She did not do this only once, and by
accident. She did it whenever more straws were asked for than she
possessed. Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or was her
action the result of blind, mechanical instinct? If Mr. Burroughs
cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes a
nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind.
The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very
successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly a
trick of Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing
frequency. When a poor devil of a writer records what he has seen,
and when what he has seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs's
mediaeval theory, he calls said writer a nature-faker. When a man
like Mr. Hornaday comes along, Mr. Burroughs works a variation of the
trick on him. Mr. Hornaday has made a close study of the orang in
captivity and of the orang in its native state. Also, he has studied
closely many other of the higher animal types.
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