B Y THE WA YSIDE 
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35 
Nature Faking. 
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The term originated with our presi- 
lent in a war which he and his study 
'riend, Mr. Burroughs, have been con¬ 
ducting against certain un-natural his¬ 
tory writers. It refers to the practice of 
.hose writers of substituting a rather fer- 
nd imagination for a knowledge of fact 
in an effort to produce books that will 
sell rapidly. 
The present school originated with Mr. 
Thompson-Seton who warns us that the 
avents he records in his biographies are 
not supposed to have happened to one 
individual, but are the results of his 
study of the species. The school ends, 
it is to be hoped, with Dr. Long, who not 
only gives us a minute history of the 
daily life of the shiest wood creatures 
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but insists upon having the whole thing 
accepted as plain unvarnished fact. 
And what remarkable facts they write! 
One crow is singled out of a flock; and his 
whole life related to us. Another writer 
tells of a fox who jumped in the back of 
a farmer’s wagon and rode a ways in 
) 
order to throw the dogs off the scent. 
We are told of a frog who lived on spar¬ 
rows, of a woodcock who set his own 
broken leg with a stick and clay. Of the 
famous wolf who bit through the breast 
of a caribou and pierced his heart though 
the feat means that the wolf must have 
sent his fangs through six inches of hide, 
flesh and bone. We are told of a mother 
beaver, minus one fore leg, who built her 
dam across a mountain stream, forcing 
stakes, three feet long down half their 
length into the stony bottom and then 
standing off and squinting along the line 
of stakes to see if it is straight. 
Are not animals interesting enough as 
themselves? Is it necessary to make 
them human in order to make them in¬ 
teresting? Would you rather have the 
wonderful Red Riding Hoody stories of 
Dr. Longs’ snow white wolf than to know 
that wolves are the shiest of all wood- 
dwellers, that a hunter rarely sees one 
out of a trap and that some naturalists 
have spent a large per cent, of their lives 
in the woods and have never seen a wolf? 
It is still true that fact is stranger than 
fiction but, contrary to the general belief 
it is much harder to write. It is easier 
to invent your natural history than to 
discover it. But you run the risk of 
making yourself ridiculous when you 
match your cunning against the cunning 
of Nature. 
N Eagle Uses Liner to Help It Back to Yan¬ 
kee Coast. 
The Anchor liner Columbia, in from 
Glasgow, reports that at noon Saturday 
near Cape Race and far from land a fine 
big American eagle, probably driven off 
shore by a heavy gale, alighted on the 
fore truck of the vessel. The day was 
mild and most of the passengers came 
out on deck to see the bird, which gazed 
down unconcerned!}', after the confident 
fashion of a self-possessed American. No 
effort was made to capture the bird, 
which looked as if it could put up a good 
scrap, if necessary. It finally flew from 
the fore to the main truck and perched 
there, preening itself as calmly as if it 
was in its aerie. The passengers watched 
it closely until dusk, when it spread its 
broad wings and headed for the Yankee 
coast. The ship had helped it along 
more than 100 miles .—Chicago Tribune. 
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Then we gather, as we travel, 
Bits of moss and dirty gravel, 
And we chip off little specimens of stone; 
And we carry home as prizes 
Funny bugs of handy sizes, 
Just to give the day a scientific tone. 
—Charles Edward Carryl 
