Baby Animals

This volume was published in 1917.

From the book's Foreword:

I believe that every normal human child is
born with a natural love for wild animals, and
a desire to know them intimately. That this
universal instinct sometimes is suppressed, and
its tendrils often reach out in vain for something
to which to cling, is not the fault of human
nature, but environment. It is because of
that pathetic desire to know the beautiful wild
creatures of the world that we have zoological
parks and gardens.

The child or the adult who grows up, lives,
and dies without having had a chance to be-
come personally acquainted with a lot of inter-
esting wild animals, loses much out of life.

All healthy children are interested in animals,
but most of all are they interested in young ani-
mals. Naturally, also, it is the wild babies that
appeal most strongly to the great universal
motherhood instinct in woman, both tame and
wild. I once knew personally a black bear cub
that was literally nursed in the depths of a snowy
Maine forest by a human foster mother, along
with a human foster sister ; and both were happy
ever after.

If a woman can not write of jungle babies
sympathetically and understandingly, who can?
With Miss McNally, the love for wild animals
and their offspring is no passing fancy, nor a fad
of a day or an hour. It is good to know how
the little four-handed and four-footed folk im-
press a perfectly normal, genuine and old-
fashioned American girl. It is no cause for
wonder that her acquaintance with wild animals
should have created a desire to set forth their
babies, in word and picture, for the pleasure
of others.

Let us hope that old-fashioned human and
humane interest in our living wild animals never
will die, and that our love for young animals
never will grow old. The better we know wild
animals in life, the less we will feel like re-
ducing them to a state of death, and of mini-
mum interest!

William t. Hornaday
...............................................................................

Contnents:
I. Baby Beavers
II. Baby Orang-utans
III. A Baby Hippopotamus
IV. Baby Raccoons
V. Baby Elephants
VI. Baby Rhinos
VII. Baby Bears
VIII. Baby Camels
IX. Baby Woodchucks
X. Baby Skunks
XI. Baby Tigers
XII. The Baby Duck-Billed Playtpus and Echidna
XIII. Baby Kangaroos
XIV. Baby Rocky Mountain Goats
XV. Baby Gorillas
XVI. Baby Canada Lynx
XVII. Baby Llamas
XVIII. Baby Foxes
XIX. Baby Lions
XX. Baby Musk Oxen
XXI. Baby Leopards
XXII. Baby Moose
XXIII. Baby Porcupines
XXIV. Baby Pumas
XXV. Baby Giraffes