Wild Animals at Home

Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Diane Monico, and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









WILD ANIMALS AT HOME




+---------------------------------------+
|                                       |
|          BY THE SAME AUTHOR           |
|                                       |
|                                       |
| THE BOOK OF WOODCRAFT AND INDIAN LORE |
|                                       |
| WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN             |
|                                       |
| TWO LITTLE SAVAGES                    |
|                                       |
| BIOGRAPHY OF A GRIZZLY                |
|                                       |
| LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTHERN ANIMALS    |
|                                       |
| ROLF IN THE WOODS                     |
|                                       |
| THE FORESTERS' MANUAL                 |
|                                       |
+---------------------------------------+




[Illustration: I. A Prairie-dog town
_In N. Y. Zoo. Photo by E. T. Seton_]




_Wild
Animals
At Home_

_by_

_ERNEST THOMPSON SETON_

Author of "_Wild Animals I Have Known_,"
"_Two Little Savages_," "_Biography of a Grizzly_,"
"_Life Histories of Northern Animals_,"
"_Rolf in the Woods_," "_The Book of Woodcraft_."

Head Chief of the
Woodcraft Indians

_With over 150 Sketches and
Photographs by the Author_

_Garden City   New York_
_Doubleday, Page & Company_
_1923_




_Copyright, 1913, by_
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.




Foreword


My travels in search of light on the "Animals at Home" have taken me up
and down the Rocky Mountains for nearly thirty years. In the canyons
from British Columbia to Mexico, I have lighted my campfire, far beyond
the bounds of law and order, at times, and yet I have found no place
more rewarding than the Yellowstone Park, the great mountain haven of
wild life.

Whenever travellers penetrate into remote regions where human hunters
are unknown, they find the wild things half tame, little afraid of man,
and inclined to stare curiously from a distance of a few paces. But very
soon they learn that man is their most dangerous enemy, and fly from him
as soon as he is seen. It takes a long time and much restraint to win
back their confidence.

In the early days of the West, when game abounded and when fifty yards
was the extreme deadly range of the hunter's weapons, wild creatures
were comparatively tame. The advent of the rifle and of the lawless
skin hunter soon turned all big game into fugitives of excessive shyness
and wariness. One glimpse of a man half a mile off, or a whiff of him on
the breeze, was enough to make a Mountain Ram or a Wolf run for miles,
though formerly these creatures would have gazed serenely from a point
but a hundred yards removed.

The establishment of the Yellowstone Park in 1872 was the beginning of a
new era of protection for wild life; and, by slow degrees, a different
attitude in these animals toward us. In this Reservation, and nowhere
else at present in the northwest, the wild things are not only abundant,
but they have resumed their traditional Garden-of-Eden attitude toward
man.

They come out in the daylight, they are harmless, and they are not
afraid at one's approach. Truly this is ideal, a paradise for the
naturalist and the camera hunter.

The region first won fame for its Canyon, its Cataracts and its Geysers,
but I think its animal life has attracted more travellers than even the
landscape beauties. I know it was solely the joy of being among the
animals that led me to spend all one summer and part of another season
in the Wonderland of the West.

My adventures in making these studies among the fourfoots have been very
small adventures indeed; the thrillers are few and far between. Any one
can go and have the same or better experiences to-day. But I give them
as they happened, and if they furnish no ground for hair-lifting
emotions, they will at least show what I was after and how I went.

I have aimed to show something of the little aspects of the creatures'
lives, which are those that the ordinary traveller will see; I go with
him indeed, pointing out my friends as they chance to pass, adding a few
comments that should make for a better acquaintance on all sides. And I
have offered glimpses, wherever possible, of the wild thing in its home,
embodying in these chapters the substance of many lectures given under
the same title as this book.

The cover design is by my wife, Grace Gallatin Seton. She was with me in
most of the experiences narrated and had a larger share in every part of
the work than might be inferred from the mere text.

                                           ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.




Contents


                                                                  PAGE

=I.