The rule is said to work both ways. A tame canary, freed, will usually try to return to his cage. And this is known to be true of human beings just as of the wild creatures. There are certain breeds of men, used to the far-lying hills, who, if inclosed in cities, run up and down them until they die. The Indians, for instance, haven't ever been able to adjust themselves to civilization. There are several thousand of them now where once were millions.
Bushy-tail was not particularly afraid of the human beings that passed up and down the park, because he had learned by experience that they usually attempted no harm to him. But, nevertheless, he had his instincts. He didn't entirely trust them. Occasionally a child would come with a bag of nuts, and he would sit on the grass not a dozen feet away to gather such as were thrown to him. But all the time he kept one sharp eye open for any sudden or dangerous motions. And every instinct warned him against coming nearer than a dozen feet. After several generations, probably the squirrels of this park would climb all over its visitors and sniff in their ears and investigate the back of their necks. But this wasn't the way of Bushy-tail. He had come too recently from the wild places. And he wondered, most intensely, whether this tall, forked creature had a pocket full of nuts. He swung down on the grass to see.
"Why, you little devil!" Dan said in a whisper. His eyes suddenly sparkled with delight. And he forgot all about the doctor's words and his own prospects in his bitter regrets that he had not brought a pocketful of nuts. Unfortunately, he had never acquired the peanut habit. His mother had always thought it vulgar.
And then Dan did a curious thing. Even later, he didn't know why he did it, or what gave him the idea that he could decoy the squirrel up to him by doing it. That was his only purpose,--just to see how close the squirrel would come to him. He thought he would like to look into the bright eyes at close range. All he did was suddenly to freeze into one position,--in an instant rendered as motionless as the rather questionable-looking stone stork that was perched on the fountain.
He didn't know it, at the time, but it was a most meritorious piece of work. The truth was that he was acting solely by instinct. Men who have lived long in the wilderness learn a very important secret in dealing with wild animals. They know, in the first place, that intimacy with them is solely a matter of sitting still and making no sudden motions. It is motion, not shape, that frightens them. If a hunter is among a herd of deer and wishes to pick the bucks off, one by one, he simply sits still, moving his rifle with infinite caution, and the animal intelligence does not extend far enough to interpret him as an enemy. Instead of being afraid, the deer are usually only curious.