No. 409.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 59 
imparting the fascination to his readers seems to us justified. The 
story is certainly “light,” but whether it is “too prolific of natural 
history " may be questioned. 
The scene of the story is laid in the forests of the Athabasca, in 
which a lad of fourteen spends the winter in the charge of a half- 
breed trapper. The interest of the story lies in the successful efforts 
of the animals of the region to save their skins from the trapper, and 
later in the endeavors of Mooswa, a moose whom the boy once 
befriended, to save the boy from starvation. 
If the book is an attempt to convey, in the form of a story, knowl- 
edge of the ways of animals, it is a failure, for whatever truth it may 
contain is obscured by a bewildering amount of romance. Thus 
when the fox is caught in a trap, the beaver gnaws off his foot, and 
the Canada Jay sews the skin over the stump with his beak. If the 
author has tried to make a good tale, after the pattern of the Jungle 
Books, he has failed through lack of the requisite literary skill. The 
story is presumably intended for boys, but even boys, if fed on Kip- 
ling and Seton-Thompson, would tire of the idle chatter which is put 
into the mouths of the principal interlocutors. The book is by no 
means bad; there are humorous situations, and even moments of 
interest, approaching excitement. A decade ago it might have 
proved acceptable, but the standard of excellence in such matters 
has been set too high, by the creators of Mowgli and Wab, for any 
but skillful artists to hope for success in the field. The illustrations 
are far superior to the text. R. H. 
Miller's Key to the Land Mammals of Eastern North America.' — 
Probably no recent contribution to the literature of North American 
mammalogy will be so gratefully and widely welcomed as Mr. Mil- 
ler’s brief synopsis of the land mammals of eastern North America. 
So great has been the increase in our knowledge of the subject dur- 
ing the last fifteen years, so radical the changes in nomenclature, so 
different the present methods of investigation, and so scattered the 
literature that has been the outcome of this renaissance, that only 
the few specialists engaged in the work could hope to keep in touch 
with the subject. The general student hence found himself hopelessly 
lost in intricate labyrinths in any attempt he might make to adn 
clear conception of the results thus far reached, in even a limited 
! Miller, Gerrit S. Key to the Land Mammals of Eastern North America, 
Bulletin of the New York State Museum, vol. viii (October, 1900), No. 38, 
PP. 59-160. 
