The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

"With his head bent to one side and back curved, with one ear up and the other down, and with a dejected, helpless expression on his face, he hobbled wearily away, barely able to step without falling. Slowly he made his way to the river, waded in, drank, crossed to the far side, staggered laboriously up the low bank, and lay down. The next day he was found in the same spot,--dead." THE DEFENSE OF THE HOME AND FAMILY. Any man who is too cowardly to fight for his home and country deserves to live and die homeless and without a country. With this subject of courage the parental and fraternal affections of wild animals are inseparably linked. The defense of the home and family unit is the foundation of all courage, and of all fighting qualities in man or animals. The gospel of self-defense is the first plank in the platform of the home defenders. Obviously, the head of a family cannot permit himself to be knocked out, because as the chief fighter in the Home Defense League it is his bounden duty to preserve his strength and his weapons, and remain fit. In the days of the club, the stone axe and the flint arrow-head, men were few and feeble, and the wild beasts had no cause to fear extermination. Tooth, claw and horn were about as formidable as the clumsy and inadequate weapons of man. The wild species went on developing naturally, and some mighty hosts were the result.