_To Lois, who likes Bears, I dedicate this book of the Bear and
his little brother._
_PREFACE_
_The object of this little book, so far as it has an object beyond
that of sharing a simple pleasure of mine with others, will be found
in the first chapter, entitled "The Point of View"; and the title will
be explained in the chapter on "A Little Brother to the Bear" that
follows._
_All the sketches here are reproduced from my own note-books largely,
or from my own memory, and the observations cover a period of some
thirty years,--from the time when I first began to prowl about the
home woods with a child's wonder and delight to my last hard winter
trip into the Canadian wilderness. Some of the chapters, like those of
the Woodcock and the Coon, represent the characteristics of scores of
animals and birds of the same species; others, like those of the Bear
and Eider-Duck in "Animal Surgery," represent the acute intelligence
of certain individual animals that nature seems to have lifted
enormously above the level of their fellows; and in a single
case--that of the Toad--I have, for the story's sake, gathered into
one creature the habits of four or five of these humble little helpers
of ours that I have watched at different times and in different
places._
_The queer names herein used for beasts and birds are those given by
the Milicete Indians, and represent usually some sound or suggestion
of the creatures themselves. Except where it is plainly stated
otherwise, all the incidents and observations have passed under my own
eyes and have been confirmed later by other observers. In the
records, while holding closely to the facts, I have simply tried to
make all these animals as interesting to the reader as they were to me
when I discovered them._
_WM. J. LONG._
_Stamford, September, 1903._