Abstract
MR. LONG is always interesting and original, and he is especially so in the daintily illustrated little volume standing first on our list, of which individuality in animals seems to be the keynote. Premising that no species breeds true in all its individuals, the author urges that analogous differences in temper, disposition, and mind reveal themselves to those who take the trouble to observe closely. All who make pets of cats, dogs, horses, and other domesticated animals are fully convinced of the existence in them of individual traits and idiosyncrasies; and the apparent absence of these in wild species seems due merely to the want of careful and minute observation of their habits. That such individualities do exist the author demonstrates, for example, in the case of the American lynx, which, although normally a cowardly and slinking creature, will on occasion follow the trail of a hunter with as mischievous intent as a panther. As usual, Mr. Long discusses members of widely different groups, and in the present volume we have delightful peeps into the life-histories of the black bear, the wolf, the wild goose, the trout, and other denizens of the forest and the stream. Where all is good, it is difficult to make a selection; but we have personally found special interest in the chapter on the bear. Describing the actions of a bear when ant-hunting, the author tells us that “he just knocks the top off the hill, stirs up the nest, and lies down quietly, placing his fore-paws where the ants are thickest. At first he makes no effort to pick up the hurrying insects, workers and fighters, which swarm out of their tunnels. … ‘Moorween’ waits till they crawl over the big black object that rests over the nest, and then he begins to lick his paws more and more greedily as he tastes the acid things. … So he gets all he wants, cleanly from his own paws, instead of filling his mouth with dust and chaff, as he must do if he attempted to catch them in any other way.” Many other passages in this attractive volume bear equally eloquent testimony to the closeness with which its author has observed the habits of the creatures he loves so well and describes so graphically.
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L., R. Three Animal Biographies . Nature 77, 393–394 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077393a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077393a0