Was it strategy? Was it the result of quail thought and reason? Or did it come by heredity, just like walking? To deny the cold facts in the quail case is to discredit our own ability to reason and be honest. Fear is the ruling emotion alike of the most timid creatures, and also the boldest. Of course each wild animal keeps a mental list of the other animals of which he is not afraid; and the predatory animal also keeps a card catalogue of those which he may safely attack when in need of food. But, with all due consideration to mighty forearm, to deadly claws and stabbing fangs, there is (I think) absolutely no land animal that is not afraid of something. Let us progressively consider a few famous species near at hand. The savage and merciless weasel fears the fox, the skunk, the wolf and the owl. The skunk fears the coyote which joyously kills him and devours all of him save his jaws and his tail. The marten, mink and fisher have mighty good reason to fear the wolverine, who in his turn cheerfully gives the road to the gray wolf. The wolf and the lynx carefully avoid the mountain lion and the black bear, and the black bear is careful not to get too close to a grizzly. Today a cotton-tail rabbit is not more afraid of a hound than a grizzly bear is of a man. The polar bear once was bold in the presence of man; but somebody has told him about breech-loading high power rifles; and now he, too, runs in terror from every man that he sees. The lion, the tiger, the leopard and the jaguar all live in wholesome fear of man, and flee from him at sight. The lordly elephant does likewise, and so does the rhinoceros, save when he is in doubt about the identity of the biped animal and trots up to get certainty out of a nearer view. Col. Roosevelt became convinced, that most of the alleged "charging" of rhinoceroses was due to curiosity and poor vision, and the desire of rhinos to investigate at close range. Today the giant brown bears of Alaska exhibit less fear of man than any other land animals that we know, and many individuals have put themselves on record as dangerous fighters. And this opens the door to the great Alaskan controversy that for a year raged,--chiefly upon one side,--in certain Alaskan newspapers and letters. Early in 1920, certain parties in Alaska publicly asked people to believe that W. T. Hornaday in his "published works" had set up the Alaskan brown bear as "a harmless animal." All these statements and insinuations were notoriously false, but the repetition of them went on right merrily, even while the author's article portraying the savage and dangerous character of the brown bear was being widely circulated in the United States through _Boys' Life_ magazine.