Does all this sound strange or incredible to you, like a chapter from a dream-book? However it may sound, it is the crystallized conviction resulting from years of intimate observation of wild beasts in their native woods; and if you consider [[155]]it a moment without prejudice, it may appear more natural or familiar, like a chapter from life. If the man who sits opposite you can send his good or evil will across a room, so that you feel his quality without words, or if he can so express himself silently when he enters your gate that certain dogs instantly take his measure and welcome or bite him, it is not at all improbable that the same man can project the same feelings when he goes afield, or that sensitive wild creatures can understand or “feel him out” at a considerable distance.
To weigh that probability fairly you must first get rid of your ancient hunting lore. Hunters are like the Medes and Persians in that they have laws which alter not; and I suppose if you met ancient Nimrod in the flesh, his admonition would be, “Keep to leeward and stalk carefully, breaking no twig, for your game will run away if it winds or hears you.” That is the first rule I learned for big-game hunting, and it is founded on fact. But there are two other facts I have observed these many years, which Nimrod will never mention: the first, that when you are keenly hunting, it often happens that game breaks away in alarm before it winds or sees or hears you; and the second, that when you are not hunting, but peaceably roving the woods, going carelessly and paying no attention to the wind, you often come very close [[156]]to wild game, which stops to watch you curiously after it has seen you and heard your step or voice and sampled your quality in the air. These two facts, implying some kind of mental or emotional contact between the natural man and the natural brute, are probably not accidental or unrelated, and we are here trying to find the natural law or principle of which they are the occasional and imperfect expression.
This whole matter of silent communication may appear less strange if we remember that most wild creatures are all their lives accustomed to matters which sense-blinded mortals find mysterious or incredible. Why a caterpillar, which lives but a few hours when all the leaves are green, should make a cocoon of a single leaf and with a thread of silk bind that leaf to its stem before he wraps himself up in it, as if he knew that every leaf must fall; or why a spider, adrift for the first time on a chip, should immediately send out filaments on the air currents and, when one of his filaments cleaves to something solid across the water, pull himself and his raft ashore by it; or why a young bear, which has never seen a winter, should at the proper time prepare a den for his long winter sleep,—a thousand such matters, which are as A B C to natural creatures, are to us as incomprehensible as hieroglyphics to an Eskimo. That a sensitive animal [[157]]should know by feeling (that is, by the reception of a silent message) whether an approaching animal is in a dangerous or a harmless mood is really no more remarkable than that he should know, as he surely does, when it is time for him to migrate or to make ready his winter quarters.
This amazing sensitiveness, resulting, I think, from the reception of a wordless message, was brought strongly home to me one day as I watched a flock of black mallards, forty or fifty of them, resting in the water-grass within a few yards of my hiding-place. A large hawk had appeared at intervals, circling over the marshes and occasionally over the pond; but, beyond turning an eye upward when he came too near, the ducks apparently paid no attention to him. He was their natural enemy; they had paid toll of their number to satisfy his hunger; but now, though plainly seen, he was no more regarded or feared than a dragon-fly buzzing among the reeds. Presently another hawk appeared in the distance, circling above the meadows. As a wider swing brought him over the pond a watchful duck uttered a single low quock! On the instant heads came from under wings; a few ducks shot into the open water for a look; others sprang aloft without looking, and the whole flock was away in a twinkling. I think the hawk did not see or suspect them till they rose in the air, [[158]]for at the sudden commotion he swooped, checked himself when he saw that he was too late, and climbed upward where he could view the whole marsh again.
Now these two hawks were of the same species, and to my eyes they were acting very much alike. One was hungry, on the lookout for food; the other was circling for his own amusement after having fed; and though the eyes of birds are untrustworthy in matters of such fine distinction, in some way these ducks instantly knew or felt the difference between the mood of one enemy and that of another. Likewise, when I have been watching deer in winter, I have seen a doe throw up her head, cry an alarm and bound away; and her action became comprehensible a few moments later when a pack of hunting wolves broke out of the cover. But I have watched deer when a pack of wolves that were not hunting passed by in plain sight, and beyond an occasional lift of the head for an alert glance the timid creatures showed no sign of alarm, or even of uneasiness, in presence of their terrible enemies.
I say confidently that one wolf pack was hunting and the other not hunting because the northern timber-wolf naturally (that is, in a wild state and dealing with wild animals) hunts or kills only when he is hungry. I ran the trails of both packs, and [[159]]one showed plainly that the wolves were in search of food; while the other said that the brutes were roaming the country idly, lazily; and when I ran the back trail of this second pack I found where they had just killed and eaten. The deer were not afraid of them because they were for the time quite harmless.
At first I thought that these ducks and deer perceived the mood of their enemies in a simple way through the senses; that they could infer from the flight of a hawk or the trot of a wolf whether he were peaceable or dangerous; and at times this is probably the true explanation of the matter. The eyes of most birds and beasts, strangely dull to objects at rest, are instantly attracted to any unusual motion. If the motion be quiet, steady, rhythmical, they soon lose interest in it, unless it be accompanied by a display of bright color; but if the motion be erratic, or if it appear and disappear, as when an approaching animal hides or creeps, they keep sharp watch until they know what the motion means or until timidity prompts them to run away. Thus, chickens or ducks show alarm when a kite slants up into the air; they lose interest when the kite sits in the wind, and become alert again when it begins to dive or swoop. It is noticeable, also, that on a windy day all game-birds and animals are uncommonly wild and difficult [[160]]of approach, partly because the constant motion of leaves or grass upsets them, and partly (in the case of animals) because their noses are at fault, the air messages being constantly broken up and confused. But such a “sensible” explanation, suitable as it may be for times or places, no longer satisfies me, and simply because it does not explain why on a quiet day game should be unconcerned in presence of one hawk or wolf, and take to instant flight on the appearance of another enemy of the same species.
It should be noted here that these “fierce” birds and beasts are no more savage in killing grouse or deer than the grouse is savage in eating bugs, or the deer in seeking mushrooms at the proper season; that they simply seek their natural meat when they are hungry, and that they are not bloodthirsty or ferocious or wanton killers. Only men, and dogs trained or spoiled by men, are open to that charge. The birds and beasts of prey when not hungry (which is a large part of the time, since they feed but once a day or sometimes at longer intervals) live as peaceably as one could wish. After feeding they instinctively seek to be with their own kind and very rarely attempt to molest other creatures. At such times, when they are resting or playing or roving the woods, the smaller wood folk pay no more attention to them than to [[161]]harmless fish-hawks or porcupines.[1] Repeatedly I have watched game-birds or animals when their enemies were in sight, and have wondered at their fearlessness. The interesting question is, how do they know, as they seemingly do, when the full-fed satisfaction of their enemy changes to a dangerous mood? Why, for example, are deer alarmed at the yelp of a she-wolf calling her cubs to the trail, and why do they feed confidently in the dusk-filled woods, as I have seen them do, when the air shivers and creeps to the clamor of a wolf pack baying like unleashed hounds in wild jubilation?
I have no answer to the question, and no explanation except the one suggested by human experience: that the hunting animal, like the hunting man, probably sends something of his emotional excitement in a wave ahead of him, and that some animals are finely sensitive enough to receive this message and to be vaguely alarmed by it.