about to settle for the night, he was joined by Molly, who had taken her teaberry and then eaten her frugal meal of sweet birch near the Sunning Bank.

Meanwhile the sun had gone about his business elsewhere, taking all his gold and glory with him.

Off in the east a big black shutter came pushing up and rising higher and higher; it spread over the whole sky, shut out all light and left the world a very gloomy place indeed.

“Then do not smile. It was you that were in danger that day; he stayed and saved your life, though you never knew from what.”

Early in the spring I had begun Bingo’s education. Very shortly afterward he began mine.

Midway on the two-mile stretch of prairie that lay between our shanty and the village of Carberry, was the corner-stake of the farm; it was a stout post in a low mound of earth, and was visible from afar.

… as well as by all the dogs in the neighborhood, and at length, with the aid of a telescope, I made a number of observations that helped me to an understanding of the matter and enabled me to enter more fully into Bingo’s private life.

The post was by common agreement a registry of the canine tribes.

Their exquisite sense of smell enabled each individual to tell at once by the track and trace what other had recently been at the post. When the snow came much more was revealed.

Against this animal Bingo seemed to be no safeguard. At length the wolf, a female, was killed, and then Bingo plainly showed his hand by his lasting enmity toward Oliver, the man who did the deed.

It is wonderful and beautiful how a man and his dog will stick to one another, through thick and thin.

Butler tells of an undivided Indian tribe, in the Far North which was all but exterminated by an internecine feud over a dog that belonged to one man and was killed by his neighbor;

I wondered which part of my clothing would show my identity. Then a new thought came to me.

This is how a wolf feels when he is trapped. Oh! what misery have I been responsible for!

Now I’m to pay for it.

For many days I went there and saw much of the training of the young ones. They early learned to turn to statuettes sound, and then on hearing it again or finding other cause for fear, to run for shelter.

Some animals have so much mother-love that it overflows and benefits outsiders.

Not so old Vixen it would seem. Her pleasure in the cubs led to most refined cruelty.

From their parents they learned the chief axioms of the fox world. How, is not easy to say. But that they learned this in company with their parents was clear. Here are some that foxes taught me, without saying a word:

Never sleep on your straight track.

Your nose is before your eyes, then trust it first.

Never sleep on your straight track.

Your nose is before your eyes, then trust it first.

A fool runs down the wind.

Your nose is before your eyes, then trust it first.

A fool runs down the wind.

Running rills cure many ills.

A fool runs down the wind.

Running rills cure many ills.

Never take the open if you can keep the cover.

Running rills cure many ills.

Never take the open if you can keep the cover.

Never leave a straight trail if a crooked one will do.

Never take the open if you can keep the cover.

Never leave a straight trail if a crooked one will do.

If it’s strange, it’s hostile.

Never leave a straight trail if a crooked one will do.

If it’s strange, it’s hostile.

Dust and water burn the scent.

If it’s strange, it’s hostile.

Dust and water burn the scent.

Never hunt mice in a rabbit-woods, or rabbits in a henyard.

Dust and water burn the scent.

Never hunt mice in a rabbit-woods, or rabbits in a henyard.

Inklings of the meanings of these were already entering the little ones’ minds—thus, “Never follow what you can’t smell,” was wise, they could see, because if you can’t smell it, then the wind is so that it must smell you.

… opposite side of the mud belt was little used, and old Tom, by throwing some fresh rushes across it, expected to make sure that the Stallion would enter by the other, if indeed he should by any caprice try to come by the unusual path.

What sleepless angel is it watches over and cares for the wild animals?

In spite of all reasons to take the usual path, the Pacer came along the other. The suspicious-looking rushes did not stop him; he walked calmly to the water and drank. There was only one way now to prevent utter failure;

He stared stupidly after the sheep for half a minute, then gave the order, “Wully, fetch them in.” After this mental effort he sat down, lit his pipe, and taking out his knitting began work on a half-finished sock.

To Wully the voice of Robin was the voice of God.

Away he ran in 374 different directions, and headed off and rounded up the 374 different wanderers, and brought them back to the ferry-house before Robin, who was stolidly watching the process, had toed off his sock.

There were twelve of them, but Mother Grouse watched them all, and she watched every bush and tree and thicket, and the whole woods and the sky itself.

