NOTE TO THE READER
Reading edition
These Stories, selected from those published in "Wild Animals I Have Known," are true histories of the animals described, and are intended to show how their lives are lived. Though the lower animals have no language in the full sense as we understand it, they have a system of sounds, signs, touches, tastes, and smells that answers the purpose of language, and I merely translate this, when necessary, into English.
ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON 144 Fifth Avenue, New York May 7, 1899