metaphor, he can go after an abuse with a rough-shod pen There has been a 

 marked tendency during the last few years, since nature writers have become as 

 numerous as the proverbial August blackberries, toward romancing in stories told 

 about animal life. Many of the pleasantly written books which have come from 

 the press within the last four or five years have been used by teachers for the 

 instruction of the young in the ways of nature. Many of these stories are false 

 upon the face of them, and have led young readers into error. There is no more 

 reason why fiction should enter into zoology than into physiology. 



John Burroughs recently attacked this romancing tendency in an article in 

 The Atlantic Monthly. He singled out Ernest Thompson-Seton and William J. 

 Long, both, as perhaps may go without saying, extremely popular writers of 

 nature books. Burroughs did not mince matters. He said that if Mr. Seton and 

 Mr. Long had been content to give out their stories as fiction pure and simple, all 

 would have been well, but when they specifically claimed truth for them it was 

 time that someone should pluck up the courage of his convictions and let the 

 people who thought they were gaining knowledge of natural history know that 

 they were being fed on fairy tales. As it was recently put by someone who spoke 

 of this matter, "John Burroughs, while known rather as a naturalist than a taxi- 

 dermist, shows proficiency in the latter art in the way that he skins Mr. Seton 

 and Mr. Long." William J. Long recently made an answer to Mr. Burroughs' 

 article in the public press. The friends of this clergyman-naturalist were disap- 

 pointed when they read what he had to write, for it was an answer that did not 

 answer. Mr. Seton did things differently. He met Mr. Burroughs after the 

 attack on his books, at a dinner in New^ York, and holding out his hand asked 

 the sage of Slab Sides if he would not sit next him at the table. 



Jphc TowhcC {Pipilo erythrophthalmns erythrophthalmiis) 

 By Alexander Wilson 



Length, about 814 inches. Male mostly black, belly white. Female brown. 

 Outer tail feathers white tipped. 



Range : Breeds in the United States from Saskatchew^an and southeastern 

 Canada south to Central Kansas and northern Georgia ; winters from southeastern 

 Nebraska and the Ohio and Potomac southward. 



The towhee is a frequenter of second-growth and of scrub, and when the 

 visitor enters such precincts he is pretty sure to hear the challenging cry, 

 "chewink," and to catch sight of the bird as it hurriedly dashes into some brushy 

 thicket as if in mortal terror. The flight is hurried, jerky and heavy, as though 

 the bird was accustomed to use its wings only in emergencies. This is not far 

 from being the case, as the towhee sticks close to moilier earth and uses its great 

 strength and long claws to adxanlage in making the leaves and rubbish fly in 

 its vigorous efforts to unco\er the seeds and insects u])on which it relies for 

 food. The towhee thus literally scratches for a living as no other* of our birds 



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