SPORT AND ZOOLOGY ABROAD.*
Ma. Simons is a wonderful man. Nearly forty years have passed since he landed as a youth in South Africa, and embarked on the career of a professional elephant-hunter. His good fortune as a hunter has not deserted him, and years have not diminished his energy and skill. In 1904 he made a hunting-trip to the Yukon Territory in North America, and returned with the finest hunting-trophy that has ever fallen to his rifle. We are forcibly reminded of the changes that have come over the country south and north of the Zambesi by a new edition of A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa, which was first published in 1881. Those who read it then should read it again, and give it to their children. Mr. Selous's book is one of the most delightful works of the kind that have ever been written. It carries us back to the days when the falls of the Zambesi were newly discovered and Rhodesia was an unex- plored region, when elephants and lions shared the country with the Matabele. The old illustrations of hairbreadth escapes still give us a thrill, and no one has yet surpassed Mr. Smit in drawing antelopes. But we must turn from these pleasing recollections to Mr. Selous's latest work, Recent Hunting Trips in British North America. The first of these journeys, to Newfoundland in 1900, was not very successful. Mr. Mous had been a trip in Canada, and secured a moose- head which would make many sportsmen happy for life. He landed in Newfoundland at the end of October, and found the caribou migrating over the railway in herds on the road to their winter feeding-grounds. But this was not the sort of shooting be expected ; and so, taking stock of the land, and laying his plans accordingly, he returned next year with a couple of canoes. With these he reached St. John's Pond, and made a most successful expedition to the south-west of that lake. Here he found almost virgin soil for sportsmen, and indeed much of the country was quite unexplored. Here, also, he shot a splendid. old caribou stag with a magnificent head of forty points, bearing horns palmated from top to bottom and wonderfully broad and strong. The sportsman will turn with interest to the photographs with which the book is illustrated. In particular, some showing herds of caribou swimming across the lakes are worthy of notice. The license entitled Mr. Selous to kill five stags, and these were easily obtained on this new hunting-ground. In Newfoundland, at any rate, the caribou was not found a difficult beast to stalk. In 1905 Mr. Selous made his third expedition to the interior of the island, and the best caribou which ho got is now to be seen in the Natural History Museum. In 1904 and 1906 he made two extremely interesting and successful trips up the Macmillan River, in North-Western Canada. On the first of these he bad the company of Mr. Sheldon, who was collecting for the • (1) A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa. By Frederick Courtenoy Salons. With 17 Full-page Illustratious. A New Edition. Loudon: Macmillan awl Co. [7s. Ga. net. J—(24 Recent Hunting Tripe in British North America. By F. C. Salons. With 65 Illustrations from Photographs by the Author and others. London : Witherby and Co. [168. net.]—(3) Sunshine and Sport in Florida and the West Indies. By F. (1. Atkin. With 47 Illustrations. London :'F. Werner Laurie. [16s. net.] —(i) Rambles of as Australian Naturalist. Written by Paul Fountain from the Notes and Journals of Thomas Ward. London : John Murray. [10s. 6d. net.] —(5) Ruropean Animals : their bleological History and Geographical Distribution. By 11. F. Sahutr, Ph.D., B.Sc. Loudon : A. Constable and Co. [7s. 6d. net.] —(6) The Sense of Touch in Mammals and Birds. By Walter Kidd, M.D., F. S. With 164 Illustrations from Drawings and Microphotogniphs. London A. and C. Black. [Is: net.] —(71 The Wit of the Wild. By Ernest Ingersoll. Illustrated. Loudon : Fisher Uriwan. [6s.] —(3) Nature's Craftsmen: Popular Studies of Anti and other insects. By Henry Christopher McCook. illustrated from Nature.. Loudou : Harper and Brothers. [7s. 6d. net.]
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Washington Museum. They shot over . country where no white man had been, and the difficulties of transport were serious. Moreover, the season is a short one. The whple account of these two expeditions is most excellent reading. The great moose trophy to which we alluded above is unique. Its magnificent antlers measured five feet seven inches in a straight line across the palms, and were exceedingly massive and heavy. It is believed to be the record head from British North America. though larger ones have been got from the Kenai Peninsula, in Alaska. Mr. Selous's account 'Of his daily doings is a plain, straightforward narrative which will be invaluable to those who follow him into these Northern wilds. He also gives much interesting information about the aspect of the country, the fauna, the habits of beavers; the races of wild sheep in North America, and the big game generally. American Alaska is now closed by law to sports- men. This does not, unfortunately, mean that the fauna is being preserved. Red-skinned and white-skinned meat- hunters, who supply the mining-camps, are rapidly slaughter- ing the game with Winchester rifles of the latest pattern.
