The Scottish Naturalist. 213 



siderable amount of trouble in the endeavour to fix the value 

 pertinent to many " Illustrations of Animal Reason" given in 

 current serial literature, and the results are perhaps of sufficient 

 interest to warrant description somewhat in detail. 



Firstly, as regards newspapers of all classes — including not 

 only the daily — such as the " Telegraph," but the weekly, such 

 as "The Graphic," "illustrated London News," "North 

 British Advertiser and Ladies' Miscellany," "Saturday Review," 

 and " Spectator." 



(1.) Their occasional leading articles on subjects connected 

 with Natural History are usually by men holding a high or a 

 .good position in the scientific world, either as general Naturalists 

 or as Zoologists. I do not happen to know who are the authors 

 of those " leaders" of this class that every now and then appear 

 in the " Daily Telegraph" — with reference, for instance, to 

 doings at the London Zoological Gardens. But they bear the 

 stamp of being written by men thoroughly versed in their sub- 

 ject, men not only of great experience as Field Naturalists, but 

 of great erudition as Library Students. These leader-writers 

 are indeed of a far higher class — as will be shown in the sequel 

 — than the contributors of zoological articles to such pretentious 

 works as "Chambers's Encyclopaedia. " 



(2.) It is the custom of Newspapers now-a-days to give 

 copious reviews of Natural History works, with extracts there- 

 from. These criticisms are by the same class of popular Natu- 

 ralists as the writers of leaders on Natural History subjects ; 

 while the extracts or quotations, of course, give reference not 

 only to the works criticised, but to various of the incidents 

 contained in these works. 



(3.) In noting current events in which the dog, horse, and 

 other animals take a part, the correspondents of the public 

 press frequently give the dates of the incidents — the names, 

 addresses or residences of the proprietors of animals, and of the 

 eye-witnesses of their behaviour — whereby such Anecdotes ad- 

 mit of satisfactory investigation. 



(4.) Newspapers are in the habit of giving copious extracts 

 with comments, or of otherwise mentioning the contents, of all 

 the leading Serials — such as " Nature," " Science Gossip," the 

 various Quarterly Reviews, " Cornhill " and "Macmillan's" 

 Magazines, and " Good Words." 



(5.) Even in Newspapers, articles on Natural History — Anec- 

 dotes of Animal sagacity — are not always anonymous. 



