Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
qualities and their good, which are reviewed with an apparent
inclination on the part of the author to like them, and the conclusion
that, having learned something of their power, they will now be likely
to take a hand in shaping their own future. There are also barbarians,
of whom the Moros of Sulu are a type--bloodthirsty and faithless, and
as careless of human life as one would be of weeds in a field; and
savages of all degrees, down to the lowest. The government is various,
according to the particular governor and the people he has to deal
with, but all of the Spanish or Moro type. The clergy are the dominant
class; and of these the friars or brethren of the orders exert an evil
influence, while the Jesuits are believed to be a distinctive power
for good. Much can be said in favor of the insurgents' demand that the
friars be expelled from the colony and their places taken by secular
clergymen not belonging to any order. Professor Worcester has made a
very lively, interesting, and instructive book, which is marred,
however, by occasional evidences that, while begun with serious
purpose, it has been hurried to meet a passing demand, and by the too
frequent intrusion of trivialities and slang.
* * * * *
We are often surprised at manifestations of individuality and
intelligence in domestic animals and pets, and are accustomed to
attribute extraordinary qualities to the beasts in which we perceive
them; as if each animal could not have its peculiar traits and talents
as well as each man. We hardly imagine that there are any special
differences in wild animals, and that idiosyncrasies of character and
diversities of gifts and powers of adaptation may run through the
whole animal kingdom. A closer acquaintance with Nature would teach us
better. Certain stories and myths of savages show that they had a fair
appreciation of the individual peculiarities of animals, and farmers'
boys, who live in natural surroundings, know something of these
things. The subject is now presented to us in a fairly clear light by
Mr. _Ernest Seton Thompson_, as illustrated in the careers of a number
of typical specimens of animals and birds whose characters and acts,
as they came under his observation, are related in _Wild Animals I
have Known_.[51] The stories, he avers, are true; the animals in the
book are all real characters. They lived the lives he has depicted,
and showed the stamp of heroism and personality more strongly by far
than it has been in the power of his pen to tell. Among them was Lobo,
the wolf, of the Corrumpaw Cattle Range, New Mexico, the leader of a
gang, who exhibited some of the qualities of an able general, and was
a beast of influence, powerful, vigilant, crafty, and the terror of
the settlement; and who was only trapped when grief for the loss of a
female companion deprived him of the wit by which he had escaped all
previous efforts to take him. Silverspot, the crow, was the leader of
a large band.
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