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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



mind. He has written a book^ which 

 will appeal to all cultured people who 

 care for adventurous wanderings in 

 out-of-the-way places, for studies of 

 remote peoples, and for the gorgeous 

 animal life of the tropics. 



Mr. Miller's observations on natural 

 history are full of interest to the lay- 

 man who possesses an intelligent lay in- 

 terest in science ; and it is very much to 

 be hoped that he will sometime publish 

 a special book on South American birds 

 and mammals, giving their life his- 

 tories as many men and women have 

 given the life histories of North Amer- 

 ican birds and mammals. In the trop- 

 ics he went from the reedy marshes and 

 steaming forests of the plain to the 

 cold alpine pastures which lie just be- 

 low the snow line of the stupendous 

 Andean mountain masses. He tells of 

 innumerable species of birds, beautiful 

 in plumage, or odd of form and of hab- 

 its; of gaudy macaws, always flying in 

 pairs, no matter how large the flock ; of 

 the gold-bird's ringing whistle, uttered 

 as the singer stands motionless in the 

 forest gloom; of birds so shy and fur- 

 tive that it is almost impossible ever to 

 see them, and of other kinds so tame 

 that they live in the houses and climb 

 into the sugar bowl ; of humming birds 

 that literally get drunk on the strong 

 nectar of certain plants ; of huge night- 

 hawks looking like ghosts as they 

 crouched on forest trails in the impene- 

 trable gloom ; of cow buntings in which 

 the habit of parasitic egg-laying, in 

 spite of the small relative number of the 

 hens, has made them a real menace to 

 most other forms of small bird life; of 

 huge masses of waterfowl, from grebes 

 to flamingos, in desolate desert lakes. 

 A special, and a most delightful, chap- 

 ter is devoted to the quest of that flam- 

 ing wonder of the bird world, the cock 

 of the rock. 



The glimpses we get of other crea- 

 tures are equally interesting. There 



^ In the WUds of South America, by Leo E. 

 Miller, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1918. 



are squirrels and j)Ossums as small 

 as mice; howler monkeys whose roar- 

 ing is in sound more sinister than that 

 of lion or tiger; sloths which when 

 angered not merely claw but bite — 

 to me a most unexpected bit of in- 

 formation; jaguars which kill horses 

 and cattle but are rarely dangerous to 

 man. 



Then there are the smaller things — 

 aside from the innumerable insect 

 plagues — which do attack man. The 

 piranha fish, the size of black bass (but 

 more savage than any sharks), are oc- 

 casional man-killers; and Mr. Miller 

 gives a really extraordinary account of 

 one spot in which immense swarms of 

 vampire bats attacked the mules, the 

 pigs, and even the human beings with 

 a fury that was dangerous to life. 

 There are writers who make the per- 

 sonal note too strong. Mr. Miller's 

 fault is the reverse — and it is a l-eal 

 fault, insistence upon which is not to be 

 taken as a compliment to him. He slurs 

 over his personal experiences in a way 

 which detracts somewhat from the 

 value of the book as a record of first- 

 hand observation. For example, I 

 happen to know that once while he was 

 in the water landing a canoe, an In- 

 dian who was with him was attacked 

 and badly mutilated by a piranha ; but 

 there is no mention of the incident in 

 the book. And the sudden attack on 

 him by a bushmaster, the most deadly 

 of all jDoisonous snakes, is narrated in a 

 way which may be modest but which 

 deprives the incident of most of its 

 narrative value. 



The accounts of the human beings 

 among whom he sojourned are as inter- 

 esting as his accounts of the wild life. 

 In the tropical lowlands and in many 

 of the Andean regions, man, although 

 in his Indian form he has dwelt there 

 for tens of thousands of years, still 

 finds nature so hostile that his race-life 

 is a constant and doubtful struggle 

 against degradation and destruction. 

 The natives often refuse to heed the 



