occasions. We may find something base in animal nature if we seek it; we may also find much that is excellent and worthy of emulation. In this respect animal nature is like human nature—we may take our choice. The decadent sculptor and the decadent writer may choose the wrong side in human nature, and the sensational writer may choose the wrong side in animal nature; Akeley has chosen the ennobling side and does not dwell on the vices either of the animals or of the natives but on their virtues, their courage, defence of their young, devotion to the safety of their families—simple, homely virtues which are so much needed to-day in our civilization.
Truthfulness is the high note of the enduring biographer of animal life as well as of human life. "Set down naught in malice, nothing extenuate" is an essential principle in the portrayal of vanishing Africa as it is in our portrayal of the contemporary manners and customs of modern society; to know the elephant, the lion, the antelope, the gorilla as they really are, not as they have been pictured by sensational writers who have never seen them at close range or who have been tempted to exaggerate their danger for commercial reasons. Akeley's work on the gorilla is the latest and perhaps his best portrayal of animal life in Africa as it really is. He defends the reputation of this animal, which has been misrepresented in narrative and fiction as a ferocious biped that attacks man at every opportunity, abducts native women as in the sculptures of Fremiet, a monster with all the vices of man and none of the
