- i -
A Hermit's Wild Friends
or
Eighteen Years in the Woods
By
Mason A. Walton
(The Hermit of Gloucester)
Boston
Dana Estes & Company
Publishers
- ii -
Copyright, 1903
By Dana Estes & Company
All rights reserved
A HERMIT'S WILD FRIENDS
Published October, 1903
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
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To the
Lovers of Nature,
everywhere,
this volume is fraternally dedicated.
- v -
NOTE
During my eighteen years of hermit life,I claim to have discovered several new featuresin natural history, namely:
That the cow-bunting watches over itsyoung, assists the foster parents in providingfood, and gradually assumes full care of theyoung bird, and takes it to the pasture toassociate with its kind; that the white-footedmouse is dumb, and communicates with itsspecies by drumming with its toes; that thewood-thrush conducts a singing-school forthe purpose of teaching its young how tosing; that the chickadee can count; thatthe shadbush on Cape Ann assumes a dwarfform, and grows in patches like the low-bushblueberry, fruiting when less than a foot inheight; that the red squirrel owns a farm orfruit garden, and locates his male children- vi -on territory which he preempts for the purpose.I am aware that my claims will bevigorously assailed, but I have verified thesediscoveries by years of patient observation,and would say to my critics: "You wouldbetter investigate carefully before denyingthe probability of any one of these claims."
Thanks are due the publishers of Forestand Stream and Youth's Companion forpermission to republish articles which haveappeared in these respective journals.
M. A. WALTON.
Gloucester, April 5, 1903.