THE SUNDAY STAR, Washington, D. C. C—3 
_ SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1948. 
t 
Dr. Mann of the Zoo Looks 
Back Over His Lively Years 
ANT HILL ODYSSEY. 
By William M. Mann. (Little, Brown & Co.; $3.50.) 
Reviewed by FRANCES SHIPPEN 
As far back as he can remember, Dr. William M. Mann, director of 
the National Zoo, has been collecting animals. But in trotting over 
the face of the globe on his many expeditions he has run into people 
who interest him as much as his animals. There’s a chuckle a page 
as this world-renowned naturalist tells about animals, insects, people 
and travel in his autobiography. 
In “Ant Hill Odyssey,” the first of three books on the education of a 
naturalist, Dr. Mann writes of the* 
events in his life from early child¬ 
hood until the time he took his 
first full-time job in Washington 
with the Department of Agriculture 
and the National Museum. It is a 
book which will appeal to every one 
from high school age on. For “Ant 
Hill Odyssey” is far different from 
the staid, technical work so often 
done by the pen of a scientist. It 
is the lively account of a man who 
finds real joy—contagious to the 
reader—in exploring the world for 
new lands, new faces—and always, 
new animals. Dr. Mann tells it all 
with that rare humor which under¬ 
states and never labors a point. 
For instance, he was in the Solo¬ 
mons when the wireless flashed the 
news that Charles Evans Hughes 
had been elected President. After 
that momentous message the wire¬ 
less broke down. And shortly after¬ 
ward, he went to a nearby island 
which had no wireless. “For three 
months,” he says, “I was full of 
allegiance to the wrong man.” 
Bill Mann had the instincts of a 
naturalist before he was in gram¬ 
mar school. At the age of 5 he 
was collecting insects and other 
small animals in his native Mon¬ 
tana. By the time he was in high 
school he was exchanging bugs with 
leading entomologists here and 
abroad. There were interludes in 
his prep-school days when he stud¬ 
ied at the Field Museum in Chicago 
and worked at the National Zoo. At 
the Field Museum he learned how 
to mount beetles and other insects 
without the use of chewing gum. At 
the Zoo in Washington which he was 
one day to head, 15-year-old Bill 
Mann worked as a keeper for a 
dollar a day. 
His first expedition outside the 
country was to Brazil where he was 
sent while a student at Stanford 
University. He entered Harvard as 
an entomological assistant and stu¬ 
dent and was shortly off to Haiti 
to collect snakes and ants. Later he 
was to become one of the world’s 
foremost authorities on ants. Dur¬ 
ing his four years at Harvard he 
also went on expeditions to Mexico 
and to the Near East. Among th® 
most vivid reminisces in Dr. Mann’s 
book is his account of animal col¬ 
lecting in the Fiji and Solomons 
Islands, an expedition made possible 
by the Shelton Traveling Fellow¬ 
ship awarded him after he received 
his doctorate at Harvard. 
The reader has such a gay time 
seeing the world through Dr. Mann’s 
eyes that it is disappointing to 
come to the final page. May his next 
book be as much fun to read. 
