THE CAMERA 



229 



But, Mr. Kellogg, you are wrong 

 about the twenty-five per cent, lens 

 and seventy-five per cent, worker. It 

 is one hundred per cent, lens and a one 

 hundred per cent, worker. The good 

 lens is worth while. The cheap lens 

 will do something, will do more if 

 skillfully handled; but the high grade 

 lens will do everything that can be 

 done in the wonderful portrayal of 

 nature by light writing. 



I have a theory, and it has worked 

 true, that somehow, somewhere, the 

 world will put into our hands the tools 

 which we are best fitted to use. It 

 took twenty years for me to fit my- 

 self for an anastigmat, and my advice 

 to you, reader, is to work with head 

 and heart and hands, till you too get 



one and gel out of it all that is in it. 

 If you cannot get more out of it than 

 you can out of the cheap lens, then it 

 isn't in Y( )TJ to get it. You need to 

 plod and hope and dream for a few 

 years longer. 



But some day it will come, and great 

 joy and success with it — and then you 

 will want another, and still another 

 and still another, and — and — all will 

 be worth while, and each will be ideal 

 in its place. 



Argue the question ? 



There is no argument. 



Yes, there is. To do the good lens 

 justice demands more love for art, and 

 more true affection for the bit of glass 

 than does the smaller and cheaper lens. 



IlTERARY 



BIOGRAPHICAL 



The Story of Matka. A Tale of the Mist 

 Islands. By David Starr Jordan. San 

 Francisco, California: Whitaker & Ray- 

 Wiggin Company. 



This is a charming and most pathetic 

 story of animal life, the pathos of the story 

 making a deep impression on the reader. 

 The life of the seals on Mist Islands is 

 simply and interestingly described. 



"Unlike the average 'nature-study reader,' 

 which usually tells what the child should 

 find out for himself, and tends to deaden 

 his interest in the real world about him, 

 the present story tells what should be told 

 and quickens the child's interest in all that 

 lives by portraying the human element in 

 animal life and by arousing his indignation 

 at the cruel manner with which men treat 

 'their kin who cannot talk.' Wholly aside 

 from being a true story of animal life, it ,is 

 also a piece of good literature, and among 

 the many books of its kind which has been 

 produced within recent years, it is easily 

 one of the best." 



Ant Communities and How They are Gov- 

 erned. A Studv in Natural Civics. By 

 Henry Christopber McCook. Illustrated 

 from nature. New York: Harper & 

 Brothers. 



In the Publisher's Note to the author's 

 "Tenants of an Old Farm" this statement is 

 made: "Doctor McCook thinks this prompt 



demand for a book traversing the field of 

 natural history is largely due to the in- 

 fluence of The Agassiz Association." 



Regarding that book and this more recent 

 one, "Ant Communities," The Agassiz As- 

 sociation can return the kind words' and 

 state that his books have done much to 

 stimulate and extend the work of our Agassiz 

 Association. Doctor McCook is always in- 

 teresting and an accurate writer, and this 

 last book by the veteran naturalist has all 

 the enthusiasm of youth, though it is "more 

 than thirty-two years since the author pub- 

 lished his first observations of American 

 ants." 



Ants. Their Structure, Development and 

 Behavior. By William Morton Wheeler, 

 Ph.D. New York City: The Columbia 

 University Press. 

 This volume is one of the most interest- 

 ing and scholarly of the Columbia University 

 biological series. It is profusely and ex- 

 cellently illustrated. Professor Wheeler is 

 the most diligent student of ants in America. 

 He speaks with the authority of a technical 

 expert and yet has written a book that is as 

 interesting as those where interest is 

 placed supreme to fact. It should be 

 "popular" in every sense. The chapter on 

 "Methods of Collecting, Mounting and Study- 

 ing Ants" gives directions easily followed 

 by any one, even a child. 



