vision, or cunning. Later, in more civilized society, when men became interested in problems of conduct, animals were introduced to point the moral of the tale, and we have the fable. The fable resulted when a truth was stated in concrete story form. When this truth was in gnomic form, stated in general terms, it became compressed into the proverb. The fable was brief, intense, and concerned with the distinguishing characteristics of the animal characters, who were endowed with human traits. Such were the Fables of Æsop. Then followed the beast epic, such as Reynard the Fox, in which the personality of the animals became less prominent and the animal characters became types of humanity. Later, the beast tale took the form of narratives of hunters, where the interest centered in the excitement of the hunt and in the victory of the hunter. With the thirst for universal knowledge in the days following Bacon there gradually grew a desire to learn also about animals. Then followed animal anecdotes, the result of observation and imagination, often regarding the mental processes of animals. With the growth of the scientific spirit the interest in natural history developed. The modern animal story since 1850 has a basis of natural science, but it also seeks to search the motive back of the action, it is a psychological romance. The early modern animal tales such as Black Beauty show sympathy with animals, but their psychology is human. In Seton Thompson's Krag, which is a masterpiece,
