164 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



ZOOLOGICAL 

 SOCIETY BULLETIN 



EDITED BY THE DIRECTOR 



Elwin R. Sanborn, Asst. Editor. 



Published at the Office of the Society, 11 Wall St., New York City. 



Copyright, iqo4, by the Ne-w York Zoological Society. 



No. 14. JULY, 1904. 



Subscription price, 50 cents for four numbers. 



Single numbers, I 5 cents. 



MAILED FREE TO MEMBERS. 



Levi P. Morton, ex-officio. 



©eneral ©fficcrjs: 



Secretary, Madison Grant, 11 Wall Street. 



Treasurer, Percy R. Pyne, 62 Wall Street. 



Director, William T. Hurnaday, Zooloihcal Park. 



Director 0/ the .Aquarium, Charles H. TinvNSEND, Baitery Park. 



■JBoarft of jUaanagets : 



EX-OFFICIO, 

 The Mayor of llie City of New York, Hon. George B. McClellan. 

 The President of the Def t of Parks, Hon. John J. Pallas. 



€Ia?j of 1905. €\Mi of leoe. Clajsg of i907. 



A DANGEROUS EXPONENT OF NATURE. 



Most men who love the works of Nature are 

 little given to criticising others in print; but there 

 are times when the expressing of one's opinion 

 becomes a matter of duty. 



When men begin to sow broadcast through our 

 schools, and amongst young people generally, un- 

 limited quantities of questionable seed, it should 

 be very carefully inspected. Messrs. Ginn & 

 Company's elaborate defensive pamphlet of "Wil- 

 liam J. Long and His Books" is a reminder that 

 Mr. Long is now a public issue, and one not to be 

 ignored by those who care for real natural history. 



Mr. Long now has nine books on the market, 

 four of which are published specially for school 



use, at fifty cents each. Presumably they are 

 already in a great many schools; and yet, no other 

 American writer calling himself a naturalist ever 

 has been so universally condemned by real natu- 

 ralists, both in and out of print, as has William J. 

 Long. Among his defenders and e.xponents, so 

 far as we know there is not one person who is a 

 naturalist. 



To all persons, young and old, who are interested 

 in Nature, who desire to learn only what is true, 

 I express the belief that Mr. Long is the most 

 visionary writer who has ever appeared before 

 the American public in the guise of a naturalist. 

 .\ny man with unlimited capacity for swallowing, 

 as gospel truth, every silly story that is told to 

 him by the wild-animal liars of this world, is to 

 be pitied; but when any man combines with limit- 

 less gullibility, a vaulting imagination which 

 places upon the acts of wild creatures only the 

 most far-fetched and wonderful interpretations, 

 he is to be feared and avoided. 



If William J. Long has seen all the wonderful 

 things in wild life that he says he has seen, then 

 has he observed more marvels of Nature than all 

 other American naturahsts added together. He 

 writes smoothly worded and pleasing fiction about 

 the wonderful wisdom and superhuman doings 

 of wild creatures, and vows that it is all true. Any 

 man who is able to swallow so palpable a hoax as 

 the oriole's nest, illustrated in a recent number of 

 "Science," and describe it as a genuine product 

 of unassisted Nature, is about as wise as a chip- 

 munk; and as a guide to the works of Nature he 

 is about as valuable and safe as a mole. 



Mr. Long is a scholar, with a command of lan- 

 guage that any revivalist might envy. His mar- 

 velous tales of the wonderful things he has seen 

 done by wild creatures gush forth like water from 

 an open hydrant. We have seen that for an hour 

 and a quarter he can hold his hearers spell-bound 

 "with a degree of hadmiration amounting to 

 hawe. " To him no phase of Nature is mysterious; 

 and in everything, from telepathy in the moose 



