It is the skull of a beaver, and shows in three distinct and remarkable gradations how nature replaces the soft enamel as it is worn from the beaver's teeth.

You see, I am a hobbyist.

For twenty years I have been studying wild animals.

And there--" He replaced the skull on the table to point to an isolated shelf filled with books and magazines.
"-- there is my most remarkable collection," he added, a gleam of humour in his eyes.

"They are the books and magazine stories of nature fakirs, the 'works' of naturalists who have never heard the howl of a wolf or the cry of a loon; the wild dreams of fictionists, the rot of writers who spend two weeks or a month each year on some blazed trail and return to the cities to call themselves students of nature.