The stories in this book are, with one exception, the lives of pets or wild animals that I knew and loved in my childhood; for, being a delicate child, I was not sent early to school, but allowed to ramble at will through field and wood, thus taking a course of nature studies at first hand, for which I have ever had occasion to be grateful.

It is not claimed that the animals whose life histories are herein recorded, differ in any essential particular from other members of the same species in any neighborhood; neither are the lives of half the heroes that lived in the woods where I played and were really good friends of mine, or of half my pets, given in these pages.

If you will go into the nearest forest or walk abroad in your own familiar fields with a desire to know and not to slay, you too will learn that there are heroes all around you who are as deserving of the title as the bravest and greatest of men. Though they live unknown and die unwept, they will inspire us nonetheless with the spirit of true heroism, and our lives will be better and happier for having known them. Would you love nature, study individuals. God, gives to each one of His creatures an individuality, and in this lies its greatest charm.

It is with the earnest wish and hope that these little histories may awaken in many hearts a genuine love and sympathy for our wild friends, and thus lead to their receiving the kindness and protection they so richly deserve that these pages are written.

FLOYD BRALLIAR.

(Dick, the black bear, was a pet belonging to my grandfather. All the incidents related in his history are strictly true. F. B.)