November 24, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



605 



Life stand the men of this little "world — the fully 

 developed, the underdone, and the unbaked, in one 

 struggling, seething mass. On the other side, 

 and on a level but one step lower do'W'n, stands 

 the vanguard of the long procession of ' ' Lower ' ' 

 Aninials, led by the chimpanzee, tilie orang and 

 the gorilla. The natural bridge that almost 

 spans the chasm lacks only the keystone of the 

 arch 



The great Apes have traveled ufi the Eiver of 

 Life on the opposite side from Man, but they are 

 onlj' one lap behind him. Let us not deceive our- 

 selves about Uiat. Eeniember that truth is inex- 

 orable in its demands to be heard. 



Into this book Dr. Hornaday has put much 

 «f his philosophy of life as well as the choicest 

 of his observations on the behavior of wild 

 animals in nature and in. captivity. The moral 

 purpose which impelled the writer to expres- 

 sion is the defense of dumb creatures. Our 

 author takes special pains to humble man by 

 dwelling on his shortcomings. The reader is 

 told that, though endowed richly with mind 

 and gifts of expression and therefore capable 

 of noble achievement in service and self- 

 development, man at his worst is the most 

 bestial of animals and more brutal than the 

 so-ealled brutes. 



"The minds and manners of wild animals" 

 will disappoint not a few scientific students 

 of animal behavior because it is not an exact 

 systematic and analj'tie description of animal 

 experience and action. It will delight almost 

 everyone else by its directness, sincerity and 

 naturalness. For the tens of readers who may 

 get next to nothing from the book because of 

 the "experimentalist bias" — -to which the re- 

 viewer must plead somewhat guilty — there will 

 be thousands who gain useful knowledge, 

 insight and a more intelligent appreciation of 

 wild animals. 



The book should be taken, in the opinion of 

 the reviewer, as a notable contribution to nat- 

 ural history, not as a scientific treatise on com- 

 parative psychology. It contains a wealth of 

 amusing, interesting, thrilling and enlighten- 

 ing incidents and personal observations, a 

 somewhat biographical assemblage of reflec- 

 tions and conclusions and a unique thought- 

 provoking collection of brief characterizations 

 of animal intelligence and temperament. Such 



is the contribution to animal behavior and 

 rights which Dr. Homaday has made fi'om his 

 almost unexampled wealth of experience as 

 zoologist, hunter and scientific director of 

 zoological gardens. The information presented 

 should be of very considerable practical value 

 to all who have to do with wild animals. 



It would ibe a profitless task to discuss in 

 Science the scientific grounds of dissatisfac- 

 tion with a book which is primarily an account 

 of personal experiences with wild animals. 

 Conspicuous among them are terminology, def- 

 inition, canons of judgment, inferences and 

 generalizations. Such matters every scientific 

 reader will note, but will he nevertheless be 

 able, as the layman almost certainly will, to 

 enter into and profit by the author's lifetime of 

 intimate contact with wild animals? Let us 

 hope so. 



More to the point than a recital of the con- 

 tent of this volume is the injunction, "Read it 

 and thus enter into the author's knowledge, 

 sympathetic appreciation and insights." Truth 

 is great. The ways of observing it are as varied 

 as human intellect and temperament. It were 

 a pity to lose .the value of the naturalistic in 

 our praiseworthy attempts to exalt the expe- 

 rimental study of animal behavior and ex- 

 perience. 



Egbert M. Yerkes 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



PROOF OF THE POWER OF THE WHEAT 



PLANT TO Fix ATMOSPHERIC 



NITROGEN 



In a series of wheat cultures in solutions, we 

 have recently proved conclusively that wheat 

 plants, even in only six weeks of growth, can 

 fix large quantities of nitrogen from tlie air. 

 They possess this power whether niti-ogen is 

 supplied to the roots or not. 



Seventeen years ago, Jamiesoni made the 

 startling announcement, based on experiments, 

 that all green plants possess the power of fix- 

 ing atmospheric nitrogen. He supplemented 

 this announcement by another to the effect that 



1 Report of Agr. Res. Assn., Aberdeen, 1905, 

 et seq. 



