A long time has passed since Mr. Rudyard Kipling and
Mr. Thompson Seton demonstrated the fact that wild animals are able to express their thoughts in remunerative English, and now here they are doing it again in African Jungle Life (Macmillan, 15s.) through the mouth of Major Radclyffe Dugmore, who has proved his competence as an animal- observer in many lands. Not doing it quite in the same manner, however, for Major Dugmore does not allow his Simba, Tembo, and others to speak out of their Own mouths, but acts as their interpreter in order to explain what their feelings are towards man and things in general. Incidentally, the animals' Speaker expresses his disbelief, like Theodore Roosevelt and many other field observers, in protective coloration, and brings forward many cogent arguments to Support his position. The book follows the career of one individual of each species, of the elephant, black-maned lion (an identical species with, which may come out of the litter of, any other kind of lion), buffalo, rhinoceros, and twiger, the giraffe (to give it its Swahili name). Though nothing in Major Dugmore's account of this magnificent fauna is specially new, yet all is told in an extremely interesting and graphic way, and has the particular merit of being the fruit of first-hand observation. It is pleasant, in view of the efforts now being made all over South, Central, and East Africa to preserve big game, to observe that the author is emphatic about the effectiveness of game-laws in Kenya.
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