Bevieir of Bcricirs, 1IV2J13. 



NOTABLE BOOKS. 



lOT' 



LION-STALKING WITH 

 CAMERA. 



A 



" Wild Life Across the World. " W rittcn 

 and Illustrated by Cherry Kearton. (Hodder. 

 20/- net.) 



Mr. Cherry Kearton is the sportsman 

 of the new time. He goes a-hunting but 

 it is not to kill. His business with his 

 quarry is to invest it with a sort of mani- 

 fold life, and how successful is his 

 magic anyone may judge who has 

 seen his cinematography of animals in 

 their native wilds. Beside these pic- 

 tures animals in captivity look almost 

 unreal. The present volume is a record 

 of expeditions made in Africa, Asia, 

 and America in quest of " subjects." It 

 is finely produced, and the reproductions 

 of Mr. Kearton's photographs, beautiful 

 in themselves, also suggest the difficulty 

 and the danger with which they must 

 have been secured. Patience was, per- 

 haps, the author's first asset. For nnie 

 days on end at the Tana River he tried 

 in vain to get pictures of the hippopota- 

 muses, who disappeared as promptly as 

 they got wind of him. And here is a 

 heart-breaking experience : — 



I was strollingr back to camp when I spied 

 a leopard creepingr along- in front of me, keep- 

 ing- close to the water's edge. He took no 

 notice of me, but sprang; on to a bough, 

 and climbed down right over the stream. 

 When he was well out on the bough he begran 

 to make a most peculiar noise, striking 

 downwards with his paw. In the water 

 was a dead hippo., all round it were croco- 

 diles, and •:he leopard was trying- to drive 

 them off while he got his share. 



It was the chance of a lifetime, and 

 Mr. Kearton got fifty feet of him-— only 

 to find when he came to develop it that 

 it fogged off in patches and was no 

 good. And on another occasion, after 

 weeks of waiting, when at last he secured 

 what would have been the first film 

 taken of lions in their wild state, he 

 discovered later that in scrambling 

 round the rocks he had moved the sights 

 of his machine and had " fired " too 

 high. 



Mr. Kearton says that the hippopota- 

 mus, ungainly as he is, displays at times 

 •extraordinary agility. 



There was a small floating island about 

 four feet wide and thirty-five feet long round 

 which the animals had gathered. One old 

 bull was making love to a cow, diving under 

 the island and swimming round her. Once 

 he iumped out of the water right over the 

 island, never touching it, but going m with 



.1 tremendous splash on the other side. 

 1 suppose no white man has ever seen such 

 a sight before — a huge hippo, leaping clean 

 into the air so that the whole of his vast 

 body, legs and feet, were visible at once. 



In British East Africa Mr. Kearton met 



Air. Roosevelt, who, by way of preface, 



writes a warm appreciation of his work. 



There is also an account of the author's 



methods b\- Mr. Richard Kearton, who 



tells man)- stories of his brother's pluck 



and his narrow escapes. But what 



makes the volume specially attractive 



is the large number of reproductions of 



photographs of wild animals actually 



taken in the heart of African forests and 



the Indian jungle. To the naturalist 



the\- are a veritable delight. 



RUSSIA TO-DAY. 



rvsodern Russia. By Gregor Alexinsky. 

 (Fisher Unwin. 15/- net.) 



This volume, by an ex-deputy, was 

 originally given to the world in French. 

 It has been translated by Bernard Miall, 

 the English edition containing three new 

 chapters, dealing with Police and Law, 

 Foreign Politics and the Army, and 

 Self -Government. " The good old days 

 are gone," says the writer, " when 

 humanity lived in groups, and an indi- 

 vidual might live all his life in his 

 native town or village without knowing 

 what was happening at a few miles dis- 

 tant." It must be remembered that 

 scarcely more than fifty years ago the 

 peasantry of Russia were serfs, treated 

 as cattle, unable to acquire real or per- 

 sonal estate, to plead before the Court, 

 or to marry without the authorisation of 

 the " Barine " ; and though for fifty 

 years they have no longer been treated 

 thus, yet the abolition of serfdom, which 

 theoretically has liberated the peasants, 

 m practice has not largely decreased their 

 burdens ; so that their evolution has 

 been slow, and their increase in popula- 

 tion — as it is not accompanied with 

 larger grants of land — has necessarily 

 involved them in deeper poverty. It is 

 impossible in a few words to give the 

 full scope of this very informing book, 

 which starts with a sketch of the historic 

 development of Russia, brings the 

 reader up to the modern period, devotes 

 a chapter to the evolution of lite-ature, 

 and shows the contra dition which 

 abounds in all spheres of Russian life. 



