Part 1

Produced by David Edwards, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

A Little Brother To The Bear

William J. Long

A Little Brother to the Bear

BY William J Long

Author of School of the Woods Beasts of the Field Fowls of the Air Wood Folk Series etc.

Illustrated by Charles Copeland

Boston U.S.A. and London

GINN AND COMPANY THE ATHENÆUM PRESS 1903]

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL

COPYRIGHT, 1903 BY WILLIAM J. LONG

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To Lois, who likes Bears, I dedicate this book of the Bear and his little brother.

PREFACE

The object of this little book, so far as it has an object beyond that of sharing a simple pleasure of mine with others, will be found in the first chapter, entitled "The Point of View"; and the title will be explained in the chapter on "A Little Brother to the Bear" that follows.

All the sketches here are reproduced from my own note-books largely, or from my own memory, and the observations cover a period of some thirty years,--from the time when I first began to prowl about the home woods with a child's wonder and delight to my last hard winter trip into the Canadian wilderness. Some of the chapters, like those of the Woodcock and the Coon, represent the characteristics of scores of animals and birds of the same species; others, like those of the Bear and Eider-Duck in "Animal Surgery," represent the acute intelligence of certain individual animals that nature seems to have lifted enormously above the level of their fellows; and in a single case--that of the Toad--I have, for the story's sake, gathered into one creature the habits of four or five of these humble little helpers of ours that I have watched at different times and in different places.

The queer names herein used for beasts and birds are those given by the Milicete Indians, and represent usually some sound or suggestion of the creatures themselves. Except where it is plainly stated otherwise, all the incidents and observations have passed under my own eyes and have been confirmed later by other observers. In the records, while holding closely to the facts, I have simply tried to make all these animals as interesting to the reader as they were to me when I discovered them.

WM. J. LONG.

Stamford, September, 1903.

CONTENTS

THE POINT OF VIEW

A LITTLE BROTHER TO THE BEAR

WHITOOWEEK THE HERMIT

A WOODCOCK GENIUS

WHEN UPWEEKIS GOES HUNTING

K'DUNK THE FAT ONE

MOOWEN'S DEN

KINGFISHER'S KINDERGARTEN