observation that the critics have challenged; but of late a strenuous
public attack has been made upon the wolf story in this volume by two
men claiming to speak with authority. They take radical exception to my
record of a big white wolf killing a young caribou by snapping at the
chest and heart. They declared this method of killing to be "a
mathematical impossibility" and, by inference, a gross falsehood,
utterly ruinous to true ideas of wolves and of natural history.

As no facts or proofs are given to support this charge, the first thing
which a sensible man naturally does is to examine the fitness of the
critics, in order to ascertain upon what knowledge or experience they
base their dogmatic statements. One of these critics is a man who has no
personal knowledge of wolves or caribou, who asserts that the animal has
no possibility of reason or intelligence, and who has for years publicly
denied the observations of other men which tend to disprove his ancient
theory. It seems hardly worth while to argue about either wolves or men
with such a naturalist, or to point out that Descartes' idea of animals,
as purely mechanical or automatic creatures, has long since been laid
aside and was never considered seriously by any man who had lived close
to either wild or domestic animals. The second critic's knowledge of
wolves consists almost entirely of what he has happened to see when
chasing the creatures with dogs and hunters. Judging by his own nature
books, with their barbaric records of slaughter, his experience of wild
animals was gained while killing them. Such a man will undoubtedly
discover some things about animals, how they fight and hide and escape
their human enemies; but it hardly needs any argument to show that the
man who goes into the woods with dogs and rifles and the desire to kill
can never understand any living animal.

If you examine now any of the little books which he condemns, you will