ABSTRACT
Man shares the earth with many other living things and he has dealt with them in many different ways. Too many they still are, as to many they have always been, merely useful or useless; hence to be summarily classified as "domestic animals," "game animals," or "vermin." But insofar as man, either primitive or modern, has had any tinge of philosophy he has also asked questions. For all these reasons a collection of writings about animals is also about the men who have been moved, for one reason or another, to write on that subject. To animals they often attributed a consciousness much like their own and they made of them ancestors, fellow creatures, or gods. Most animals that have had any contact with man throughout most history have had good reason to go "in the fear of him and in the dread of him.".
