NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 303 
in the permanent effect produced upon the reader. The compiler 
of knowledge can never possess that sense of proportion, that 
balance, that caution which enables the original student to give 
•correct impressions of the objects and scenes he describes. Hence 
the work of the compiler is little trustworthy in comparison with 
that of the original student. The pictures which Mr. Roberts 
orives of the forest and its animal dwellers are extremely vivid 
and very pleasing, but they do not represent the woods and the 
animals of reality, and the reader ought not to be led to believe 
that they do. 
So opposite are the standpoints from which the scientific and 
the literary man view animal life, and so entirely indifferent are 
they to one another’s standards, that the two are not only nearly 
impossible to one person, but they are well nigh mutually ex- 
clusive. The charm of the study to the man of science is the 
triumph of demonstrating the truth. He makes this his sole 
standard, as it is his sole reward. Slowly, patiently, laboriously, 
indifferent to popular opinion as to popular applause, he makes 
bis resistless advances, aiming to prove each step before a second 
is made. He naturally has little regard, therefore, for showy 
leaps from scanty fact to sensational generalization, and he has 
no respect at all for a pretence of scientific knowledge not based 
upon an honest foundation. The new nature writer seems to 
view nature chiefly in the light of a fresh supply of literary 
material, and he values her phenomena in proportion to their 
adaptability for interesting and clever treatment. To him the 
truth is not of first importance, and imagination is allowed to 
improve upon nature whenever she can thereby be made more 
available for literary uses. All this may be legitimate in litera- 
ture, but it is not in science. It remains to be seen whether 
works thus insincere in their foundation can be given long life 
by literary charm alone. 
Note. — A vigorous discussion of Mr. Long's work was inaugurated by 
Mr. John Burroughs in a severe criticism in the Atlantic Monthly for 
March, 1903, under the title “ Real and Sham Natural History.” Mr. 
Long’s reply followed in the North American Review for May. His 
•defence was also taken up by his publishers, Messrs. Ginn & Co., of 
Boston, in an illustrated pamphlet, containing numerous complimentary 
