Wise Animals I Have Known

JULY 1954 | A naturalist is bowled over by the instinctive acts of animals

- Alan Devoe

Most of my life has been spent in getting to know animals. When I was five or six, the animal was an ol' houn'-dawg-one of the wisest persons in the world I thought at the time. I may have been right. Later it was rabbits, guinea pigs, white mice. Then in my adult life as a naturalist it has been deer, raccoons, skunks, foxes and a long parade of other wild animals observed in close intimacy outdoors. If I live to be 80 and still greet the mornings with a praise like prayer, it will be because I knew animals.

They are very close, said Saint Francis, to the paternal heart of God. I think they must be. By instinct, an animal puts infinite trust in life. This morning at sunrise I watched Thomas, our cat, greet the new day. Thomas is now (in human terms) going on for 80.

Every morning I share daybreak with him. It is great medicine. First there is his rush up the cellar stairs, lithe and springy as a tiger, from the place where he sleeps by the furnace.

While I fix his food I watch him. He always begins with the ritual of stretching. Nothing trivial or hasty, mind you, but a leisurely, carefully relished luxury that does him as much good as a holiday. Left front paw, right front paw, now both hind legs, now a long bend of the back... aaah! A brisk shake; the big green eyes open wide; the ears perk up.

He dashes to the French window, rears up with forepaws on the glass, and peers out all quivering and tail twitching with excitement. Sunshine! Trees! Great heaven, there is a leaf blowing hop-skip across the lawn!

Thomas has looked out through this same pane hundreds of mornings, but every time it is fresh and challenging and wonderful.

And so with breakfast, you'd think he had never seen this old chipped dish before. He pounces on his food like a man finding uranium. Then, when the last bit has been neatly licked from the plate, comes the ecstatic moment for going out to the new day.