eighborhood of Mount Shasta was much finer than
the average grades of cultivated wool. This FINE discovery was made
some three months ago [1], while hunting among the Shasta sheep between
Shasta and Lower Klamath Lake. Three fleeces were obtained--one that
belonged to a large ram about four years old, another to a ewe about the
same age, and another to a yearling lamb. After parting their beautiful
wool on the side and many places along the back, shoulders, and hips,
and examining it closely with my lens, I shouted: "Well done for
wildness! Wild wool is finer than tame!"

My companions stooped down and examined the fleeces for themselves,
pulling out tufts and ringlets, spinning them between their fingers,
and measuring the length of the staple, each in turn paying tribute to
wildness. It WAS finer, and no mistake; finer than Spanish Merino. Wild
wool IS finer than tame.

"Here," said I, "is an argument for fine wildness that needs no
explanation. Not that such arguments are by any means rare, for all
wildness is finer than tameness, but because fine wool is appreciable
by everybody alike--from the most speculative president of national
wool-growers' associations all the way down to the gude-wife spinning by
her ingleside."

Nature is a good mother, and sees well to the clothing of her many
bairns--birds with smoothly imbricated feathers, beetles with shining
jackets, and bears with shaggy furs. In the tropical south, where the
sun warms like a fire, they are allowed to go thinly clad; but in the
snowy northland she takes care to clothe warmly. The squirrel has
socks and mittens, and a tail broad enough for a blanket; the grouse
is densely feathered down to the ends of his toes; and the wild sheep,
besides his undergarment of fine wool, has a thick overcoat of hair that
sheds off both the snow and the rain. Other provisions and adaptations
in the dresses of animals, relating less to climate than to the more
mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same consummate
skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature. Land, water, and
air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests, underbrush, grassy
plains, etc., are considered in all their possible combinations while
the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is preparing. No matter what the
circumstances of their lives may be, she never allows them to go dirty
or ragged. The mole, living always in the dark and in the dirt, is
yet as clean as the otter o