BOOKS.
FRANK BUCKLAND.*
THE charm of this book consists in the strong impression it gives us that Frank Buckland, with all his earnestness of character and scientific zeal, took his place in the animal world as a fellow-creature amongst fellow-creatures, not, of course, disguising from himself for a moment the superiority of his own race to those of the creatures be studied with so much enthusiasm, but at the same time not importing into his attitude towards them any of the airs or pretensions peculiar to human nature. Great as was his kindness to the lower animals, and hearty as was his pleasure in them, lie seemed to take them quite naturally just as they took each other, excepting, of course, that he in his large humanity knew how to avoid that constant cruelty of animal towards animal, which they did not know to be cruelty and could not therefore avoid. Yet he had nothing of the humanitarian in him. In spite of all his sympathy with the lower animals, he seems to have felt no repulsion in feeding his carnivorous pets with living creatures which were also his pets. He was not deeply troubled when his
jackal was found devouring his guinea-pigs. He felt no horror in feeding his carnivorous birds with mice, or watching the cobra in its fight with a rat.. When his creatures died from too close packing, he took it cheerfully. There was nothing of the squeamishness of the humanitarian about him. He regarded death in the animal world without distaste, and indeed as one who in his childhood had been indulged in slaughtering animals as a sort of treat would naturally regard it,—as a matter of course, and not one of a kind to elicit sentiment. There is no trace in his life of the depth of feeling which Sir Walter Scott betrayed when his dog died. Frank Buckland had been early trained in sport, as well as in natural history, and had brought his feelings into harmony with his knowledge that the destruction of inferior creatures is part of the law of creation, and if humanely effected, not a matter for regret. We suppose this is really the right state of mind for a naturalist ; and whether it be so or not, it certainly makes this life more cheerful reading than it would be if Frank Buckland had felt deeply the pain to which the animal world is subject, and had fretted over the sense of that pain. This is not at all in his way. He is never cruel, but never fastidious. He takes the incidents of animal destruction with the same high spirits with which he delineates the humours of the various animal tribes with which he has to deal. Even the monstrosities do not shock him. He can enjoy a conversation with a human monster as heartily as if there were nothing unnatural in his or her formation, so deeply is he interested in the physiological problem which such monstrosities suggest. In a word, Frank Buckland, though a man of fine moral nature, seems to have had no fastidiousness that could make him shrink from looking every scientific enigma straight in the face, even though it were one which suggests to others insoluble moral difficulties of the first order.
This makes the book a cheerful one from beginning to end.
From the time when at four years of age he told the astonished Devonshire clergyman who had taken the trouble to bring some very curious fossils all the way to Oxford that they were the vertebrie of an ichthyosaurus, to the time when he lay dying and expressing his belief that God who was so good to the little fishes would prove to be equally good to the Inspector of Fisheries, he seems to have never had a morbid moment, or at least none of which there is any record. It is the cheerfullest life we ever met with, and yet not one which can be called in any sense a shallow life. Frank Buckland knew what he could do, and did it. He was a naturalist with a practical bias, proposing rather to turn his insight into natural history to some practical account than to extend the limits of the speculative principles which it opened up. He was never so happy as when he was improving the resources of the world, and improving the physical condition of some of the lower animals at the same time. His zeal for acclimatizing animals, for peopling the Australian rivers with salmon, and the English parks with elands, was something extraordinary. He went into these tasks with at least as much enthusiasm—and with a great deal more success—than the enthusiasm with which our best misssionaries attempt to remove the misery of our great cities, and to raise the moral condition of the most squalid among the poor.
Here is Dr. Liddon's sketch of Frank Buckland as he was during his undergraduate days. And we may remark incidentally that his schoolboy days were the exact anticipation of
his undergraduate days, just as his undergraduate days were again anticipations of the fullest days of his practical and energetic life :—
"` He was the first man,' Dr. Liddon writes, 'who called on me when I came np to Christ Church. I was in "garrets" in Peckwater, and had arrived the previous night, and, as I knew only a few people, was feeling very lonely and strange. He came into my room after breakfast, and said some cheery words, and told me, I remember, that it was a "good thing to try to have plenty to say to men." I have always remembered this visit with gratitude, and this piece of advice; this was in October, 1846. He often asked me to breakfast with him in his rooms in " Fell's Buildings." One of these breakfasts was in the spring, and it coincided with a great event; the marmots, which had hybernated in the cellar below, had just, as he expressed it, "thawed." There was great excitement; the creatures ran about the table, as entitled to the honours of the day; though there were other beasts and reptiles in the room too, which in later life would have made breakfasting difficult. Speaking of reptiles, one very early incident in my Oxford life was joining in a hunt of Frank's adder. It had escaped into Mr. Benson's rooms, and was pursued into the bedroom by a group of undergraduates, who had, however, different objects in view. Frank certainly had the wellbeing of the adder chiefly at heart; the rest of us, I fear, were governed by the lower motive of escaping being bitten anyhow—if, consistently with the adder's safety, well—if not, still of escaping. Eventually the adder was caught, I believe, without great damage. This must have been in 1847. One day I met Frank just outside Tom Gate. His trowsers' pockets were swollen out to an enormous size. They were fall of slow-worms in damp moss. Frank explained to me that this combination of warmth and moisture was good for the slow-worms, and that they enjoyed it. They certainly were very lively, poking their heads out incessantly, while he repressed them with the palms of his hands. I was in chapel on that Sunday morning when the eagle came in at the eight o'clock service. The
cloister door had been left open, and the bird found its way into the church, while the Te Deum was being sung, and advanced with its wings nearly spread out. Two or three men left their places to deal with it ; Dean Gaisford looked unspeakable things. Of the bear I have a much less distinct recollection ; but the jackal was, I might almost say, a personal friend. He was fastened up in the court outside Fell's Buildings; and I recollect how, under some odd and painful irritation, he used to go round and round, eating off his tail. Frank expressed great sympathy with him, modified by strong curiosity—he wondered how far Jacky would eat up into his back ! He was certainly one of the most popular men in Christ Church : when he was in the schools, to be examined vied voce, almost the whole undergraduate world of Christ Church was there ; I can even now recollect his being put on in a chorus of Sophocles. He always struck me, in respect of the most serious matters, as combining strength and simplicity very remarkably ; it was impossible to talk to him, and not to be sure that God, life, death and judgment were to him solid and constantly present realities.'"
One of the most curious traits about him was his complete indifference to the disgusting side of his experiments in the uses of animal life. Thus, when the panther in the Surrey Zoological Gardens died, he insisted on having it disinterred, that he might cook a panther chop and taste it, which he did, with the dry remark that "it was not very good." And he seldom lost an opportunity of trying a new food, however disgusting some might have thought it. A friend who found him eating a piece of dead kelt [salmon at the time of year when salmon are unfit to be eaten], asked him how he could taste anything so abominably nasty ; to which he replied, "It is nasty enough, but how can I say so unless I have tried it P" Again and again he records how much the worse he felt for some of these experiments ; how the lump-fish soup, which was " something like turtle," made him "rather seedy" the next day ; how the horse.flesh banquet resulted in a fit of bad indigestion; how he boiled elephant-trunk for many days without producing any particular result on the hardness of the texture ; and so forth. With one exception,— that of an oyster the size of a cheeseplate,—he was no more discouraged from making experiments on his own stomach by any sense of disgust, than he was discouraged by his dislike of cold and physical illness from venturing into freezing water in search • of salmon.eggs,—a pursuit which seems to have cost him his life.
There is nothing in the volume more characteristic of Frank Buckland than his own account of his experience with the Australian bird, of which the popular name is "the laughing Jackass." We cannot, of course, pretend to say what account of itself a "laughing Jackass" would wish to give to the world; but we cannot conceive one which, if it would sanction any account of itself, it would like to read better than Frank Buckland's :—
" Among the birds of Australia, I know none more extraordinary than the ' Laughing Jackass.' He is a true kingfisher, alike in his personal appearance, his structure, and his habits. One's idea, however, of a kingfisher is generally associated with a water.loving bird ; but this Australian kingfisher is not a water-bird, but a land-bird, and preys not upon fish, but rather upon grubs, worms, snakes, frogs, mice, Fro. ; he is, in fact, a scavenger, in the true sense of the word, and if any creature ought to be protected more than another, it is that which performs the duty of a scavenger. It has been stated that the only things which acclimatise themselves, without pain or trouble being taken in the matter by human beings, have been rats and blue-bottle flies—a fact which may possibly excite a smile ; but when we come to consider the matter philosophically, rats and bluebottle flies are in reality among the most useful of created things to the human race. True it is, indeed, that we cannot eat them; but everything in this world was not made to be eaten, and these despised creatures really do great service to us by getting rid of decaying substances, which would otherwise breed fever. Now, the Laughing Jackass' is of the greatest service to our friends in Australia in his humble capacity of scavenger. How thankful would every person in danger from the bite of a .venomous snake be, to see a Laughing Jackass' suddenly descend from his perch, and seize upon and devour the poisonous reptile on which, in another instant, he might have placed his foot, and have received a lethal wound. The Laughing Jackass,' therefore, of