A wolf that cannot catch a grasshopper has no business
hunting rabbits--this seemed to be the unconscious motive that led the
old mother, every sunny afternoon, to ignore the thickets where game was
hiding plentifully and take her cubs to the dry, sunny plains on the
edge of the caribou barrens. There for hours at a time they hunted
elusive grasshoppers, rushing helter-skelter over the dry moss, leaping
up to strike at the flying game with their paws like a kitten, or
snapping wildly to catch it in their mouths and coming down with a
back-breaking wriggle to keep themselves from tumbling over on their
heads. Then on again, with a droll expression and noses sharpened like
exclamation points, to find another grasshopper.
Small business indeed and often ludicrous, this playing at grasshopper
hunting. So it seems to us; so also, perhaps, to the wise old mother,
which knew all the ways of game, from crickets to caribou and from
ground sparrows to wild geese. But play is the first great
educator,--that is as true of animals as of men,--and to the cubs their
rough helter-skelter after hoppers was as exciting as a stag hunt to the
pack, as full of surprises as the wild chase through the soft snow after
a litter of lynx kittens.
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