Dec. 2t, iQoi.j 
>POREST - AND i» STREAM* 
488 
where he played a supernatural part in human affairs. 
The serpent was probably held in awe by primitive 
Inan, vvho was doubtless profoundly impressed with his 
insidious power of inflicting evil upon man, and the great 
difticulty of guarding against such injury. The em- 
bryonic rcligmus idea in early man recognized the evil, 
not the beneficent powers, in the spirit world — investing 
with personality all agents of evil to human kind, and 
offering propitiatory service. The serpent came in for 
a large share of such service. 
The theory of the evolution of all life from lower to 
higher states clears the field of inquiry concei'ning man's 
relations to mundane affairs, of a vast deal of mystifica- 
tion and difficulty that has befogged the minds of phil- 
osophers and teachers during the past ages. 
Coahoma. 
About Some Neighbors.* 
In this volume the author has undertaken to describe 
the habits of a number of birds and quadrupeds, and he 
has done this in an engaging way by endowing them with 
the faculty of human speech, and thus in a great part 
letting them tell the story for themselves. This, of 
course, is not a novel method, but Dr. Grinnell has been 
building of the nests, the rearing of tlie young, their food 
habits, friends and enemies, and all the various vicissi- 
tudes of bird life are told by the story and by the birds 
acting in the story, so that Dr Grinnell's book is a prac- 
tical ornithology of the most delightful kind. It is stimu- 
lating. The work is intended primarily for young people, 
and no boy nor girl — nor older person, for that matter — 
can read these chapters without discovering that the wild 
neighbors of which they tell are an extremely interesting 
folk with whom a more intimate acquaintance is to bo 
cultivated. 
The scene is laid in Connecticut, where, despite the 
centuries of civilization and of continuous warfare waged 
upon them by mankind, the wild creatures are present in 
a variety and an abundance little suspected by tho.se who 
have not sought them out in tlieir haunts. Fox, lynx, 
raccoon, skunk, hare, otter, mink, weasel, woodchuck, 
muskrat and gray squirrel are comprised in Dr. Grinnell's 
list, and even the deer are coming back, and. having been 
given protection, are likely to increase and establish them- 
selves once more: As Dr. Grinnell notes, most of the 
species named arc classed as vermin, and are protected 
neither by law nor by sentiment; every man's hand is 
against them; that they have survived and exist at all is 
a testimony to the fact that they have learned to adapt 
EYES LIQUID AND BRIGHT, SO WISE AND JUDICIAL.'' 
From "Neighbors of Field, Wood and .Stream." 
more successful than any other writer with whom we 
are familiar in preserving for liis subjects their real 
animal character, so that there is throughout the book 
an air of fidelity to nature which is a quality as grateful 
as it is rare in such a work. Cooney the Fox, Ruffle the 
Partridge, Squirm the Blacksnake and the host of others 
are given speech, but talk as fox and bird and snake, not 
^as human beings in disguise, and thus the book is one of 
actual natural history, not of sentimental fancies. 
The author shows himself to have.been a close observer ; 
themselves to the exacting conditions of living in 
proximity to human beings, and have succeeded in out- 
witting their enemy in the great game of man against 
CA-ery other animal. If the woodfolk are our neighbors 
we in turn are theirs, and Dr. GrinnelTs animals and birds 
are all the more interesting because they are shown to 
be shrewd Yankees in feather and fur, who know a good 
deal about the other Yankees who wear clothes. There 
is abundant humor in the human element as it is intro- 
duced here and there. Dr. Grinnell's foxes are experts in 
"dandy stopped at nettleton's pond." 
From "Neighbors of Field, Wood and Stream.' 
he has an intimate knowledge of the ways of the birds and 
animals he describes, and his treatment is both compre- 
hensive in scope and minute in detail. The coming and 
go'mg of the birds, the choosing of their nesting sites and 
•Neighbors of Field. Wood and Stream; or. Through the Year 
With Nature's Children. By Morton Grinnell. With forty-five 
illustrations. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 
pillaging fox-proof hen-roosts, and his gam.; birds have 
an amusing knowledge of the frailties of sportsmen. 
There is pathos, too, in the book, as there needs must 
be in. a world where there are weasels and minks and 
hawks and butcher birds to snuff out the lives of the 
weaker species, and steel traps and setters and hounds, 
and men with, guns, and lighthouses which lure the 
dazzled throngs to dash into their lanterns. 
Camera Shots at Big Game.* 
For many years Mr. A. G. Wallihan has been known 
to a very large public as by far the most successful of all 
photographers of American wild animals, and while a 
multitude of people have photographed our wild crea- 
tures, no one has ever approached Mr. Wallihan's suc- 
cess. He stands literally in a class bv himself. 
A good many years ago a number of his photographs 
were reproduced in a volume which had a considerable 
sale, but during Mr. Wallihan's absence in the field, the 
publisher padded the volume with a considerable number 
of photographs of stuffed animals. Of course the fraud 
was at once detected by sportsmen, and equally of course 
the blame for the attempted deception fell on the .shoulders 
of the wholly innocent person whose name was on the 
title page and who was responsible for the legitimate 
photographs only. Thus Mr. Wallihan without the slight- 
est fault of his own was blamed for getting out a book 
which was not what it purported to be. 
