Appreciations of Mr. Long and his Work 
and close akin to man, and this lends a certain attract- 
ive atmosphere of glamour and mysticism to his song. 
A writer of spiritual import, like Dr. Van Dyke, has 
now and again in essay or short story shown a beauti- 
ful sympathy for this aspect of the breathing world 
of nature. 
The time was ripe for a public reception of this sort 
of literature, and its recognition 
was correspondingly quick and 
hearty. Looking with a careful 
eye upon American literature of 
the present moment, it can be said 
with little fear of cavil that no ten- 
dency is more indicative of the 
time spirit; none offers a more 
hopeful sign of both present and 
future than this of the spreading of 
nature study, animate and inani- 
mate. It is a noble part of that I’ 
slow widening of the interests and 
sympathies of man which Tenny- HK 
son dreamed of in one of his most 
splendid poems. 
The share of William J. Long PS 
in all this deserves most cordial recog. 4 fpr 7% 
nition. In the first place, he is a true 
naturalist, a scientist in quest of knowl- oe a i bu 
edge. Year after year he fares to the north- doy 
ern streams and forests to study animals in 
their haunts and habitats, and in such books 
as “ Fowls of the Air,” “ Beasts of the Field,” 6 v) 
and the just issued “School of the Woods,” a ) 
trilogy of volumes in which his distinctive work ( 
has been gathered, he has given to the world the 
result of his long and loving observation. Not for an 
instant is he asentimentalist; his purpose is not to make 
a pretty story. Some, to whom the weasel of song and 
story, for example, is a graceful, charming creature, may 
oe pained by his chapter on “ Kagax the Bloodthirsty,” 
wherein that incredible little butcher is limned in his 
true light and color. Yet that essay, sternly insistent 
on fact as it is, nevertheless is a prose idyl, the work 
B5 
