INACCURATE NATURE BOOKS 241 



literature including the marvelous "Story of Ab," there were Kipling's 

 "Jungle Stories" and the often beautiful and inspiring stories of Thomp- 

 son-Seton; there were the fascinating tales of the wilderness as told by 

 Long, and the delightful life-histories of Wabbles the song-sparrow and 

 Bismark the red squirrel as recorded by Walton the hermit of Gloucester; 

 all these were pinned to the curtain together with the works of Burroughs 

 and Thoreau and the great nature-poems of the ages." 



It seem clear that the reviewer failed to read the entire paragraph 

 criticized. Obviously Miss Anderson did not recommend coupling in 

 nature-study the books mentioned. 



The following extracts from a book-review published in The Independent 

 for October 24, 1907, give another estimate of two recent books which 

 emphasize the interpretation of the human side of animal life. 



"The Haunters of the Silences," by C. G. D. Roberst, is like its com- 

 panion volumes, "The Kindred of the Wild" and "Watchers of the Trails," 

 except in the selections of animals as subjects of sketches. The stories 

 are said to be in line with accurate natural history. However, it is not 

 concerning questions of observed facts so much as the interpretations that 

 scientific men will have a quarrel with the author of this and with those of 

 similar books. The fundamental question is whether wild animals think 

 and reason and have emotions and in still other ways closely resemble the 

 psychologic life of the human species. The author emphatically reaffirms 

 his belief that "the actions of animals are governed not only by instinct, 

 but also, in varying degree, by processes essentially akin to those of human 

 reason." But something akin to human reason would hardly be sufficient 

 for many of the situations in this book, for the author's animals do things 

 which only the human mind does. To take one of numerous examples: 

 "As soon as she [the old bear] realized that her strength was failing, she 

 was seized with fear. What would become of the cub if she were killed?" 

 Here the interpretation involves not only human reason in a highly com- 

 plicated form, but also knowledge of death and its consequences. We may 

 be ready to admit the general proposition that some animals show some 

 similarity to human mental processes, but before we can accept such a 

 reading as the above we must be ready to admit that animals completely 

 equal the human mind in some complicated process. We must also have 

 some proof of how the old bear learned the symptoms of approaching 

 death and on what basis of previous experience she reasoned out the proba- 

 ble consequences to her helpless offspring. When an author plunges so 

 far into the realm of imagination in reading human life into animal life, 

 can we wonder that reputable psychologists who have critically studied 

 animals insist that such writings are essentially fiction ? Obviously they 

 are not contributions to science. True the book contains plenty of well 

 known facts; but it is primarily a book of interpretations and in making 

 these the free play of a good imagination has woven the facts into the fic- 

 tions of the "human side" of animal life. 



Another similar book recently published is "Wayeeses, the White Wolf," 

 by W. J. Long. It is an extract from "Northern Trails." The accuracy 



