762 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 489. 



Personally appeared before me David E. Smith, 

 William B. Tuttle, Joseph H. Smith and William 

 K. Wollan, each of whom is personally known to 

 me, and made oath to the truth of the foregoing 

 statements. 



(Signed) Stiles Judson, Jr., 



Notary Public. 



Here is certainly warrant for believing not 

 only that the woodcock sets his own broken 

 leg, but also that the habit is more common 

 and widespread than I supposed possible when 

 I published my own observations. I have 

 other letters and evidence from three different 

 states bearing on the same question, and to 

 the same effect ; but these are probably enough. 

 It may safely be left to the readers of Science 

 to determine whether or not my story of the 

 woodcock in ' A Little Brother to the Bear ' 

 is carried out, even to the smallest detail, by 

 this disinterested evidence. 



The second attack, by Mr. Chapman, is an 

 extraordinary one for a man to make in the 

 name of science. Starting with the assump- 

 tion that, in the woodcock article and in all 

 my books, I am falsifying and misrepresent- 

 ing, he endeavors to account for it on the 

 ground of personal characteristics. With calm 

 and scientific judiciousness he omits the bio- 

 graphical dictionary and the testimony of all 

 who know me, and fastens upon a newspaper 

 clipping. That is generally regarded as rather 

 poor scientific evidence; but even so, Mr. 

 Chapman finds it ' illuminating,' and so let 

 us examine it such as it is. 



The Transcript article professes to be writ- 

 ten by a friend of mine, an intimate acquaint- 

 ance, who was a classmate at Andover Sem- 

 inary, and who recounts certain occurrences 

 in the class-room as an eye-witness. As a 

 matter of fact, I do not know the man, and 

 never saw him to my knowledge. He was 

 never in the class-room with me, nor in the 

 seminary during my three years' residence. 

 The striking incident which he relates of me 

 happened to another fellow, on the subject of 

 Greek exegesis. He evidently got hold of it 

 by some rumor, applied it to me, and touched 

 it up with a vivid bit of personal recollection 

 to brighten the effect. 



A single bit of his testimony may be consid- 



ered as typical of all the rest. He represents 

 that I fitted myself for Harvard ' by solitary 

 study,' and missed the supreme importance of 

 freshman year; and, therefore, I have been 

 ever since ' easily tempted to overrate my per- 

 sonal knowledge.' The facts are, that I gradu- 

 ated from the classical course in a good high 

 school, which still regularly fits for college; 

 that I took the full four years' course, classical 

 and scientific, at the Bridgewater Normal 

 School, which required an enormous amount 

 of class work; then followed the Harvard de- 

 gree, and Andover Theological Seminary, and 

 three years in foreign universities, for all of 

 which I have parchments to show that the 

 work was regular and well done. I have un- 

 doubtedly seen more ' solitary study ' and mid- 

 night oil than is good for a man; but, so far 

 as there is any saving grace in class work and 

 professors and in rubbing elbows with better 

 men, I have had rather more than my share 

 of the covenanted as well as of the uncove- 

 nanted mercies of our educational system. 



All the rest of the statements are of the 

 same kind. They are, almost without excep- 

 tion, errors, or misrepresentations, or pure in- 

 ventions. 



So these ' illuminating paragraphs,' upon 

 which Mr. Chapman lays such emphasis, are 

 illuminating chiefly in showing the enormous ' 

 presumption with which a man will rush into 

 print and join in a controversy of which he 

 knows nothing. Incidentally, they may shed 

 a little light upon Mr. Chapman's scientific 

 way of collecting evidence. 



As for the observations upon which he 

 throws discredit, if he will read the books he 

 will see instantly that he has misrepresented 

 half the cases which he cites so carelessly. 

 As for the others, the crows that played a 

 game with a china ring, the porcupine that 

 rolled down hill, the ducks that drowned mus- 

 sels in fresh water — for these, and for every 

 other observation which he discredits, I have 

 more written evidence and more oral testi- 

 mony from reliable observers than for the 

 woodcock, which has just been considered. 

 If scientists and comparative-psychologists 

 are honestly looking for new facts in the ani- 

 mal world, I have enough to fill several reg- 



