WAYS OF NATURE 



natural history, any more than he does with the facts 

 of human history in his novels. 



Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are 

 what the real nature-lover craves. No man can 

 invent incidents and traits as interesting as the 

 reality. Then, to know that a thing is true gives it 

 such a savor ! The truth — how we do crave the 

 truth ! We cannot feed our minds on simulacra any 

 more than we can our bodies. Do assure us that the 

 thing you tell is true. If you must counterfeit the 

 truth, do it so deftly that we shall never detect you. 

 But in natural liistory there is no need to counter- 

 feit the truth; the reality always suffices, if you 

 have eyes to see it and ears to hear it. Behold what 

 Maeterlinck makes out of the life of the bee, sim- 

 ply by getting at and portraying the facts — a true 

 wonder-book, the enchantment of poetry wedded 

 to the authority of science. 



Works on animal intelligence, such as Romanes's, 

 abound in incidents that show in the animals reason 

 and forethought in their simpler forms ; but in many 

 cases the incidents related in these works are not 

 well authenticated, nor told by trained observers. 

 The observations of the great majority of people 

 have no scientific value whatever. Romanes quotes 

 from some person who alleges that he saw a pair of 

 nightingales, during a flood in the river near which 

 their nest was placed, pick up the nest bodily and 

 carry it to a place of safety. This is incredible. If 

 15 



