Many are the portrayals which are evidently based on Nelson’s own personal field knowledge, some of them involving facts here for the first time made known to science. His account of the behavior of kangaroo rats in Lower California is particularly apt in illustration of the above statement.
During several nights I passed hours watching at close range the habits of these curious animals. As I sat quietly on a mess box in their midst ... [they] would forage all about with swift gliding movements, repeatedly running across my bare feet. Any sudden movement startled them and all would dart away for a moment, but quickly return.... They were so intent on the food [grains of rice put out for them] that at times I had no difficulty in reaching slowly down and closing my hand over their backs. I did this dozens of times, and after a slight struggle they always became quiet until again placed on the ground, when they at once renewed their search for food as though no interruption had occurred.... While occupied in this rivalry for food they became surprisingly pugnacious. If one was working at the rice pile and another rat or a pocket mouse approached, it immediately darted at the intruder and drove it away. The mode of attack was to rush at an intruder and, leaping upon its back, give a vigorous downward kick with its strong hind feet.... Sometimes an intruder, bolder than the others, would run only two or three yards and then suddenly turn and face the pursuer, sitting up on its hind feet like a little kangaroo. The pursuer at once assumed the same nearly upright position, with its fore feet close to its breast. Both would then begin to hop about watching for an opening. Suddenly one would leap at the other, striking with its hind feet, ... [producing] a distinct little thump and the victim rolled over on the ground. After receiving two or three kicks the weaker of the combatants would run away. The thump made by the kick when they were fighting solved the mystery which had covered this sound heard repeatedly during my nights at this camp.
The brilliantly coated paper used throughout this book although hard on sensitive eyes, is necessary to the handling of the halftone illustrations. The printing of both the colored and uncolored pictures in all the copies we have seen has been done with pronounced success. The color drawings by Fuertes are admirable and we are astonished at the success with which this noted bird artist was able to turn to mammals, the drawings of which in this contribution mark as far as we know his first efforts in the new field.
A critical reviewer might succeed in finding a number of small points to elaborate upon and of which to complain. For instance: It is trite to say that an Alaska brown bear is no more an animal than is a house fly. Yet here we have the title, “Wild Animals of North America,” though there is an evident effort made in the subtitle to remedy the matter by using the expression, “mammal kingdom.” But here a taxonomic blunder is tumbled into! We can hardly believe that Nelson himself had anything final to say with regard to the title page of this book, but that the editor of the National Geographic Magazine got in his work here in the belief so characteristic of editors of popular magazines that their public must be talked down to.
But to pin the attention of the reader of this review upon such really minute defects would do violence to the facts in the case, which are that, according to the convictions of the reviewer, Nelson’s “Wild Animals of North America” is more uniformly accurate and at the same time replete with information along many lines than any preceding book on American mammals. And even more, it may be declared with confidence that this book is by far the most important contribution of a non-systematic nature that has appeared in its field in America.
Joseph Grinnell
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology,
University of California
Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.