Fepruary 28, 1907] 
NATO: 
All 
The air was clear; the sun was shining brightly, the 
meadow was lilke dark olive-brown plush,—and how 
grandly those big pure-white creatures did loom up! 
For more than an hour we lay flat on our 
pinnacle, and watched those goats. . . . They were 
more than deliberate; they were almost stagnant. 
. . They were already so well fed that they merely 
minced at the green things around them. Each 
one seemed steeped and sodden in laziness. When 
out grazing, our giant tortoises move faster than they 
did on that lazy afternoon. When the leader of this 
band of weary Willies reached the geographical 
centre of the sky-meadow, about two hundred yards 
from us, he decided to take a sun-bath, on the most 
luxurious basis possible to him. Slowly he focussed 
his mind upon a level bench of earth, about four feet 
wide. It contained an old goat-bed, of loose earth, 
and upon this he lay down, with his back uphill. 
Five minutes later, a little higher up the slope, 
another goat did the same thing; and eventually two 
or three others laid down. One, however, deliberately 
sat down on his haunches, dog-fashion, with his 
back uphill. For fully a quarter of an hour he sat 
there in profile, slowly turning his head from side to 
side, and gazing at the scenery while the wind blew 
through his whiskers ’’ (pp. 82-4). 
Mr. Phillips’s photographs of the mountain-goat 
at close quarters, obtained at such desperate hazard, 
are admirable; but, after all, he cannot give us that 
touch of mountain breeze through the lazy Billy’s 
whiskers! And what a pity that such a restful 
holiday-picture should be spoilt by the crack of a 
rifle ! 
Dr. Hornaday’s first care in this volume is for the 
mountain-goat (he scorns the term ‘‘ antélope-goat ”’ 
as being affected and incorrect), and next for the 
mountain sheep and the grizzly bear; but he finds room 
also for the small neighbours of the big game—the 
wolverine, pine marten, coyote, pika, ground-squirrel, 
pack-rat, and others—all depicted with the same 
sympathetic and vivid touch, and generally with 
authoritative notes upon their geographic range and 
novel observations on their habits; and the birds of 
the region, too, receive a share of his careful notice. 
The author deplores the practical extinction of wild 
life in the Western States, and calls upon the 
Canadian authorities to do what his own Government 
has failed to do—stringently to preserve the remnants. 
He considers that the British Columbian game laws 
err in being too liberal in every particular, and pleads 
for the absolute protection of all female game animals 
and for a reduction of the number of head allowed 
under each shooting license. Even the grizzly bear 
should, in his opinion, be protected; and he thinks 
that, with proper care, the Canadian Rockies might 
continue almost indefinitely to be the Delectable 
Mountains of the vigorous sportsman. The attempts 
that are being made toward this end should be of 
interest to the student of sociology, who may here 
watch the development of game laws anew in a 
democratic community. 
To the splendid photographs with which the book 
is illustrated, and to the sensational circumstances in 
which some of them were obtained, we have already 
referred. Both astonishing and amusing is the account 
given by Mr. Phillips of how, during one of these 
No. 1948, VOL. 75] 
operations, while on a dangerous rock-ledge from 
which he could not retreat, he was charged by an 
angry goat :— 
““There was really nothing that I could do except 
to hold the [stereoscopic] camera at him and snap it. 
He charged up to within a yard of me, but with his 
eyes fixed on the two lenses. Then he appeared to 
conclude that any animal that could stand that much 
without winking was too much for him, so shaking 
his head and gritting his teeth he stopped, and to 
my great relief slowly backed into his niche ’’ (p. 190). 
No wonder 
second: oy! 
That the trip was one that any zoologist must have 
enjoyed goes without saying, and we thank Dr. 
Hornaday heartily for this delightfully-written record 
of his own pleasure in it. Indeed, perhaps the chief 
charm of the book is that he manages so faithfully 
to convey a sense of the recrudescence of boyish energy 
and spirits in staid middle-life, aroused under’ the 
stimulus of unusual and invigorating surroundings; 
for is not the enthusiasm of middle-life 
tagious than that of youth itself? 
for him, his own farewell wish :— 
that the resultant photograph is a 
more con- 
So let us all echo, 
““May heaven keep my memory of it all as fresh 
as the breezes that blow on Goat Pass, as green as 
the pines and spruces that clothe the lower slopes of 
those delectable mountains ’’! GaWaLk. 
A BOOK’ ON CLAYS. 
Clays, theiy Occurrence, Properties, and Uses, with 
Especial Reference to those of the United States. 
By Dr. Heinrich Ries. Pp. xvi+ 4go. Illustrated. 
(New York: Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman 
and Hall, Ltd., 1906.) Price 21s. net. 
£ OUBTLESS few people realise the importance 
of the clay-working industry in the United 
States, and yet this is not so surprising since clay has 
less popular attraction than many other mineral pro- 
ducts, such as gold, silver, &c. A casual glance, 
however, at the annual figures of production will 
probably speedily convince one that clay is to be 
classed among the foremost products of the country, 
being outranked only by coal and iron.”’ 
In 1904 the value of the clay products of the United 
States was 26,204,650l., while the raw clay, mined 
and sold within the States, amounted to 464,030l. 
Not so long ago America was more backward than 
Europe in the attention she paid to her clay resources. 
This has now been changed. In recent years we have 
witnessed the growth of a goodly crop of literature 
upon this subject in the United States, both in official 
publications and in occasional papers. The crop has 
been a heavy one in more senses than one, and bulky 
withal, and few there are, even in America, whose 
shelves could afford it space. It should be therefore 
a matter for congratulation to all American clay- 
workers that for the sum of five dollars they may 
now obtain in convenient form—the selected fruit— 
that which they had already received gratis in great 
volume. Although the possessors of the numerous 
