May 28, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



791 



laboratory activity and in domestic animals 

 that there is little interest and concern about 

 wild life ? Professor W. K. Brooks once said : 



Is not the biological laboratory which leaves out 

 the ocean and the mountains and meadows a mon- 

 strous absurdity? Was not the greatest scientific 

 generalization of your times reached independently 

 by two men who were eminent in their familiarity 

 with living things in their homes? 



Certainly Hornaday's " Wild Life Conserva- 

 tion in Theory and Practise" (1914) is a 

 volume which should be read by every student 

 of zoology and by all interested in general 

 conservation problems. It is the outcome ~of 

 a course of lectures given to the students of 

 forestry at Tale, and is clearly an effort to en- 

 list the interest and intelligent support of a 

 younger generation of men, as it is on them 

 that the hope for future progress largely de- 

 pends. Hornaday clearly and forcibly shows 

 the strenuous eilorts which have been made in 

 protecting our wild life from the plume hunt- 

 ers and the ordinary ignorant and selfish 

 hunters of all kinds. 



To bring out the sound rational foundation 

 upon which protection is based, the economic 

 value of birds is presented to show how they 

 reduce the excessive numbers of insects in 

 fields, orchards and forests, and the aid 

 which hawks and owls give in helping keep 

 down the number of vermin. The proper use 

 of game is shown to be capable of producing 

 millions of dollars worth of valuable food, as 

 well as furnishing recreation for many people. 

 Some of the New England states have already 

 begun to profit by this on a large scale. In 

 his enthusiasm for the cause of protection 

 Hornaday does not go to the extreme and 

 ignore the harm done by certain kinds of 

 animals, or eveii occasional harm by kinds 

 usually neutral or beneficial. The whole dis- 

 cussion is eminently sane and judicious. 



Hornaday makes a strong appeal to the 

 citizen not to allow a few people, a special 

 class, who are reckless in the destruction of 

 animals, and who really care nothing for their 

 obligations to future generations, to advance 

 unhindered in their devastation of our valuable 

 fauna, which, if once lost, can never be re- 

 stored. He says: 



Seventy-five per cent, of the men who shoot 

 game in America, in Europe, Asia and Africa are 

 thoroughly sordid, selfish and merciless, both toward 

 the game and toward posterity. As a rule, noth- 

 ing can induce any of them to make any voluntary 

 sacrifices for the preservation cause. They stop 

 for nothing, save the law. 



Such a view wiU appear strange and extreme 

 to many, but at the same time it is, to some 

 degree, a measure of one's familiarity with 

 this aggressive campaign. And what wiU 

 zoologists think of this statement ? 



And think, also, what it would mean if even one 

 half the men and women who earn their daily 

 bread in the field of zoology and nature-study 

 should elect to make this cause their own! And 

 yet, I tell you that in spite of an appeal for help, 

 dating as far back as 1898, fully 90 per cent, of 

 the zoologists of America stick closely to their 

 desk-work, soaring after the infinite and driving 

 after the unfathomable, but never spending a 

 dollar or lifting an active finger on the firing-line 

 in defense of wild life. I have talked to these 

 men until I am tired; and the most of them seem 

 to be hopelessly sodden and apathetic. 



While this is equally true of educators at large, 

 the fact is they are far less to blame for present 

 conditions than are many American zoologists. 

 The latter have upon them obligations such as no 

 man can escape without being shamefully derelict. 

 Fancy an ornithologist studying feather arrange- 

 ment, or avian osteology, or the distribution of 

 sub-species, while the guns of the game-hogs are 

 roaring all around him and strings of bobolinks 

 are coming into the markets for sale! Yet that 

 is precisely what is happening in many portions of 

 America to-day; and I tell you that if the birds 

 of North America are saved, it will not be by the 

 ornithologists at large. But fortunately there are 

 a few noble exceptions to this ghastly general rule. 



This quotation is not given to antagonize 

 zoologists, but in the hope that some of their 

 lethargy will be thrown off. If any one doubts 

 the truth of this statement and resents it he 

 is just the sort of person who should read this 

 book. To the open-minded individual who has 

 given no attention to this subject this book 

 will be a revelation. The last chapter is 

 replete with valuable practical suggestions for 

 future constructive protective work. Repeat- 

 edly in this book important plans for the 