Always for enemies she seemed seeking⁠—friends were too scarce to be looked for⁠—and an enemy she found.

Away across the level beaver meadow was a great brute of a fox. He was coming their way, and in a few moments would surely wind them or strike their trail. There was no time to lose.

They no longer had to go around an acorn; they could even scramble over pine-cones, and on the little tags that marked the places for their wings, were now to be seen blue rows of fat blood-quills.

Their start in life was a good mother, good legs, a few reliable instincts, and a germ of reason.

It was instinct, that is, inherited habit, which taught them to hide at the word from their mother;

August, the Molting Moon, went by; the young ones were now three parts grown.

They knew just enough to think themselves wonderfully wise.

When they were small it was necessary to sleep on the ground so their mother could shelter them, but now they were too big to need that, and the mother began to introduce grown-up ways of life. It was time to roost in the trees.

Many ends are gained by the whirr. It warns all other partridges near that danger is at hand, it unnerves the gunner, or it fixes the foe’s attention on the whirrer, while the others sneak off in silence, or by squatting, escape notice.

A partridge adage might well be “foes and food for every moon.”

September came, with seeds and grain in place of berries and ant-eggs, and gunners in place of skunks and minks.

He considered himself a true sportsman because he was “fond o’ huntin’,” and “took a sight o’ comfort out of seein’ the critters hit the mud” when his gun was fired.

The neighbors called him a squatter, and looked on him merely as an anchored tramp.

He shot and trapped the year round, and varied his game somewhat with the season perforce, but had been heard to remark he could tell the month by the “taste o’ the partridges,” if he didn’t happen to know by the almanac.

Cuddy lived in a wretched shanty near the Don, north of Toronto.

His was what Greek philosophy would have demonstrated to be an ideal existence. He had no wealth, no taxes, no social pretensions, and no property to speak of.

His life was made up of a very little work and a great deal of play, with as much outdoor life as he chose.

In early November comes the moon of a weird foe. By a strange law of nature, not wholly without parallel among mankind, all partridges go crazy in the November moon of their first year.

They become possessed of a mad hankering to get away somewhere, it does not matter much where.

And the wisest of them do all sorts of foolish things at this period. They go drifting, perhaps, at speed over the country by night and are cut in two by wires, or dash into lighthouses, or locomotive headlights.

In early November comes the moon of a weird foe.

By a strange law of nature, not wholly without parallel among mankind, all partridges go crazy in the November moon of their first year.

They become possessed of a mad hankering to get away somewhere, it does not matter much where. And the wisest of them do all sorts of foolish things at this period.

Was it the wild, clanging cry that moved them, or was it solely the inner prompting then come to the surface? A strange longing to follow took possession of each of the young ones.

They watched those arrowy trumpeters fading away to the south, and sought out higher perches to watch them farther yet, and from that time things were no more the same.

The November Moon was waxing, and when it was full, the November madness came.

He was quite alone so far as kindred were concerned, but that scarcely seemed a hardship. Wherever he went he could see the jolly chickadees scrambling merrily about, and he remembered the time when they had seemed such big, important creatures.

They were the most absurdly cheerful things in the woods.

Before the autumn was fairly over they had begun to sing their famous refrain, “Spring Soon,” and kept it up with good heart more or less all through the winter’s direst storms, till at length the waning of the Hunger Moon, our February, seemed really …

… tattoo again and again, till a small boy who had taken a shortcut to the mill through the woods, ran home, badly scared, to tell his mother he was sure the Indians were on the warpath, for he heard their war-drums beating in the glen.

Why does a happy boy holla? Why does a lonesome youth sigh?

They don’t know any more than Redruff knew why every day now he mounted some dead log and thumped and thundered to the woods; then strutted and admired his gorgeous blazing ruffs as they flashed their jewels in the sunlight, and then thundered out again.

But he soon accepted the change, and thenceforth joined himself to the brood, caring for them as his father never had for him.

Good fathers are rare in the grouse world.

The mother-grouse builds her nest and hatches out her young without help. She even hides the place of the nest from the father and meets him only at the drum-log and the feeding-ground, or perhaps the dusting-place, which is the clubhouse of the grouse kind.