Among other animals that this banker naturalist studied was man himself; man when he was even more of an animal than he is to-day, and he came to the conclusion that this curious killing instinct is a survival of the long ages when man had to earn his living by the chase.
"Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave
When the night fell o'er the plain
And the moon hung red o'er the river bed,
He mumbled the bones of the slain.
Loud he howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered his kith and kin;
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came trooping in.
O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof,
They fought and clawed and tore."[30]
Not a very pretty picture, is it? Yet it's true. But, fortunately, so is this one of the happiest hours of the caveman's grandchild.
"Oh, for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools:
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place;
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell
And the ground-mole sinks his well.
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans.
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks."[31]
Some boy wrote to John Burroughs once, and asked how to become a naturalist. In his reply, Burroughs said:
"I have spent seventy-seven years in the world, and they have all been contented and happy years. I am certain that my greatest source of happiness has been my love of nature; my love of the farm, of the birds, the animals, the flowers, and all open-air things.
"You can begin to be a naturalist right where you are, in any place, in any season."[32]
