<> Instantaneous Photographs of Wild Life 



chiefly by drawings which, for good reasons, failed in 

 many respects to interpret the character of the animal 

 world correctly. For not only had the artists no oppor- 

 tunity of studying the animals from the life, but they were 

 frequently dependent upon ill-mounted museum specimens 

 as models from which to produce life-like sketches. A 

 few artists were in the position to make studies from life 

 and on the spot, and to these we owe some valuable 

 pictures ; often, however, the animal pictures presented 

 to us were stiff and wooden, and calculated to give quite 

 wrong impressions. 



Incredible things were perpetrated in this branch of 

 art. Zoological works and works of travel were illustrated 

 with "cuts" which were simply ridiculous to any one 

 with any special knowledge of the subject. We find, 

 indeed, even in publications of to-day, not merely photo- 

 graphs of single stuffed animals, but photographs of whole 

 groups of them, passed off as studies of wild beasts taken 

 in their wild state; and certain excellent photographs 

 by Anschiitz of caged lions are constantly to be met 

 with served up in all manner of forms various kinds 

 of vegetation and other accessories being introduced at 

 different times ! This kind of thing can only be de- 

 scribed as a fraud upon the reader, and only too often 

 it is in keeping with the accompanying text, in which 

 people, who in their own country are scarcely capable of 

 killino- a hare, describe the most wonderful adventures 



O 



they experienced, and lay down the law with the 

 greatest assurance upon the most difficult zoological 

 questions. 



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