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William James Stillman was bornin Schenectady, N. Y., June 1, 1828,and died at Frimley Green, Surrey,England, July 6, 1901. In The Autobiographyof a Journalist, (1901), hehas given one of the most fascinatingand spiritually truthful narrativesever written.
This lover of animals who numberedamong his friends Lowell,Longfellow, and Charles EliotNorton, to name but three, wroteBilly and Hans in the last years ofa long and beautiful life. The storywas first published in the CenturyMagazine for February, 1897. Itwas later on revised and enlarged,then reissued in the Life and LightBooks (George Bell & Sons, London,1907). With the kind permissionof Mrs. Marie Stillman we nowoffer a reprint of this edition.
BILLY AND HANS
MY SQUIRREL FRIENDS
INTRODUCTION
In our judgments of the respectiveintellectual capacities of the animalswhich lend themselves to human companionship,any approach to scientificaccuracy in our comparative psychologydemands that we should compare our subjectsin their native condition. Heredityplays a part which often overtops Nature,and we have no means of ascertaining theeffect of such intellectual progress in theanimal as may be due to the influence ofthe mind of man in the process of domestication.When I was living much withhunters in the American wilderness, I havebeen struck with the differences betweendogs of the same parentage owned by hunter