Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/11



The woods and the fields, the marshes and the waters are a vast theater where many dramas are enacted. Yet, for the most part, these are hidden from human eyes. Only now and then do we get a glimpse of a tragic climax; only rarely can we read in the sand the details of some perilous encounter. We have made the wild folk fear us. Hence, though they may be all around us, they hold themselves aloof and do not willingly permit us to follow from beginning to end the record of their lives.

Yet all who go into the woods know how dramatic those lives often are, how full of thrilling adventure. The careful naturalist, setting down only what he has actually seen of some wild animal, realizes at the end how inadequate, how incomplete his record is. It contains much of great value. It is all true. But it is a fragment or series of fragments. It omits much that undoubtedly happens, much of interest and importance. It is not a picture of that animal's life.

That is why the naturalist or student of wild nature may, without apology, make use of the form