It is gratifying now to announce the publication of a 
superb work which contains a verv large number of Mr. 
Wallihan's best photographs: a volume so beautiful and 
in all respects so true to nature that every man who sees 
It will desire to possess it, even though the price may put 
It out of the reach of many people. This is ''Camera 
Shots at Big Game," which contains more than sixty large 
and beautiful illustrations of wild animals and birds direct 
from life, an account by Mr. Wallihan of the way in 
winch the pictures were taken, together with an introduc- 
tion by President Theodore Roosevelt, which is by no 
means the least interesting feature of the book. Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's remarks on big game, and especially on 
the mountain lion, derive a peculiar interest from his 
recent trip to Colorado, where he killed perhaps more 
lions than have ever fallen before any .sportsman in the 
same length of time, several of which he put an end to 
with the knife. 
The high quality of Mr. Roosevelt's sportsmanship is 
well known to all his brothers of the craft, and in the 
various high offices that he has filled he has never failed 
to do what was in his power to forward the cause of 
game and forest protection, and of good sportsmanship. 
We fancy that most sportsmen, except the very youngest, 
will agree with the closing words of his introduction to 
this volume, both where he pleads for protection of the 
game and the woodland, and where he speaks of the ad- 
vantages to be derived from hunting with a camera as 
J.gainst hunting with a rifle. He says: 
"Mr. Wallihan is not only a good photographer, but a 
lover of nature and of the wild life of the wilderness. His 
pictures and his descriptions are good in themselves as 
records of a fascinating form of life which is passing away. 
Moreover, they should act as spurs to all of us to try to 
see that this life docs not whollv vanish. It will be a 
real misfortune if our wild animals disappear from the 
mountain, plam and forest, to be found only, if at all. in 
great game preserves. It is to the interest of all X)f us 
that there is ample and real protection for our game as 
for our woodlands. A true democracy really alive to its 
Opportunities, will insist upon such game preservation, 
for it is to the interest of our people as a whole. More 
and more, as it becomes necessary to preserve the game, 
let us hope that the camera will largely supplant the rifle! 
It IS an excellent thing to have a nation proficient in 
marksmanship, and it is highly undesirable that the rifle 
should be wholly laid by. But the shot is. after all, only 
a small part of the free life of the wilderness. The 
chief attractions lie in the physical hardihood for which 
the life calls, the sense of limitless freedom which it 
brings, and the remoteness and wild charm and beauty of 
primitive nature. All of this we get exactly as much in 
hunting with the camera as in hunting with the rifle ; and 
of the two, the former is the kind of sport which calls for 
the higher degree of skill, patience, resolution and knowl- 
edge of the life history of the animal sought." 
Mr._ Wallihan's narrative of his experiences in photo- 
graphing wild animals is told in a simple way. and witli 
a directness of presentation that lends it an added charm. 
Most of his work was done in Colorado and Wyoming, 
and it is in these two States that he has taken the wonder- 
ful pictures of deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep and 
cougars— the large animals which are here so beautifully 
shown. But while to the hunter these pictures are the 
most attractive of the volume, there are others which to 
the nature lover are quite as moving, even though they 
deal with creatures that under ordinary circumstances 
call for no expenditure of powder and lead. What, for 
example, could be more attractive than the beautiful 
photogravure in Chapter IV., which shows a quiet reach 
of stream, down which a little group of ducks, rendered 
uneasy by the approach of the photographer, are pushing 
their way. On either side the quiet waters the willows 
rise high, and the clumps are mirrored in the stream, but 
as the alarmed ducks push forward to put a safe distance 
between themselves and the camera, their paddling breaks 
the placid surface of the water into wavelets which swing 
out toward either bank, while the birds turn their heads 
back to watch the object of their suspicion. 
Almost as interesting as the picture of the leaping 
cougar is that of the great eagle, which the author 
photographed as it sailed down from its nest on a ledge 
just below the top of the high cliff on which Mr 
Wallihan stood; or again, the picture of the single duck 
standing on the stream bank, whose shadow shows on the 
sand bar and its reflection in the water. To our mind 
these and very many other pictures equal in interest the 
marvellous one of the leaping cougar, and some of those 
thrilling groups of blacktail deer, elk, antelope and 
other game. 
_ A long essay might be written on some of the sugges- 
tions which these extraordinary pictures give us. One 
of the most obvious of these is as to the protective color- 
ing of the animals, which stand before the camera. If a 
group of some hundreds of elk is shown scattered over a 
partially snow-covered valley, it is by no means easy for 
an untrained eye always to discover the animals; or if a 
group of deer or a single animal appears standing out in 
the open— even in bright sunlight— against a background 
of bluff or of yellow grass or of sage brush, the colors of 
the animals blend so perfectly and so mysteriously into 
*Camera Shots at Big Game bv A. G. Wallihan, with an intro- 
duction by Theodore Roosevelt, Kew York, 1901. Price m. 
