LEAF AND TENDRIL 



of letting invention take the place of observation. 

 It is one thing to work your gold or silver up into 

 sparkling ornaments, and quite another to manu- 

 facture an imitation gold or silver, and this is what 

 the nature fakers do. Their natural history is for 

 the most part a sham, a counterfeit. No one quarrels 

 with them because they are not scientific, or because 

 they deal in something more than dry facts ; the 

 ground of quarrel is that they do not start with 

 facts, that they grossly and absurdly misrepresent 

 the wild lives they claim to portray. 



A Wisconsin editor, writing upon this subject, 

 shoots wide of the mark in the same way as does the 

 New England editor. "Knowledge born of scientific 

 curiosity," he says, "has nothing in common with 

 the study of animal individuality which the 'nature 

 fakers' have fostered and to which the public has 

 proved responsive. There is all the difference in 

 the world between being interested in the length of 

 an animal's skuU and being interested in the same 

 animal's ways and personality." True enough, but 

 this is quite beside the mark. The point at issue is 

 a question of accurate seeing and reporting. The 

 man who is reporting upon an animal's ways and 

 personality is bound by the same obligations of 

 truthfulness as the man who is occupied with the 

 measurements of its skull. By all means let the 

 literary naturalist give us traits instead of measure- 

 ments. This he is bound to do, and the better 

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