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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1883 
ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
A Contribution to the Out-door 
By Felix L. Oswald. With 
(London : 
Zoological Sketches. 
Study of Natural History. 
Thirty-six Ilustrations by Hermann Faber. 
W. H. Allen and Co., 1883.) 
Zoological Notes on the Structure, Affinities, Habits, and 
Mental Faculties of Wild and Domestic Animalss 
with Anecdotes concerning and Adventures among 
them, and some Account of thetr Fossil Representatives. 
By Arthur Nicols, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. Illustrated by 
J. W. Wood and F. Babbage. (London: L. Upcott 
Gill, 1883.) 
E cannot say much in favour of the first of 
these two works. The engravings are good, 
but the subjects chosen scarcely justify the care which 
has been taken in their execution. For these subjects 
are nearly all chosen for the sake of a comical or sen- 
_sational effect, without any reference to utility as illus- 
trating zoological facts or principles. And the essentially 
unscientific spirit which has led to the choice of the 
“¢thirty-six illustrations,” is no less apparent throughout 
the letter-press. We are always ready to welcome any 
attempt at popularising zoology, more especially when 
the writer has any first-hand “contributions to the study 
of natural history’? to supply; but surely such study 
admits of being made sufficiently interesting in itself, 
without the need of lame attempts at a kind of pleasantry, 
which in being always forced and never witty, must 
necessarily become irksome even to the least intelligent 
of unintelligent readers. Weare the more disposed to 
regret the author’s mistake in adopting this artificial 
style, because in his short preface, where it is not adopted, 
he shows that he is able to write with marked ability. 
Concerning the facts of natural history which are 
detailed, the most interesting, in our opinion, are those 
which refer to the intelligence of monkeys and the 
stupidity of sloth bears. We shall, therefore, give one 
quotation on each of these topics. 
Speaking of a domesticated sloth, the author says :— 
“Though fed daily by the same hands, the old pen- 
sioner still fails to identify his benefactor, or to recognise 
his obligations in any way. To his ear the human voice 
in its most endearing tones is a grunt ef preterea nihil ; 
you might as well appeal to the affections of a cockroach. 
You may frighten a pig, a goose, a frog, and even a 
fly, but you cannot frighten or surprise a sloth. On 
my last trip to Vera Cruz I procured a pair of black 
tardos, full grown, and in a normal state of health, so far 
as I could judge, but after a series of careful experiments 
I have to conclude that their instinct of self-preservation 
cannot be acted upon through the medium of their optic 
or acoustic nerves. They can distinguish their favourite 
food at a distance of ten or twelve yards, and the female 
is not deaf, for she answers the call of her mate from an 
adjoining room; but the approach of a ferocious-looking 
dog leaves her as calm as the sudden descent of a meat- 
axe within an inch of her nose. The he-sloth witnessed 
the accidental conflagration of his straw couch with the 
coolness of a veteran fireman. War-whoops do not 
affect his composure. I tried him with French-horn 
blasts and detonating powder, but he would not budge. 
One of my visitors exploded some pyrotechnic mixtures 
VOL. XXvVII.—NOo. 693 
of wondrous colours and odours, but the tardo declined to 
marvel; he is a wz/-admirari philosopher of the ultra- 
Horatian school.” 
Very different was the philosophical temper displayed 
by another of the author’s pets. This was a young 
Siamese bonnet-macque monkey (Macacus radiatus), of 
which he says :— 
“His conduct under circumstances to which no pos- 
sible ancestral experiences could have furnished any 
precedent has often convinced me that his intelligence 
differs from the instinct of the most sagacious dog as 
essentially as from the routine knack of a cell-building 
insect. His predilection for a frugal diet equals that of 
his Buddhistic countrymen, and I have seen him over- 
haul a large medicine-chest in search of a little vial with 
tamarind jelly. He remembered the shape of the bottle, 
for he rejected all the larger and square ones, and after 
piling the round ones on the floor, began to hold them up 
against the light, and sub-divide them according to the 
fluid or pulverous condition of their contents. Having 
thus reduced the number of the doubtful receptacles to 
something like a dozen and a half, he proceeded to scru- 
tinise these more closely, and finally selected four, which 
he managed to uncork by means of his teeth. Number 
three proved to be the bonanza bottle, and, waiving all 
precautions in the joy of his discovery, Prince Gautama 
left the medical miscellanies to their fate, and bolted into 
the next room to enjoy the fruits of his enterprise.” 
We have only observed one actual error in natural 
history, but as it is frequently repeated, we may point 
it out. The writer speaks of vampire bats as those 
which suck the blood of sleeping persons, whereas 
the truth is, as Belt has remarked, “the vampire is the - 
most harmless of all bats.’ 
The over-burdened title of the second of the above- 
named books serves to show its general character. 
The author is known from his previous works on 
“Chapters from the Physical History of the Earth,” 
“The Puzzle of Life, and How it has been Put To- 
gether,” &c. He is therefore already known as an ardent 
sportsman, a good naturalist, and an accurate observer ; 
but in our opinion his latest work is his best. Indeed, we 
have seldom read a more successful and entertaining 
account of wanderings in which science has been com- 
bined with sport. Whether Mr. Nicols is writing about 
the snakes of India, the marsupials and monotremata of 
Australia, or the birds of South America, he manages 
equally to convey such vivid and interesting pictures of 
the animals, with their habits and surroundings, that 
while not a few of his first-hand observations are of im- 
portance to the scientific zoologist, nearly every page of 
his book is delightful and instructive to the general 
reader. 
The plan of his work is a simple one. The first four 
chapters are devoted to Snakes, the second four to Mar- 
supials, and the remaining eleven to Birds. In each 
case all the more interesting features of classification, 
anatomy, development, habits, distribution, intelligence, 
&c., are given with accuracy, and sandwiched between 
very readable descriptions of scenery, sporting adven- 
ture, &c. Asan example of the latter, we may give one 
quotation, and for this purpose we choose one of the 
scenes in Australia :— 
“On every side was desolation and salt-saturated earth, 
but here, in the midst of it, stately trees, luxuriant vege- 
tation, and, above all, fresh water! This delightful site 
Q 
