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Animals Without Fear

Animals Without Fear image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
November
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Here is something from our animal iriends that you may lead in connec. tion with Mr. Aaron's article on the same subject: In contract witli the animáis that show great fea.r of man and that distrust all unfamilJar sights and sounds we flnd others thal seem uot te know what it is to be afraid. You have probably noticed that some anlmals will make friends fearlessly the moment they meet you, just as some children are never shy, because they take it for granted that everyone ie their friend. There is a differencí however, between fearlessness and courage. Let us give you an example of what we mean. If in walking across a field you flush a partriöge and she pretenda to be lame, fluttering at your feet, doing all she can to attract your attentlon, it is not because she feels no fear. On the contrary, she is in an agony oí terror. Her nest is close by, her children carmot save themselves, and Bhc is offeriüg you her life for their3. This is not fearlessness; it is courage, and courage of the highest kind. The bravo mother bird that is ready to die for her little ones fears more for them than you can understand. True fearlessness, on the other hand, is perfectly ignorant, and touches our hearts in a different way. A naturalist whom we know tells a pretty story of meeting a little mouse one day in the middle of a mountain lake. The tiny creature was swimming vigorousiy for the shore, but when the man in the boat stretched out a friendly oar to meet him the little mouse ran up it at once and into the palm of the strangers' hand, where "he sat for some time and arranged nis fur and warmed himself. He did not," the naturalist tells us, "show the slightest fear." It waa probably the first time he had shaken hands with a human being and he liked it. "He was what we cali a meadow mouse, but he had doubtless lived all hls life Jn the woods, and was strangely unsophistlcated. How nis little round eyes did shine, and how he sniffed me to flnd out if I were more dangerous than I appeared to hls sight."

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Register