ABSTRACT
"Nature writing" is perhaps principally a bookseller's term, but it does imply a real if rather vague distinction between biology and natural history on the one hand and, on the other, a genre which may include something of both yet is more intimate and more personal than either. It is a small wonder that animals do not laugh. The savage seldom laughs, for he hunts and is hunted like a wild animal, and is allowed so scant opportunity to be off guard that he cannot develop the power to laugh. Much more is this true of the animals. From the day an animal is born, instinct and training are bent toward the circumvention of enemies. There is a large school to-day who asserts that animals are "mere machines." During nights in January, February, and early March these and other animals are particularly active under the spreading branches of great almendro trees.
