John Burroughs

“ Hudson suggests that when Nature made this species she “overshot her mark.” That he has himself overshot the mark in portraying the creature’s fierceness and prowess will, I fancy, be the conclusion of most readers. “When a person passes near one—say, within three or four yards of its lurking place—it starts up and gives chase, and will often follow for a distance of thirty or forty yards. I came once very nearly being bitten by one of these savage creatures. Riding at an easy trot over the dry grass, I suddenly observed a spider pursuing me, leaping swiftly along and keeping up with my beast. ”

“ With what spunk and spirit he defends himself against his enemies! Every spring I see the robins mobbing the blue-jays that go sneaking through the trees looking for eggs. The crow-blackbirds nest in my evergreens, and there is perpetual war between them and the robins. The blackbirds devour the robins’ eggs, and the robins never cease to utter their protest, often backing it up with blows. I saw two robins attack a young blackbird in the air, and they tweaked out his feathers at a lively rate. ”

“ Savage and cruel and bloodthirsty like our panther, leading much the same kind of life, it yet will not “defend itself against a human being,” but will rather defend a human being against its enemies; will fawn upon a man whom it meets in the night, rubbing playfully against his legs like a cat, etc.—all of which one would like to see corroborated by other observers. ”

“ Hudson's statement that the young of the jacana—a bird, of the marshes—“is ready to begin active life from the very moment of leaving the shell,” is not quite so hard to believe, though hard enough. The young of certain reptiles will run, and hiss, and strike the instant they escape from the egg. But this maturity of powers is certainly rare among birds one moment from the shell. The young of our water-fowl require some hours to make ready for active life. But not so with the jacana. Mr. Hudson had found a nest on a mound of earth in a shallow lagoon containing four, “pipped” eggs. ”

“ Every instinct is supposed to be of some use to the animal possessing it, and to have been developed in the struggle for existence, but of what possible benefit could this death-feigning instinct be to the fox? ”

“ He is everywhere except in the depths of the primitive forests, and he is always very much at home. He does not hang timidly upon the skirts of our rural life, like, say, the thrasher or the cheewink; he plunges in boldly and takes his chances, and his share, and often more than his share, of whatever is going. ”

“ It takes all four-footed creatures of which I have any knowledge, some minutes to get their eyes open when they are born, and to find themselves in their new and strange surroundings, and they rarely do this without aid from the mother. ”

“ So the spider got the whip, if it failed to get the man. The question naturally occurs, what was Mr. Hudson doing, while the spider was traveling up his whip-lash from the ground? Was he holding still? Could he not snap the savage beast off? Our own wolf-spider is a savage little creature, and will show fight when you touch it, but here is a wolf-spider that, like a veritable wolf, pursues and overtakes a man on horseback, and actually comes near biting him. The size of the spider is not given ”