om "stage fright," like
ordinary mortals, but that "once thoroughly accustomed to the
stage, they seem to find in it a sort of intoxication well known
to a species higher in the order of nature;" and furthermore,
that "nearly all trainers assert that animals are affected by the
attitude of an audience, that they are stimulated by the applause
of an enthusiastic house, and perform indifferently before a cold
audience." If all this is not mere fancy, but is really a fact
capable of verification, it shows another human trait in animals
that one would not expect to find there. Bears seem to show more
human nature than most other animals. Bostock says that they
evidently love to show off before an audience: "The conceit and
good opinion of themselves, which some performing bears have, is
absolutely ridiculous." A trainer once trained a young bear to
climb a ladder and set free the American flag, and so proud did
the bear become of his accomplishment, that whenever any one was
looking on he would go through the whole performance by himself,
"evidently simply for the pleasure of doing it." Of course there
is room for much fancy here on the part of the spectator, but
bears are in so many ways--in their play, in their boxing, in
their walking--such grotesque parodies of man, that one is
induced to accept the trainer's statements as containing a
measure of truth.

IV

THE DOWNY WOODPECKER

I

It always gives me a little pleasurable emotion when I see in the
autumn woods where the downy woodpecker has just been excavating
his winter quarters in a dead limb or tree-trunk. I am walking
along a trail or wood-road when I see something like coarse new
sawdust scattered on the ground. I know at once what carpenter
has been at work in the trees overhead, and I proceed to
scrutinize the trunks and branches. Presently I am sure to detect
a new round hole about an inch and a half in diameter on the
under side of a dead limb, or in a small tree-trunk. This is
Downy's cabin, where he expects to spend the winter nights, and a
part of the stormy days, too.

When he excavates it in an upright tree-trunk, he usually
chooses a spot beneath a limb; the limb forms a sort of rude
hood, and prevents the rainwater from running down into it. It is
a snug and pretty retreat, and a very safe one, I think. I doubt
whether the driving snow ever reaches him, and no predatory owl
could hook him out with its claw. Near town or in town the
En