Big Flying-Squirrel
This is one in an ongoing series of nature essays from Lives of Game Animals (1925-28) by Ernest Thompson Seton. It appeared in Vol. IV, pg. 384.
A Hope
In my quest for understanding of the little wild souls around us, I feel I am going wisely. I am conscientiously collating the accounts of a hundred other men—patient wood-witnesses, good naturalists all. For I myself have not been privileged to see the things they saw.
Yet no one has done justice quite to our wild kinsfolk of the woods, even though they are everywhere about us. I am, indeed, through other eyes, appraising, measuring, recording for each its place in the scheme, its hold on life, its answer to the riddle of the daily stress. But I do not—for I cannot—give light on the biggest of questions: How far has each small mind upclomb? What is its outlook on the world about?
When one gathers cocoons in the early springtime, most of them are light and hollow; but now and then is found one that is heavy, firm, and full. And we know that this has life—that it holds a quick thing, ready soon to fly in the heavens above.
As I scan these tales, I fear me many are but dead cocoons; yet do I feel in this that tells the Flying Merry-maker’s way, in measure seldom seen, are one or two that have the breath of life. And I have hopes that this brief telling will inspire some younger field-man to go forth, and seek out other cocoons.