The Naturalist’s Wager
Gould’s scandalous method was to treat monsters as evidence, not entertainment. For each legend, wager whether the book finds a real animal behind it — then hear his ruling.
Charles Gould, geological surveyor of Tasmania, spent 400 pages and 93 engravings arguing that dragons, sea-serpents and unicorns are not inventions but memories — real animals, seen, feared, and distorted by time.
Gould’s scandalous method was to treat monsters as evidence, not entertainment. For each legend, wager whether the book finds a real animal behind it — then hear his ruling.