128 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



"WILL BENEFIT CONTRIBUTOBS." 



"Bird-Lore" for May-June copies from 

 The Guide to Nature's editorial "Glit- 

 tering' Generalities," (page 50 of the May 

 issue) and adds this expressive comment 

 that flavors of longer experience in the 

 same lines : 



"If Mr. Bigelow can produce a maga- 

 zine which will meet this standard (and 

 he makes an excellent showing in his 

 first two numbers), he will benefit his 

 contributors as well as his readers." 



"THERE AIN'T NO SUCH ANIMAL." 



Somewhere I have read or I have 

 heard a humorous anecdote, in which I 

 saw a moral probably never intended by 

 the author. It was related of an aged, 

 back-country farmer, whose life-long 

 knowledge of animals had been confined 

 to those on the farm. He had come un- 

 consciously to regard them as the only 

 ones in existence. 



For the first time in his life he visited 

 a city zoo and there saw a giraffe. He 

 long and curiously gazed at its methods 

 of high feeding and of low feeding. At 

 last his expression changed to disgust 

 and he turned suddenly and went away 

 with a feeling that he had been deceived, 

 for he spitefully remarked, "Thar ain't 

 no such animal." 



It had taken several minutes for his 

 vision to take in all parts of the reality 

 before him and for his sluggish mind to 

 reach that conclusion. 



At first when I heard this anecdote, 

 though I appreciated the humor, it 



seemed to lack the ring of genuineness. 

 It seemed impossible for a man to doubt 

 the plain evidence that there was ac- 

 tually such an animal before him. But 

 the more I consider it, the more firmly 

 do I believe that the farmer's opinion was 

 not far from that of most of us. It is 

 difficult for a new experience and es- 

 pecially for a new idea to cancel sud- 

 denly a life-long impression and a life- 

 long training. Be the proof ever so 

 real, we refuse sometimes to accept it. 



Then, too, as a representative of cer- 

 tain animal concepts brought to mind 

 from descriptions in letters of inquiry, 

 I am sure that there "ain't no such ani- 

 mal." These complex and erroneous 

 descriptions more and more deeply im- 

 press upon me the need of such work 

 as that of The Guide to Nature. 



What is needed by us all is to see 

 clearly and to describe accurately. We 

 color and distort too much, too often. 



THEY, TOO, HAVE HAD TROUBLES. 



It is refreshing in reading the tabu- 

 lated technical pages of the "Entomolog- 

 ical News," to find this touch of human- 

 ism in the editorial page : 



We have touched on this subject before, 

 but would again like to remind our readers 

 that we are not egotistical. To those who 

 so kindly write articles for the News we 

 wish to say that the editors of this journal 

 are the most learned people in the world, 

 and in addition to that are mind readers. 

 Also, time hangs heavy on our hands as we 

 have nothing to do. Don't take the trouble 



