1903 The Field Naturalist's Library 75 



The Field Naturalist's Library. 



Reviews of Books, Periodicals, Etc. 



School of the Woods. By William J. Long. London : Ginn 

 & Co. Price 7s. 6d. 



The two works by this author noticed in our last issue — namely, 

 • Beasts of the Field' and ' Fowls of the Air' — led us to expect great 

 things from the same pen, but we were not quite prepared for anything 

 quite so good as the volume now before us. In our opinion Mr Long 

 is entitled to rank as the greatest living nature writer, and this work, if 

 we mistake not, will make his reputation an enduring one. It is quite 

 impossible to do the book justice in the space at our disposal, and we 

 have taken other steps in this number of the F. N. Q. to indicate some 

 of the attractions here set before us. 



The fundamental thought which underlies all the delightful observa- 

 tions recorded in these pages is that the habits of wild animals are not 

 due to instinct, as is so commonly supposed, but are the result of long 

 and careful training of the young ones at the hands of their parents. 

 The part of heredity is a small one, the effect of early training the 

 important factor. Mr Long adduces many detailed examples of these 

 nature lessons given to young animals by their parents which he him- 

 self has watched, and which in our opinion amply justify his view. It 

 is summed up in the following paragraph : " The summer wilderness is 

 just one vast schoolhouse, of many rooms, in which a multitude of wise, 

 patient mothers are teaching their little ones, and of which our kinder- 

 gartens are crude and second - rate imitations. Here are practical 

 schools, technical schools. Obedience is life ; that is the first great 

 lesson. Pity we men have not learned it better ! Every wild mother 

 knows it, lives by it, hammers it into her little ones. And then come 

 other, secondary lessons — when to hide and when to run ; how to swoop 

 and how to strike ; how to sift and remember the many sights and 

 sounds and smells of the world, and to suit action always and instan- 

 taneously to knowledge, — all of which, I repeat, are not so much matters 

 of instinct as of careful training and imitation. Life itself is the issue at 

 stake in this forest education ; therefore is the discipline stern as death. 

 . . . Yet tenderness and patience are here too, and the young are 

 never driven beyond their powers." 



We would not anticipate the pleasure of the reader by quoting the 

 examples described as illustrating the argument ; they are, as we say, 

 convincing and surpassingly interesting. Mr Long has earned our 

 gratitude in thus describing what he has so carefully watched in the 

 lonely woods ; and he has been ably assisted by the skilful pencil of Mr 

 Charles Copeland in the numerous illustrations which form a prominent 

 feature of the book. Two chapters in the work are of more general 

 import than the individual animal studies : these, we are glad to note, 



