70 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



REVIEWS. 



THE LIFE OF JOSEPH WOLF, ANIMAL PAINTER. By A. H. 

 Palmer. Pp. 328. 54 Plates and 13 Woodcuts. (London: 

 Longman and Co., 1895.) 



Until quite lately, naturalists had hardly begun to recognise to 

 what extent their interest in mammals or birds has been developed 

 by a study of the works of good zoological artists. To realise how 

 important this influence is, one has but to observe the visitor to the 

 Bird Gallery of the Natural History Museum in London, and to note 

 the very evident interest that an inspection of the pictorially mounted 

 birds exhibited there arouses in the minds of even the uneducated 

 visitor. No one can doubt that a large number of those who see 

 these things feel, perhaps for the first time, more or less desire to 

 know something of these and other birds in a state of nature. For 

 much the same reason, a casual inspection of a really good zoological 

 picture has again and again awakened an interest in animal life which 

 has afterwards developed into a life-long devotion to science. It 

 would probably be difficult fully to estimate the influence which 

 Landseer's works have exercised in this direction, and the same is 

 true in various degrees of many others, such as Paul Meyerheim in 

 Germany, as well as various British Artists. 



But, as regards the influence of museums in this direction, even 

 better results may some day be looked for. At present, even the 

 best-stuffed mammal or bird does little more than suggest an im- 



oo 



perfect resemblance to the living creature, chiefly because the taxider- 

 mist of to-day has but little real knowledge of the living aspects of 

 the creatures whose skins he manipulates ; and what knowledge he 

 has is generally obtained at second-hand from the zoological draughts- 

 man, who, in turn, may know only a little more of his subject than 

 the bird-stuffer. It is therefore obvious that it is mainly to the 

 zoological draughtsman that we have to look for the popular diffusion 

 of any real interest in living animals. 



To be successful as an animal painter a man must be not only 

 competent as a draughtsman, he must be exact down to the most 

 minute detail, he must possess indomitable perseverance in studying 

 wild animals under every possible aspect, and, lastly, he must be one 

 whose mind can, so to speak, enter fully into the minds of the animals 

 under notice, and be in entire sympathy with them and their being 

 under all possible conditions. Little wonder under these circum- 

 stances that but few men have ever arisen to the first rank as zoo- 

 logical artists. Landseer may be said to have come near the ideal 

 artist, but even Landseer's work was limited in its scope, and was 

 confined to artistic delineation of a few of the better-known mammals. 

 Only one man ever attained to the first rank, and that man was 

 Joseph Wolf, the subject of the biography under notice. 



