In these days many strange, true stories about animals are being
written and read, but it seems to me that some of our most intimate
and interesting animal companions are being overlooked. So I have
tried to write about a few of them. These stories are true. I know
this, for Mary and I have really seen almost everything I have told;
and they seem to us strange. If there have slipped into the stories
occasional slight attempts to show some reason for the strange things
or to point an unobtrusive moral, it is because the teacher's habit
has overcome the story-teller's intention. So the slips may be
pardoned.
Of course I recognize that it is taking great chances nowadays with
one's reputation for honesty and truth-telling to write or tell
stories about animal behavior. Nature writers seem to be held, as a
class, not to be above suspicion. But is a truthful man to be kept
silent by criticism or abuse, or, on the other hand, is he to
surrender, even for cash, to bad examples? I call out, "No!" and beat
on the table as I say this until the pens and paper hop, and Mary
asks, "No what?" Which reminds me that I must make some exception to
my sweeping declaration of the truth of the whole of this little book.
I am not responsible for Mary! She is, bless her, a child of dreams,
and sometimes her dreams get into her talk. So some of Mary in this
book is fancy; but the beasties and their doings are--I say it
again--true, quite true.
V. L. K.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA.