The book is essentially popular in intention; and Mr. Hagenbeck is a trainer and exhibitor of animals, not a professional naturalist. Nevertheless, his pages are full of accurate and detailed statements which cannot but be of service to the student of comparative psychology, who is concerned to maintain his subjects in full health and under conditions as nearly natural as possible. He insists, for instance, as Darwin had insisted before him, that animals have their special temperaments, their idiosyncrasies." It is now universally recognized that each animal has its own peculiar characteristics ... over and above the general psychological character which it shares with all other members of its species. This is a discovery I had to make for myself, and a most important one it is for the trainer. . . . On the occasion of my first attempt to introduce the humane system of training, out of twenty-one lions only four proved to be of any use for my purpose." The fact has, of course, been amply verified by recent experimental work upon the higher animals. As regards the humane method of training, Mr. Hagenbeck is enthusiastic; Dr. Mitchell, in his prefatory note, while he freely admits the author's own love of animals, and his ability and experience in dealing with them, confesses to a continued scepticism. The humane method appears to be a method of infinite patience, sanctioned by moderate reward and moderate punishment; it is evidently, therefore, a method only for the elect among trainers. The psychologist must regret that he is not taken further behind the scenes; but the topic would probably fail to interest the general reader.
Another point of great interest is this: that even exotic animals may be acclimatized, if only they are allowed air and exercise. Photographs are shown of ostriches, Dorcas gazelles, lions and kangaroos ranging freely in the snow at Stellingen. Mr. Hagenbeck's experience here confirms and extends that of the famous Crimean naturalist, M. Falz-Fein, of the Duke of Bedford and of Lord Rothschild. In view of the approaching extermination of much of the African and Australian fauna, the author suggests the formation of a large park in Florida; a reserve of even 1,000 acres would do good zoological service; and the initial cost need not exceed $250,000. The excellence of the climate would render unnecessary most if not all of the usual expense of special, massively constructed houses with elaborate heating-arrangements, etc. Indeed, on the open-air system, this expense is in the main avoidable even for the ordinary town-gardens; and Mr. Hagenbeck thinks that there is no town of 100,000 inhabitants that may not have its collection of animals, administered at trifling cost and with small risk of loss.
The chapters of the book are entitled: My Life in the Animal Trade, My Park at Stellingen, How Wild Animals are Caught, Carnivores in Captivity, Training Wild Animals, The Great Herbivores, Reptiles in Captivity, Acclimatization and Breeding, Animals in Sickness, Life at Stellingen, The Ostrich Farm at Stellingen, and Anthropoid Apes. All are freely illustrated from photographs. In the concluding chapter, to which the psychologist naturally turns with especial interest, the trainer practically excludes the naturalist in Mr. Hagenbeck's account, though there are a few observations of scientific interest. "I am hoping before long," the author remarks, "to be able to exhibit such educational results in my apes as have never been achieved or even thought possible before."
This work, by the illustrious author of The History of Human
