290 BE VIEWS. 



and described by Mr. Cassin, before the end of the following Decem- 

 ber.* 



M. Du Chaillu has no doubt " borrowed " many of his illustra- 

 tions, and has committed the additional error of not acknowledging 

 his debts in this respect. This, we think, may be easily explained by 

 the fact of his having employed an American artist, who was not in 

 the habit of drawing pictures of beasts and birds, and found it more 

 easy to copy Mr. "Wolf's and other originals, than to invent attitudes 

 of his own. 



As we have already suggested, M. Du Chaillu can lay no claim to 

 the title of a scientific Naturalist. He who speaks of " Humming- 

 birds " (p. 37), Deer (p. 71), Vampires (p. 112), and Anacondas 

 (p. 273) in Africa ; who calls a Hornbill (Toccns camurus) a Toucan 

 (p. 170) ; who kills " venomous " snakes " a little over thirteen 

 feet long " (p. 57) ; who terms Bos hrachyceros " a new and hitherto 

 undescribed species of Buffalo" (p. 175), while he uses a name given 

 to it twenty-five years ago ; who " feels the breath of a serpent 

 against his face " (p. 273) ; and who " turns turtles " in fresh water 

 lakes, and then classifies them among the Mammalia in his list of 

 newly discovered species, is no doubt a vigorous voyager and a lively 

 narrator, but wants the knowledge and the sobriety of a man of science. 

 And we are not at all surprised, therefore, at his making out his mam- 

 mals to be new species, when certainly the greater number of them 

 have been described long ago. " Every man thinks his own geese to 

 be swans," and the error of describing old species as new, is one of 

 such ordinary occurrence, that we fear there is scarcely a living Na- 

 turalist, who could wash his hands and say that he was innocent 

 of the offence. 



M. Du Chaillu cannot even fairly claim to be a scientific traveller, 

 for he took no observations, either astronomical, barometrical, mete- 

 orological or thermometrical ; he determined neither heights nor dis- 

 tances ; and did not even keep his Journal with sufficient accuracy to 

 prevent his making such errors in the dates of his book, as, we have 

 been informed by one of his critics in The Athenceum, have led him 

 to cram four Julys into three years. 



On the other hand, it must be evident, that such errors as we have 

 last described, are of the very kind that any one, intentionally de- 

 ceiving, would most surely avoid. And we consider M. Du Chaillu, 

 in spite of all these, not inconsiderable, shortcomings, to be an energe- 

 tic and active explorer, who has entered a region never before dis- 

 covered by civilized man, who has seen and hunted the GtOeilla in 

 his native wilds, and brought back a mass of information concerning 

 this interesting " anthropoid," and his kith and kin among the apes. 

 And we wholly repudiate the theory of those who broadly hint, that 



* See " Catalogue of Birds collected at Cape Lopez, Western Africa, by P. 

 B, Du Chaillu in 1856, with notes and descriptions of new Species. By John 

 Cassin." Proc. Acad. Philad. 1856, p. 316. 



