Thanksgiving,” miss 
plained, “only it has not the deep 
meaning that Thanksgiving has ” 
Christmas and New Year’s are 
great days around the world, and 
Miss Lindfors celebrates them in 
the tradition of her homeland. But 
St. Valentine’s Day ... 
“It is so charming,” she said, “to 
have one day especially for saying 
. nice things to the persons one 
loves.” 
Miss Lindfors follows the Amer¬ 
ican tradition of giving flowers on 
May Day, although in Sweden the 
holiday is a counterpart of Amer¬ 
ica s Labor Day. She also has 
adopted Decoration Day, but ob¬ 
serves it as a day to remember the 
living. 
Dancing in June 
On June 6, Swedish flag day, the 
nags of her native country decorate 
Miss Lindfors’ ranch house. On the 
j4th, she gives a gala party with 
dancing in the garden, a pole 
woven with green leaves and flow¬ 
ers everywhere. 
That is the day that all Sweden 
celebrates with the most gaiety ” 
she said. “We call it Midsummer 
Eve, and like Christmas, it is fol¬ 
ded the next day with dinners 
and friends visiting.” 
The American flags fly on July 4. 
A seafood feast for friends marks 
Aug ; S, Sweden’s “Day of the Craw¬ 
fish. Labor Day is for picnicking. 
Miss Lindfors looks with rescr- 
vations on only one holiday, April 
Fool’s Day. 
“T a m nnifn m.«/. „.l_ _ j. x j 
IOUglio, 
0 F ALL huntei ’s, perhaps the 
most avid, and the ones who 
get the greatest satisfaction from 
their spoils, are the naturalists, 
roam the outposts of the 
to find a beetle, a moth, a 
They 
world 
snail. 
Dr. 
* x. William M. Mann, director 
,? National Zoological Park, 
Washington, D. C., since 1925 
started his career as a collector of 
frogs before he was seven years 
old. He worked up to snakes, 
beetles and finally to ants in which 
he became a specialist. But in 
Africa and Asia, in the Americas, 
m Australia, in remote islands he 
has collected pretty much of every¬ 
thing in the way of small fauna. 
T •£} A7 li HiU 0d vssey (Atlantic, 
Little Brown, $3.50) Dr. Mann 
describes his career as a naturalist 
up to the time in 1916 when he 
joined the United States bureau of 
entomology. Since then he has be¬ 
come one of the most distinguished 
naturalists in the world. 
Dr .Mann has the gift of making 
friends and thus of getting places 
^ hen .^ e S° es collecting. He has 
the gift of conveying to the reader 
something of the fascination of 
his work. Ant Hill Odyssey is 
thoroughly enjoyable. Many who 
read it will start looking more 
closely at the wonders of nature 
that lie always before them 
u 
Naturalist Has 
■n 
A Varied Life 
ANT HILL ODYSSEY by Wil¬ 
liam M. Maim. Atlantic, Little, 
Brown & Co. $3.50. 
A sure way to stop worrying 
is to become interested in bugs. 
A sure way to start living is to 
be a naturalist; for the ingredi¬ 
ents that make up a full life are 
in the autobiography of William 
M. Mann, director of the National 
zoo. A great many people have 
traveled as widely as Dr. Mann, 
but few have enjoyed it so much 
and told it so well. 
Some of our best books on per¬ 
sonal experiences have been writ¬ 
ten by scientists. They may live 
in a mysterious and eccentric 
world, but when they share it 
with the laymen, the results are 
fascinating reading. 
Born in Helena, Mont., 
Mann at a tender age began 
to collect snakes, bugs and 
everything else that moved. 
His mother grew so alarmed 
with her son who came home 
each evening with his pock¬ 
ets stuffed with the active 
members of the animal king¬ 
dom, that in desperation she 
packed him off to a Virginia 
military school. 
To the young Mann, Virginia 
was a better country to hunt 
specimens than Montana. Turtles, 
lightning bugs, snakes, et al. grew 
into a sizable collection. The 
headmaster of Staunton was 
about to give up in despair when 
half the school burned down and 
a temporary recess was given 
the students. 
At 14, Mann promptly applied 
to the Ringling Brothers circus 
to be a keeper of the animals. 
He was discouraged by John 
Ringling, but such a disappoint¬ 
ment could never frustrate a bud¬ 
ding naturalist. To this day, Dr. 
Mann is an ardent circus enthu¬ 
siast and he helps put on the 
Shrine circus every year. 
After completing military 
.school, he went to Texas 
with a friend whose father 
was opening new lands in 
the Texas panhandle. He was 
hired to write the descriptive 
folders. 
On this trip he was accom¬ 
panied by two older men, one 
a Judge Spiller, a lawyer well 
adapted to the Texas climate of 
justice. Ranch houses were few, 
so they camped out most of the 
time. The problem of wood was 
solved by using dried cow ma¬ 
nure, known as “old dry.” “On 
dewy mornings,” the author re¬ 
lates, “it was necessary to mix 
some bacon with it to get it to 
burn. Judge Spiller used to say, 
as he rested his biscuit on a 
slab of it, ‘there ain’t no harm in 
old dry’.” 
The financial side of the scien¬ 
tist’s life is as precarious as an 
artist’s. However, wealthy col¬ 
lectors and established profes¬ 
sors came to Mann’s aid when 
he barely had enough to eat. 
In describing his tours of 
the South American jungles, 
Dr. Mann makes them out to 
be harmless thickets, “with 
so much new life hidden in 
the dense foliage.” The 
beetles, the size of a man’s 
list, the “beautiful” giant 
snails, and the “lively 10-foot 
boas,” are described with the 
language of Hudson in 
“Green Mansions.” 
If you like science or not, “Ant 
Hill Odyssey” will provide you 
with some of the best reading 
that has come off the presses for 
a long time. j. a. W. 
^ U H 3 H H H. O • !-i.O !-* 