We turn to very different sport amidst very different surroundings. Mr. Aflalo is, we need hardly say, an angler, and the most interesting part of his last book, Sunshine and Sport in Florida and the West Indies, deals with tarpon- fishing. It is the best thing we have read from Mr. Aflalo's pen, and written in his vivid, if flowery, style. The sport at Boca. Grande is excellently described. Seventeen tarpon in eleven days is fair sport, but unfortunately not one of, these ivies a really big one. The fish caught by a lady in 1902, which weighed a hundred and seventy-eight pounds, is, we believe, not yet surpassed. Mr. Aflalo contributes something to our knowledge of the natural history of Florida fishes; the most elaborate details of rods, tackle, and all other requisites are given ; and he very properly deplores the useless slaughter of tarpon which goes on during the season, when no one wants the fish except for specimens or sporting trophies. There is no skill needed to book a tarpon, and more strength than skill in playing Lint when he is on. Mr. Aflalo minutely analyses the causes from which fish are lost, and how far they are avoidable. All this will be more eagerly read than Mr. Aflalo's experiences on the Cunarder crossing the Atlantic, his impressions of Atnerican. hotels, or • the adventures that befell him'on the railroad between New York and his destination in Florida. He criticises America more freely than most travellers, who are, as a rule, anxious, and rightly anxious, not to hurt the feelings of those among whom they were in the position of guests. A good deal that he has to say is amusing enough. Need we add that so eminent a writer on sport secured an interview with the President'? But it is of the fishing that we like best to read. Besides tarpon, we learn about the sharks and gigantic rays of this coast, the jewfish, the groupers,. the channel bass, the so-called "trout" We read, also, something of alligators and rattlesnakes, of birds and insects, especially mosquitoes. Florida is not a very beautiful country, but the coast has great charms; and May at Boca Grande, when mocking- birds sing and pelicans wheel overhead, is delightful. Mr. Aflalo returned to England by way of Cuba and Jamaica. Altogether, we doubt not, it was a pleasant sporting trip and not a difficult journey. For ‘2150 one may have a six weeks' holiday and catch some tarpon.
The next volume before us is a remarkable one. The scene changes from America to Australia. The Rambles of an Australian Naturalist is a most interesting book, and a store- house of observations on the fauna, flora, and geology of Australia. The author, as we learn from the preface, is Mr. Ward, a Queensland stock-farmer who has devoted intervals of a roughly laborious life to studying Nature in the wild. The editor is Mr. Paul Fountain. "My task," writes the editor, "has been to reduce the notes to readable form, collect the scattered information on specific subjects, and identify and supply the scientific names of species, Sze. I have corrected some obvious *mistakes ; but I have not interfered with Mr. Ward's facts or opinions, though some of the latter are in conflict with my own." Mr. Ward was born in New South Wales, within sight 'of the famous Blue Mountains. His taste fOr exploration and natural history was soon developed. He has had his share of the hardships and dangers of travel in Australia. In 1888 be made a voyage in a twenty-four-ton sailing-boat to explore the desert" about the hezid of the great
Australian Bight, and had as narrow escapes from death by shipwreck as a man can have. He has explored the Great
Barrier Reef with a small boat and a diver's dress. His notes on the habits of the dugong are very interesting, but we believe be must be mistaken in thinking that dugongs ruminate. He has a chapter on the native blackfellow. Australia is a museum of strange ancient types of animals, where evolution for a number of reasons has followed a different course from that which it has pursued in other parts of the world. Mr. Ward is a first-rate field-naturalist. His notes and journals naturally contain some repetitions, and the book lacks order and arrangement, which is perhaps inevitable. But these are trifling faults in a work which presents the reader with such a mass of first-hand observations.