Australia, is one of the most useful birds—I might almost say ' protecting' birds—not only to the person but also to the property of the sheep farmer. This gogera,' as it is called by the blacks, is, withal, a merry, joyous fellow ; be is not a sulkylooking creature, like the vulture of ill omen, but he shows the delight with which he goes about the work nature has appointed for him to perform by laughing most heartily ; not a faint, languid expression of pleasure, but a downright hearty laugh. A lot of them, we learn from Dr. Bennett, may be seen high up in a eucalyptus or gum tree ; and when the traveller attempts to drive them off, instead of flying away, they will commence a hearty laugh, one joining in the chorus after another till the whole forest resounds with their merry music. .sop records the fact of an old lady, who, in order to make her maids get up early in the morning, took special care of a fine specimen of a bright chanticleer,' whose special duty it was to 'proclaim the morn' to the sleepy servant maids. Should any of my readers wish to make their servants get up in proper time, let them at once purchase a Laughing Jackass,' and if this fellow by his cachinnations does not wake the whole household, he will have lost the good character he possessed when at home in Australia. I once heard that a visitor to a country farm declared he could get no sleep at night, inasmuch as the geese kept up a continual dialogue throughout the hours of darkness; when morning arrived the cocks and hens began their chatter ; at last they went out with the geese to feed, and the unfortunate country visitor thought ho would have some repose. Vain hope indeed, for the farm men came and killed a pig under the window, thus rousing him up entirely for the rest of the day. If the owner of the farm had happened to have been the possessor of a Laughing Jackass,' I warrant • he would have made as much noise as did the poor pig when in the hands of the farm men. For the last few days I have bad a ' Laughing Jackass ' in my possession—as fine a jackass as could be found within a hundred miles of St. Paul's. In fact I had only one fault to. find with him, and that was that he would never laugh. The causeof this defect in his education possibly may have been that I never gave him anything to laugh about ; this, however, was not my fault, for I gave him plenty of good and wholesome food in the shape of raw meat, &c., which he took with a dignity becoming this moat distinguished of strangers. Wishing, moreover, to try his destructive powers, I showed him one day a mouse; in a moment all his feathers bristled up, and he appeared to be (like an enraged tom-oat) twice his natural size. I held the mouse to his cage, and in an instant he seized the animal with his tremendous beak, and gulped him down with apparently the greatest satisfaction. He then began a slight titter, which I trusted he would increase gradually to a laugh, but / suppose he thought it an occasion hardly worth laughing about, so he shut up his feathers again, and composed himself to sleep. In this attitude I fancied I detected a sly expression about his eye, as much as to say, 'I know you want me to laugh ; I can laugh if I like, but I will not laugh. My bird was about the size of a large magpie, very like an English kingfisher in general shape; though his colour was brown, still he was a very pretty bird—so beautiful, indeed, was he that a lady borrowed him, for a day or so, to exhibit him at a bazaar in the Hanover.Square Rooms. Here, I understand, he was much admired by the fair visitors; though, from all I bear, he did not appreciate the compliment as much as he ought. In due time be was brought back home. I gave him his breakfast, and put him out in the MEI, which he much enjoyed after his sojourn in a hot, crowded room. I turned my back for a moment, and on looking round again was perfectly horrified at what I saw. Alas ! alas! the jackass had found a bar of the cage, which had been broken at the bazaar, had tested it with his beak, and finding that it yielded, had pulled it on one side and flown away. Delighted with his cleverness, and, possibly, also rejoicing at the discomfiture of his owner, away he flew into Regent's Park. One parting farewell only he gave me; the rascal actually stopped in his flight, and for the first and last time I heard his hearty laugh. The poor bird had at last found out something to laugh about, namely, that be had made his escape most cleverly, and that, though he had been denominated a jackass, his actions and the clever manner in which he got out of the cage proved most effectually that he was really no jackass at all."
How full of tenderness to human beings the man was who showed this sympathy with the lower animals, it is not possible to illustrate better than in the following few lines :—
"Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart. It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word, or did a hard action. He used to say of one gentleman, by whom he thought he had been aggrieved, that he had forgiven him seventy times seven already, so that be was not required to forgive him any more. He could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a woman. Women, he used to say, are such doe.liko timid things, that he could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his office, be found a poor servant-girl crying in the street. She had been turned out of her place that morning, as unequal to her duties; she had no money and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner, drove her to Paddingtoo, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of the guard of the train. His nature was so simple and generous that he did not even seem to realise that he had done an exceptionally kind action."
In a word, it would be hard to find a volume so full of what is amusing and yet so wholly free from any element by which one is ashamed to he amused. Frank Buckland was a man who, without in any sense idealising the animal world, had no feeling of repulsion towards it. He did not feel painfully the wonder in the likeness and the unlikeness between ourselves and the lower animals. He had no overpowering disgusts, he had no sentimental sympathies. His feeling for the animal world was wholly healthy, and perhaps even a little touched by that unconcern with which animals treat each other ; and yet he had the deepest sense of the humour of animals, and a very profound delight in the wisdom of nature, which to him was not diminished by the many painful problems suggested by animal suffering. He was a utilitarian naturalist and a true humonrist in one,—* naturalist who saw in every department of lower life provision for the wants of man, and yet one who could interpret animal life from the human point of view, so as to fill it with the humour needful to render his favourite study one teeming with buoyancy and gaiety, as well as with scientific charm.
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