The point is, that because a thing is unusual or interesting it is not
necessarily false, as my dogmatic critics would have you believe. I have
studied animals, not as species but as individuals, and have recorded
some things which other and better naturalists have overlooked; but I
have sought for facts, first of all, as zealously as any biologist, and
have recorded only what I have every reason to believe is true. That
these facts are unusual means simply that we have at last found natural
history to be interesting, just as the discovery of unusual men and
incidents gives charm and meaning to the records of our humanity. There
may be honest errors or mistakes in these books--and no one tries half
so hard as the author to find and correct them--but meanwhile the fact
remains that, though six volumes of the Wood Folk books have already
been published, only three slight errors have thus far been pointed out,
and these were promptly and gratefully acknowledged.
The simple truth is that these observations of mine, though they are all
true, do not tell more than a small fraction of the interesting things
that wild animals do continually in their native state, when they are
not frightened by dogs and hunters, or when we are not blinded by our
preconceived notions in watching them.
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