?oo 



NA TURE 



[July 26, 1894 



make known to u 5. Indian shooting is well treated by 

 Colonel Percy, who goes very fully into the subject. It is, 

 indeed, an ample one, and Colonel Percy enumerates no 

 less than fifty-three animals to be included in the category 

 of big game by the fortunate sportsmen of India. The 

 second volume concludes with good advice about camps, 

 transport, rifles, and ammunition, and with a few hints on 

 ta.\idermy, showing the way in which the larger animals 

 should be skinned and their heads set up as sportsmen's 

 trophies. 



In concluding our notice of this attractive work, we 

 may be permitted again to call notice to the illustrations, 

 which, with few exceptions, are of a high degree of excel- 

 lence. Two of these, by the kind permission of the 

 publishers, we reproduce on the present occasion. The 

 first of them represents a scene in British East Africa, 

 between Teita and Taveta, in the Kilima-njaro district, 

 where (in September 1886) the country was "literally 

 crawling' with zebra, hartebeest, impala, ory.\, and 

 Grant's antelope, besides eland and giraffe, and an 

 occasional steinbok and wart-hog." In those days 

 Taveta was correctly designated the '■ Hunters' Para- 

 disc." The second illustration shows us the haunt of the 

 Spanish ibex, of which we have already spoken. 



Before concluding our notice of what will no doubt 

 quickly and deservedly become the big-game-shooters' 

 favourite handbook, we venture to call attention to what is 

 probably a slight slip on the part of Mr. Phillipps-WoUey. 

 General Richard Dashwood, than whom there can be 

 no better authority on the subject, has commented, 

 in an article in Land and Water (March 24, 1894), 

 rather severely on some of Mr. Phillipps-Wolley's state- 

 ments regarding the caribon and moose of North 

 America. It is no doubt incorrect to say that caribon 

 and moose feed upon the same food. As explained by 

 General Dashwood, their tastes are very different. It 

 is also an error to describe the " call-cry " of the female 

 moose as a roar. General Dashwood's experienced ear 

 teaches him to describe it as a "beautiful clear note, 

 rising and falling with a sort of entreaty in the tone and 

 a soft grunt at the end.'' 



POPULARISING SCIENCE. 



*' "pOPULAR science,'' it is to be feared, is a phrase 

 •t^ that conveys a certain flavour of contempt to many 

 a scientific worker. It may be that this contempt is not 

 altogether undeserved, and that a considerable proportion 

 of the science of our magazines, school text-books, and 

 books for the general reader, is the mere obvious tinctured 

 by inaccurate compilation. But this in itself scarcely 

 justifies a sweeping condemnation, though the editorial 

 incapacity thus evinced must be a source of grave regret 

 to all specialists with literary leanings and with the 

 welfare of science at heart. The fact remains that in an 

 age when the endowment of research is rapidly passing 

 out of the hands of private or quasi-private organisations 

 into those of the State, the maintenance of an intelligent 

 exterior interest in current investigation becomes of 

 almost vital importance to continual progress. Let that 

 adjective " intelligent " be insisted upon. Time was 

 when inquiry could go on unaffected even by the 

 scornful misrepresentations of such a powerful enemy as 

 Swift, because it was mainly the occupation of men of 

 considerable means. But now that our growing edifice 

 of knowledge spreads more and more over a substructure 

 of grants and votes, and the appliances needed for 

 instruction and further research increase steadily in cost, 

 even the affectation of a contempt for popular opinion 

 becomes unwise. There is not only the danger of 

 supplies being cut off, but of their being misapplied 

 by a public whose scientific education is neglected, of 

 their being deflected from investigations of certain, to 



NO. I 291, VOL. 50J 



I 



those of doubtful value. For 'nstance, the public endow- 

 ment of the Zetetic Society, the discovery of Dr. Piatt's 

 polar and central suns, or the rotation of Dr. Owen's 

 Bacon-cryptogram wheel, at the expense of saner in- 

 quiries might conceivably and very appropriately result 

 from the specialisation of science to the supercilious 

 pitch. 



It should also go far to reconcile even the youngest 

 and most promising of specialists to the serious con- 

 sideration of popular science, to reflect that the acknow- 

 ledged leaders of the great generation that is now pass- 

 ing away, Darwin notably, addressed themselves in many 

 cases to the general reader, rather than to their colleagues. 

 But instead of the current of popular and yet philo- 

 sophical books increasing, its volume appears if anything 

 to dwindle, and many works ostensibly addressed to the 

 public by distinguished investigators, succeed in no 

 notable degree, or fail to meet with appreciation 

 altogether. There is still a considerable demand for 

 popular works, but it is met in many cases by a new 

 class of publication from which philosophical quality is 

 largely eliminated. \\ the risk of appearing impertinent, 

 I may perhaps, as a mere general reader, say a little 

 concerning the defects of very much of what is protlered 

 to the public as scientific literature. As a reviewer for 

 one or two publications, I have necessarily given some 

 special attention to the m.atter. 



.•\s a general principle, one may say that a book should 

 be written in the language of its readers, but a very con- 

 siderable number of scientific writers fail to realise this. 

 A few write boldly in the dialect of their science, and 

 there is certainly a considerable pleasure in a skilful and 

 compact handling of technicalities ; but such writers do 

 not appreciate the fact that this is an acquired taste, and 

 that the public has not acquired it. Worse sometimes 

 results from the persistent avoidance of technicality. 

 Except in the cases of the meteorologist, archxologist, 

 and astronomer, who are relatively free from a special 

 terminology, a scientific man finds himself at a great 

 disadvantage in writing literary English when compared 

 with a man who is not a specialist To express his 

 thought precisely he gravitates towards the all too con- 

 venient technicality, and forbidden that, too often rests 

 contented with vague, ambiguous, or misleading phrases. 

 It does not follow that, because, what from a literary 

 standpoint must be called " slang," is not to be used, 

 that the writer is justified in "writing down" as if to 

 his intellectual inferiors. The evil often goes further 

 than a lack of precision. Out of a quite unwarrantable 

 feeling of pity and condescension for the weak minds 

 that have to wrestle with the elements of his thought, the 

 scientific writer will go out of his way to jest jests of .1 

 carefully selected and most obvious description, forget 

 ting that whatever status his special knowledge may give 

 him in his subject, the subtlety of his humour is probably 

 not greatly superior, and may even be inferior to that of 

 the average man, and that what he assumes as inferiority 

 in his hearers or readers is simply the absence of what 

 is, after all, his own intellectual parochialism. The 

 villager thought the tourist a fool because he did not 

 know "Owd Smith." Occasionally scientific people are 

 guilty of much the same fallacy. 



In this matter of writing or lecturing "down," one 

 may even go so far as to object altogether to the 

 facetious adornment of popular scientific statements. 

 Writing as one of the reading public, 1 may testify that 

 to the common man who opens a book or attends a 

 lecture, this clowning is either very irritating or very 

 depressing. We respect science and scientific men 

 hugely, and we had far r.ither they took themselves 

 seriously. The taste for formal jesting is sufticiently 

 provided for in periodicals of a special class. 'Yet 

 on three occasions recently very considerable dis- 

 tress has been occasioned the writer by such mistaken 



