April 24, 1879] 



NATURE 



577 



close by, and recommended it to get ashore by the first 

 opportunity." 



Any -vvild animals that he does not actually want for 

 specimens he treats in the same way, and it is therefore 

 not surprising that he looks favourably on the Indian and 

 1 his mode of life. Ignorant travellers and colonists call the 

 f Indians a lazy race ; "but," he remarks, "man in general 

 will not be active without an object. When an Indian 

 has got plenty to eat, what need has he to work ? He has 

 no idea of making pleasure-grounds. Money is of no use 

 to him as there are no markets for him to go to, nor mil- 

 liners' shops for his wife and daughters. He has no taxes to 

 pay, no highways to keep up, no poor to maintain, no army 

 nor navy to supply. He lies in his hammock both night 

 and day (for he has no chair nor bed, neither does he want 

 them), and in it he forms his bow, and makes his arrows, 

 and repairs his fishing-tackle. But when his provisions 

 are gone he rouses himself, and scours the forest in quest 

 of food. He plunges into the river after the deer and 

 tapir, or passes through swamps and quagmires, and never 

 fails to obtain food. Should the approach of night check 

 him while hunting, he lays him down in the forest and 

 continues the chase the next morning till he is successful. 

 With us the poor or needy man has to work every day and 

 all day long for a maintenance, but should this man ac- 

 quire a fortune he usually changes his habits." Water- 

 ton then amusingly sketches for us the life of an idle 

 man for a single day, and concludes : — " Now, could 

 the Indian in his turn see this, he would call the 

 white men a lazy, indolent set. Perhaps, then, upon due 

 reflection, you would draw this conclusion : that men 

 will always be indolent when there is no object to rouse 

 them." 



Not even Gilbert White was a closer or more accurate 

 observer of the habits of animals than was Waterton, and 

 had he recorded all his observations during the forty years 

 he lived at Walton Hall we should have had a work in no 

 way inferior to White's " Selborne." There is one 

 curious observation of his which throws some light on the 

 origin of one of the superstitions of natural history, but 

 which seems to have been entirely overlooked. The 

 name Caprimulgvs, or " goat-sucker," has its equivalent 

 in many European languages ; and the belief that this 

 bird sucked goats or cows has been prevalent since the 

 time of Aristotle. The only foundation for this wide- 

 spread belief, suggested in any ornithological book to 

 which I have access, is, that the goat-sucker is often found 

 near sheep-folds and cattle-pens on account of the abun- 

 dance of insects in such places. Pliny however says that 

 they enter the folds and fly to the udders of the goats in 

 order to suck the milk. This is a much more definite 

 statement, and, strange to say, Waterton supports the 

 fact thus stated by his own observ^ation, and at the same 

 time shows how the erroneous inference arose from this 

 fact. At p. 233 of this volume we find the follow- 

 ing : — "I am fully persuaded that these innocent little 

 birds never suck the herds ; for when they approach them, 

 and jump up at their udders, it is to catch the flies and 

 insects there. When the moon shone bright I would 

 frequently go and stand within three yards of a cow, and 

 distinctly see the caprimulgiis catch the flies on its udder." 

 The passages marked in italics are most remarkable, since 

 they durectly confirm Pliny's statement that the birds " fly 



to the udders of the goats." It is not quite clear by the 

 context whether Waterton made this observation in Deme- 

 rara or in England. He is describing the habits of the 

 Demerara goat-suckers at the time, but as he has said 

 nothing about there being any cows on the deserted estate 

 where he was staying, he may in this passage be referring 

 to his observations at home. 



In another passage at p. 198 this is certainly the case. 

 He says (according to his custom addressing his reader 

 as if speaking to him) : — 



" When the moon shines bright you may have a fair 

 opportunity of examining the goat-sucker. You will see 

 it close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up every 

 now and then under their bellies. Approach a little 

 nearer,— see how the nocturnal flies are tormenting the 

 herd, and with what dexterity he springs up and catches 

 them, as fast as they alight on the belly, legs, and udder 

 of the animals. Obsen'e how quiet they stand, and how 

 sensible they seem of his good offices, for they neither 

 strike him, nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on hina, 

 nor try to drive him away as an uncivil intruder,' 



There can be no doubt that these are Waterton's own 

 observations at home, though expressed rather generally ; 

 but the other passage, at all events, written in the first 

 person, is far too definite a statement to be doubted, 

 coming from such an observer; and it is curious that no 

 modern writer on the subject appears to have referred 

 to it. 



As a capturer of snakes W^aterton was pre-eminent, his 

 fight with the great boa constrictor, and his capture single- 

 handed of a smaller one, which he allowed to coil round 

 his body while he held its neck in his two hands, are well- 

 known incidents in his " Wanderings ; " but Mr. Wood 

 tells us how he coolly manipulated live rattlesnakes in the 

 presence of a number of friends at Leeds, transferring 

 them from one box to another with his bare hands. His 

 secret was, simply, that if a snake is not frightened by 

 noise or sudden movements, its natural sluggishness pre- 

 vents it from resenting cautious handling. 



We quite agree with the editor that few books have 

 ever been written so thoroughly truthful and accurate, 

 and so entirely free from exaggeration as those of Water- 

 ton ; yet his veracity was often doubted by his reviewers, 

 and he was classed among travellers of the Munchausen 

 type. This however he little cared for, but he did not like 

 to be called eccentric. He thought himself the most 

 ordinary of human beings, though he climbed trees bare- 

 foot and never in his life wore a black coat. " Yet," as 

 Mr. Wood well says of him, " had he not been eccentric he 

 would not have been the Charles W^aterton so long known 

 and loved. ... It was eccentric to come into a large 

 estate as a young man, and to have lived to extreme old 

 age without having wasted an hour or a shilling. It was 

 eccentric to give bountifully and never allow his name to 

 appear in a subscription list. It was eccentric to be satu- 

 rated with the love of nature. It might be eccentric never 

 to give dinner-parties, preferring to keep an always open 

 house for his friends ; but it was a very agreeable kind of 

 eccentricity. It was eccentric to be ever childhke but 

 never childish. We might multiply instances of his 

 eccentricity to any extent, and may safely say that the 

 world would be much better than it is if such eccentricity 

 were more common.' ' 



So far we have had only praise for this book, and 



