8 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



on the boat. Unluckily the gunner stood right in the way, 

 and before he could move, a number of foot-pounds, compiled 

 of the body of a heavy goose and its headlong flight, imping- 

 ed on his sporting breast and the owner found himself com- 

 pleting the trajectory by somersaulting backwards into the 

 water! 



Chinese bird life, so our late fellow resident in Shanghai, 

 Dr. Edkins, tells us somewhere, was not altogether unknown 

 to Pliny. Since that time a very great amount of known- 

 ledge has been accummulated, but nothing has done so much 

 for the exactitude of our knowledge of outer nature as the 

 use of photography. With the telephoto-lens it is now 

 possible to transfer to paper wild nature in its true form and 

 in its natural habitat. In all probability the delight of such 

 a study will attract many to the life history of birds and 

 beasts who hitherto have been repulsed by the difficulty of 

 the language employed and by the no less unattractive 

 nature of some of the illustrations. In these chats dry 

 science is according to our understanding eschewed, but its 

 importance must never be forgotten. 



