SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 417 



made a very lively, interesting, and instructive book, which, is marred, how- 

 ever, by occasional evidences that, while begun with serious purpose, it has 

 been hurried to meet a passing demand, and by the too frequent intrusion 

 of trivialities and slang. 



*■&• 



We are often surprised at manifestations of individuality and intelligence 

 in domestic animals and pets, and are accustomed to attribute extraordinary 

 qualities to the beasts in which we perceive them ; as if each animal could 

 not have its peculiar traits and talents as well as each man. We hardly 

 imagine that there are any special differences in wild animals, and that 

 idiosyncrasies of character and diversities of gifts and powers of adaptation 

 may run through the whole animal kingdom. A closer acquaintance with 

 Nature would teach us better. Certain stories and myths of savages show 

 that they had a fair appreciation of the individual peculiarities of animals, 

 and farmers' boys, who live in natural surroundings, know something of 

 these things. The subject is now presented to us in a fairly clear light by 

 Mr. Ernest Seton Thompson, as illustrated in the careers of a number of 

 typical specimens of animals and birds whose characters and acts, as they 

 came under his observation, are related in Wild Animals I have Known* 

 The stories, he avers, are true ; the animals in the book are all real 

 characters. They lived the lives he has depicted, and showed the stamp of 

 heroism and personality more strongly by far than it has been in the power 

 of his pen to tell. Among them was Lobo, the wolf, of the Corrumpaw 

 Cattle Eange, New Mexico, the leader of a gang, who exhibited some of the 

 qualities of an able general, and was a beast of influence, powerful, vigilant, 

 crafty, and the terror of the settlement ; and who was only trapped when 

 grief for the loss of a female companion deprived him of the wit by which 

 he had escaped all previous efforts to take him. Silverspot, the crow, was 

 the leader of a large band. He had his calls, which the other crows obeyed, 

 and was always to be seen at the head of his company in their incursions 

 into the fields, and guiding them in their journeys northward and south- 

 ward. Eaggylug, the rabbit, is acknowledged to be a composite, embodying 

 in one the ways of several rabbits, their nesting habits and ways of conceal- 

 ment and devices to baffle pursuers. Bingo, the dog, had associates as well 

 as enemies among the wolves, and different characters by day and by night. 

 In a similar way to these, the traits of the fox, the pacing mustang, other 

 dogs than Bingo, and the partridge are portrayed. In all the stories the 

 real personality of the individual and his view of life are the author's theme, 

 rather than the ways of the race in general, as viewed by a casual and hos- 

 tile human eye. The moral is suggested by the lives and emphasized by Mr. 

 Thompson, that "we and the beasts are kin. Man has nothing that the 

 animals have not at least a vestige of ; the animals have nothing that man 

 does not at least in some degree share. Since, then, the animals are crea- 

 tures with wants and feelings differing only in degree from our own, they 

 surely have their rights." It would be hard to speak too well of the graphic 

 expressiveness of the illustrations. 



* Wild Animals I have Known, and 300 Drawings. By Ernest Seton Thompson. New York: Charles 

 Scribner's Sons. Pp. 358. Price, $3. 



vol. liv. — 30 . 



