498 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 691 



highly praised, as it deserved to be, both on 

 account of the narrative which embodied the 

 results of years of effort, and for the remark- 

 able photographs which showed for the first 

 time the big beasts of Africa as they really 

 appear in the swamps, the mountains and upon 

 the ever-changing velt. Naturally the first 

 volume contained the best of the author's 

 pictures, but the reader will find almost as 

 large a fund of interesting materials in the 

 second. 



As Schillings remarks, the " twilight of the 

 gods " long ago settled down upon the animals 

 of South Africa and the Cape region, while 

 now " an everlasting night is closing upon all 

 the life and movement of the far away regions 

 of the north and east," which he has attempted 

 to describe. Probably the most remarkable 

 fauna of the modern world, which the savage 

 races handed over to the white man prac- 

 tically intact, and which they had inherited 

 from a remote geological age — embracing 

 such unique animals as the African elephant, 

 the two-horned and white rhinoceroses, the 

 hippopotamus, the lion and leopard, the zebra, 

 not to mention the ostrich, the gnu and a 

 great variety of antelope — is rapidly passing 

 before the onslaughts of the traders in ivory 

 and skins, and foreign sportsmen, the armed 

 natives and the devastating Boers. 



Schillings believes that all these great 

 beasts and many smaller ones are destined to 

 go with the advance of trade and the white 

 settlements, and that in another century every 

 skull, skeleton, and skin will be almost worth 

 its weight in gold. The wilderness can not be 

 patrolled, but let all nations cooperate in ma- 

 king and enforcing as far as possible effective 

 laws, in establishing asylums and sanctuaries 

 as game-preserves, in stocking our museums 

 with all the material which the naturalist 

 needs for zoological study, in learning the 

 habits of these wonderful beasts before they 

 have vanished, in securing drawings, measure- 

 ments and especially photographs, true to wild 

 nature, to hand on as a legacy to future 

 generations. Thus might be expressed the 

 thesis which the author eloquently defends. 



The varied fauna of South Africa has all 

 but vanished, as our author remarks, unsung 



and unfamed, before any great master could 

 put on canvas or in words its record for all 

 time. " May," says he, " the master soon ap- 

 pear who will be able to give us a noble and 

 true picture of the East Africa Nyika, in all 

 its vast proportions." Many passages could 

 be quoted to show that the desired "master" 

 had arisen in Schillings himself. At any rate 

 he has all the requisite enthusiasm, energy and 

 desire for truth, combining indeed the re- 

 sources of hunter, artist, explorer, naturalist 

 and philosopher. 



In reviewing the earlier work referred to, 

 I spoke of the charm which ^ a certain in- 

 distinctness lends to many of his photographs, 

 suggesting the work of a painter like Corot. 

 Others have noticed this and have compared 

 some of his pictures of birds to the designs of 

 Japanese artists. Schillings discusses this 

 matter freely, and says that he was pleased 

 to find that this unavoidable efiect of the in- 

 tense heat and dazzling light, or in some 

 cases of the long exposure required for the 

 telophoto lens, was not in all respects disad- 

 vantageous. In many cases it eliminates the 

 hard and unnatural character of the pho- 

 tograph, and gives us true pictures, that is a 

 series of superimposed surfaces, without lines 

 of any kind, which have no place in nature. 

 This is not to be confused with the blurred 

 effect of objects in motion, and is objectionable 

 only when greater detail is desired. As illus- 

 trations of this the reader should compare 

 the picture of gnus and zebra resting under 

 the shade of a tree (p. 241), a herd of black 

 hoofed antelope on the edge of a forest (p. 

 217), and especially a large troop of zebra and 

 gnus herded in the midst of foliage, which 

 from a pictorial standpoint are extremely 

 fine. As to birds, the silhouette of pearl hens 

 in an acacia tree (p. 397), or even the picture 

 of flamingoes on the wing (p. 253) could be 

 effectively copied without change for an orna- 

 mental screen. The same comment would 

 apply to admirable studies of giraffe seen 

 stahiing over the velt (p. 577) and to other 

 subjects which could be mentioned. 



Among the interesting facts recorded we 

 note the following : The remarkable abundance 

 of life which at the time of his visit existed in 