We have next to recommend a scientific work of an entirely different nature. Urged by Professor Ray Lankester, Dr. Scharff has done well to republish in the form of a book the interesting Swiney Lectures on Geology which he delivered in London last year. European Animals, as the volume is called, treats of typical animals as regards their geographical dis- tribution and their geological history with a great deal of learning. It is now over sixty years since the late Professor Edward Forbes published his celebrated paper on the origin of the British fauna, and Dr. Scharff declares himself in the main in agreement with his conclusions. He does not, how- ever, follow him in his views on the Glacial period, which is a subject that produces a variety of divergent opinions among geologists, English as well as foreign. The problems of " zoogeography" are of abiorbing interest, and great strides have been made in solving them since Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace showed that an accurate knowledge of the distribution of animals enabled us to map out oceans and continents which have disappeared or altered their form ages ago. Dr. Scharff's book contributes to the science a great wealth of facts and observations collected from many sources. The general reader will find the subject treated in a manner that is rather beyond him; for the book is one that must be read with care and concentrated attention. Dealing first with our own islands, the author passes to the Lusitanian, Scandi- navian, and Alpine faunas. He then takes a survey of the region of the Caucasus, the Western plain of Europe, the Eastern and Western Mediterranean regions. The book is well illustrated, and particularly well supplied with maps (showing the distribution of species), which are essential to those who would follow the arguments of the writer. How comes it, for instance, that the mole is absent from Ireland ? If the mole had originated in Western Europe, we should expect to meet it everywhere, since it inhabits almost the whole of Asia north of the Himalayas and has had time to spread. Yet it only occurs in Northern Spain and Northern Italy and to the north of the Balkan Peninsula. This implies that in recent times it has crept round the base of the Alps into Lombardy and round the base of the Pyrenees into Spain. In Scandinavia it has reached the south, but has not had time to conquer the north. Yet it can accommodate itself to the most diverse soils and climates. The conclusion to be drawn is that the mole has advanced westward from Asia in recent geological times. We take the mole as a typical instance of the deductions that can be drawn from geo- graphical distribution. The subject is vast, and any notice of Dr. Scharff's book in these columns must be inadequate. We commend it to.our readers who are interested in natural history. The similarity in the distribution of flora and fauna, and the lessons to be learnt from both, are well dealt with in each chapter.
We can only briefly notice Dr. Kidd's new book on The Sense of Touch in Mammals and Birds. A great number of facts are here brought together concerning the skin structure of the hands and feet of mammals. The chief forms of epidermic modification are shown to assume eleven leading types in eighty-six mammals that are dealt with. Eleven birds examined show only one type of epidermic modification, though the degree of this varies much. After describing the papillary ridges in a variety of animals, Dr. Kidd discusses the physiology of the sense of touch. The subject is an extremely interesting one, and though some literature exists, it has been little worked at by zoologists. Dr. Kidd's book is the most important contribution to the matter since Miss Whipple's paper was published. Dr. Kidd has a talent for opening up new fields of research, for his book on the direction
which the hairs of animals assume may be remembered by some of our readers. The present volume is well illustrated with drawings, and also with photographs of sections of skin seen under the microscope.
We turn from a scientific to a popular work called by its author The Wit of the Wild. The writer is already known to some of our readers. Mr•. Ernest Ingersoll is an American naturalist who, both in choice of subjects and in style of treat- ment, reminds us of the late Kr. Cornish. He has the faculty of writing about animals in a fashion that attracts those who know little of their habits. The two dozen detached chapters of the present little volume are partly reprinted from American periodicals and from the Field. They treat iu a lively, read- able manner of the habits of a variety of animals weasels, squirrels, opossums, birds of various species, solitary wasps, aud, lowest in the invertebrates, the Portuguese man-of-war, that strange hydrozoan that drifts in the Gulf Stream. In writing of the copperhead, or red adder, Mr. Ingersoll declares that the young when hard pressed will retreat for safety into the mouth of their mother. Apparently this belief, which is SO widely held of our English viper (though unsupported by trustworthy evidence), crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower.' Other• chapters deal in an interesting fashion with mimicry, animal partnerships, and animals that set traps. In an article headed "Do Animals Commit Suicide?" Mr. Ingersoll answers the question in the negative, and we have no doubt he is right. Ascientifie man ought not, however, to refer to a spider as an "insect," or a caterpillar as a "worm," even in a popular work.
Lastly, we must mention another book well suited for the general reader who is interested in entomology. It is unfor- tunate, as far• as English readers are concerned, that Nature's Craftsmen deals with American insects. Though tints, bees, weak and caddis-flies in the United States have much in common with those in this country, the actual species that Mr. McCook writes of are for the most part merely names to the amateur entomologist on this side of the Atlantic. The book is, however, very well illustrated, and the illustra- tions are not photographs. The wonders of insect life surpass those of all other parts of the animal kingdom, and they are very well described by Mr. McCook in this interesting series of popular studies.
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