THIS IS THE FOREST PRIMEVAL 
3 
prevention of cruelty, but rather the prevention of extermination ; 
and, that being so, ^Ir. Seton-Thompson’s optimistic confidence 
that the waste, unenclosed lands will always remain, would be 
very comforting if we could be quite as certain of the prospect 
as he appears to be. But, after all, unenclosed lands, though 
they may interest the geologist, will hardly charm the Selbor- 
nian naturalist if the indigenous flora and fauna are to cease to 
exist. We know of no plainer or more unvarnished tale of 
senseless extermination than that which Mr. Fountain tells of 
the wiping out of ten million American bison — all but the entire 
wild stock of the species — during the first three-quarters of the 
nineteenth century ; but steps have only been taken just in time 
to prevent the same vandalism being repeated in the case of 
many species of “ big game ” in Africa. It is undoubtedly true, 
as Mr. Seton-Thompson has pointed out, that the end of the 
life of the wild animal is naturally a violent one ; but without the 
intervention of man, with his wholesale systems of slaughter, 
sparing neither female nor young, the struggle for existence, 
fatal though it be to the individual, is not, save by the imper- 
ceptibly slow process of selectional change, fatal to the species. 
No better check to this march of extermination would seem to 
be at present devisable than the substitution of the camera for 
the gun, the note-book of the observer for the mere bald 
“butcher’s bill” of that sportsman of whom we prefer to think 
as the sportsman of the past. 
We welcome all three of these works as embodying much 
original observation and an intense love of the animal world. 
M. Du Chaillu’s work commands respect as that of a veteran 
observer. It traverses the whole range of animal life in tropical 
Africa, from the ngina or gorilla to the butterflies and ants : he 
makes the animals tell their own stories ; and his text is illus- 
trated with some telling drawings. The style is, however, rather 
that of the “ book for children”: it may have suffered in transla- 
tion : and we do not think that any additional realism is gained 
by the substitution of the native names, such as “ njego,” or 
“ mboyo,” with their puzzling initial n’s or m’s, for the familiar 
leopard or jackal. Mr. Fountain’s sketches of the Mississippi 
Valley, California and Colorado, are a simple narrative, without 
literary or scientific pretensions, of his own observations during 
a period of thirty-five years. He devotes chapters to the red 
men, the cow-punchers, cow-stealers, and such-like, to a cypress 
swamp with its snakes, frogs and birds, and to spiders and flies ; 
but not even a scientific name is added, nor is there much 
reference to plant-life. Worst of all, there is no index. Interest- 
ing as the book is to read, this deprives it of any value for 
reference. Mr. Seton-Thompson no longer makes his animals 
talk : though fully intelligible to a child, his book shows no 
suggestion of writing down to a child’s capacity ; and, charming 
as are his pathetic stories, their charm is enhanced by the dainty 
marginal and other illustrations. Once or twice he for a few 
