426 



NATURE 



[June 3, 1920 



Natural History Studies in Canada.^ 



(i) A REVISED edition of Mr. Ernest Thomp- 

 ■^ son Seton's "Arctic Prairies " (first pub- 

 lished in 191 1) is very welcome. It is a well-told 

 story of a canoe journey of 2000 miles in search 



Fig. I.— The sandhill crane. From "Wild Life in Canada. 



of the caribou (a kind of reindeer), and it dis- 

 closes a cheerful picture of the abundance of wild 



1 (i) "The Arctic Prairies: A Canoe-Journ<-y of 2000 Miles in Search of 

 the Caribou. Being the Account of a Voyage to ihe Region North of 

 Ayliner Lake." By Ernest Thompson Seton. Pp. xii-+ 308. (London: 

 Constable and Co., Ltd., 1920.) Price 8j. td. net. 



(2) "Wild Life in Canada." By Capt. A. Buchanan. Pp. xx+264. 

 London : J. Murray, 1920. )ji Price 155. net. 



life (in 1907) in the Far North-west of America. 

 " I have lived in the mighty boreal forest, with 

 its Red-men, its Buffalo, its Moose, and its 

 Wolves ; I have seen the Great Lone Land with 

 its endless plains and prairies that 

 do not know the face of man or 

 the crack of a rifle ; I have been 

 with its countless lakes that re- 

 echo nothing but the wail and 

 yodel of the Loons, or the mourn- 

 ful music of the Arctic Wolf. I 

 have wandered on the plains of 

 the Musk-ox, the home of the 

 Snowbird and the Caribou." 



The author has fine things to 

 tell us of — such as the love-song 

 of Richardson's owl, sung on the 

 wing, "like the slow tolling of a 

 soft but high-pitched bell " ; a 

 herd of wild buffalo amid a great 

 bed of spring anemones ; a troop 

 of caribou, about 500 strong, 

 charging at full trot through the 

 taint of man ; and the wealth of 

 flowers in the so-called " Barren 

 Grounds." There are grim pic- 

 tures too — of the malignancy of 

 the mosquitoes which for two and 

 a half months make a hell of a land 

 which for half the year might be 

 an earthly paradise ; of the epi- 

 demics that periodically wipe out 

 the all too prolific rabbits 

 (billions in the Mackenzie 

 River valley in 1903-4, and 

 none to be seen in 1907) ; of 

 the Canadian lynx that "lives 

 on rabbits, follows the rabbits, 

 thinks rabbits, tastes like rab- 

 bits, increases with them, and 

 on their failure dies of starva- 

 tion in the unrabbited woods " ; 

 of the aged dwarf spruces 

 which testify to the rigour of 

 the environmental conditions, 

 for one which was at least 

 300 years old was only 8 ft. 

 high and 12 in. through. Mr. 

 Seton's skill as a descriptive 

 naturalist needs no praising, 

 and his narrative is full of 

 human interest as well. The 

 book is generously illustrated 

 with pen-and-ink drawings and 

 photographs. The reference in 

 the preface to the scientific 

 appendices might have been judiciously omitted, 

 for appendices there are none. 



(2) Capt. Buchanan tells of his wanderings in 

 "the great unpeopled North, which even to-day 

 comprises more than half of the large Dominion 

 of Canada." He explored the country between 



NO. 2640, VOL. 105] 



