Will Cuppy Tonight: "Are Wombats People?" (the introductory piece from "How to Attract the Wombat")

Drawings by Ed Nofziger

"The public in general may of course decide that I've already done enough for the animals. This nasty thought occurred to me the other day on the street when an old friend came along and inquired, 'Are you still writing those little animals?' I was particularly struck, and not favorably, by this question because I have written about some of the largest animals in existence. I do think the elephant should be big enough for anybody, and how about the Sulphur-bottom Whale, the largest animal in the seven seas, sometimes reaching a length of a hundred feet and weighing up to a hundred and fifty tons? What more does he expect?"

-- Will Cuppy, in "Are Wombats People?"

Last night, courtesy of Thomas Maeder's afterword to the 1984 edition of The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, we made the acquaintance of its author, that singular phenomenon Will Cuppy. Until you've read them, it's hard to imagine being interested, let alone mesmerized, by Cuppy's unique brand of fastidiously researched, heavily and hilariously footnoted pieces on God's creatures large and small. In this introductory essay from his third collection of animal pieces, he provides his perspective on his unusual calling. -- Ken

"I realize that a book which hopes to receive even passing attention today must be pretty snappy in regard to you-know-what. In preparing my material for the printer, therefore, I have kept constantly in mind our large and growing body of sex maniacs. They read books too."

-- Will Cuppy, in "Are Wombats People?"

Are Wombats People?

(from How to Attract the Wombat, 1949)

It would appear, from the record, that I have written my third animal book. How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes was published in 1931, How to Become Extinct in 1941. Perhaps I should have waited until 1951 before offering How to Attract the Wombat, just to make the dates come out even, but I felt I had things to say about the Wombat which needed to be said at this time.

This volume completes, at least in part, a project conceived some twenty years ago, when I first thought of writing a series of "How" books which should deal with various aspects of the animal world that particularly interested me, and at the same time rescue me from a rather sordid economic situation, leaving me free for certain other activities I had in mind, such as batting around and having a little fun in my old age. Well, life is like that.

As for this third attempt, the public in general may of course decide that I've already done enough for the animals. This nasty thought occurred to me the other day on the street when an old friend came along and inquired, "Are you still writing those little animals?" I was particularly struck, and not favorably, by this question because I have written about some of the largest animals in existence. I do think the elephant should be big enough for anybody, and how about the Sulphur-bottom Whale, the largest animal in the seven seas, sometimes reaching a length of a hundred feet and weighing up to a hundred and fifty tons? What more does he expect?

I'm only fooling, for I know well enough that the fellow meant to ask, "Are you still writing those little pieces about animals?" I should have replied, as I usually do: "Yes, I am still writing little pieces about animals. I am a person who writes little pieces about animals. I am in that business. That is what I do. See?" I didn't care to make the effort again. I merely nodded noncommittally and walked away, with the curt remark, "Nice seeing you again."

I knew so well what the fellow was leading up to, and there are times when I can't take it. In another ten seconds, or make it five, he would have asked, "Why don't you write about people, Will?" They always do. They have, through the years. They will, as long as I am spared. It is a cross I must bear.

To give you an idea, the first friend I met on the street after writing that book on Apes fought her way through the crowd as soon as she saw me and shouted from afar, "Why don't you write about people, Will?" This surprised me the more since I had used that very lady as the model for my article on the Chimp in that volume. I was afraid she would sue, but, as seems to be routine with my works, nothing happened. In How to Attract the Wombat she appears again as the main character in my chapter on the Goose, but she will never know it. She thinks I am not interested in people.

Was it for this, I often ask myself, that I have risked my scientific reputation time after time by an outrageously anthropomorphic treatment of the animals, that I have played fast and loose with the accepted distinctions between instinct and intelligence to the point of endangering some of the fundamental principles of Darwin himself, until I probably couldn't get the most menial job in a respectable Zoo?

Why do you suppose I did that unless it was to get in all those dirty cracks about the human race, a form of life I suppose I am a little too much inclined to look down upon. By the way, I must try to get over that or my views will become distorted in time. Not interested in people, indeed!

But they mean well, bless them. They want me to get ahead. They bring me examples of authors, from dim antiquity to this morning's papers, who have risen by easy stages or even jumped instantaneously to the top of their profession by writing about people. Some of these friends have done well in their chosen fields of endeavor. A few of them have what it takes, and God knows they hang on to it. Maybe I should listen to their advice.

Maybe, in response to what I can only regard as public demand, I should write a book about people plainly labeled and certified as such, so that there could be no possible mistake. Then they could ask me, "Why don't you write about animals, Will?" It would be a change.

And now a word on the Wombat. What is it? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Give up? I feel justified in asking these forthright questions because the ignorance that prevails on the subject is simply frightening. "I know nothing about the Wombat except that it lays eggs and barks," said a lady on whom I was counting for useful information. And when I asked a man whom I had always supposed to be fairly civilized if he had ever heard of the Wombat, he replied, "Sure, he played third base on the Yankees in '35." Ninety-nine others merely said No. Really, I sometimes wonder what is the use.

For reasons of my own, I am not telling at this point exactly what a Wombat is or is not. I assure you, though, that the Wombat exists. In the Wombat we are confronted by a fact, not a theory. That is all I care to divulge at the moment as I prefer, in the interest of suspense, to keep the reader on tenterhooks until he comes to the article entitled "The Wombat" under the larger heading, "Problem Mammals."

There, I've gone and dropped a hint that gives part of the secret away. So the Wombat is a mammal! If I know my public, however, no great harm has been done, for I find the widest divergence of opinion on what is a mammal. Five of my acquaintances, when asked to define a mammal, replied, "Well, the Cow is a mammal." That is correct. Four others said, "Well, the Whale is a mammal." Right again, but two of these had been going through life with the erroneous impression, drawn from that fragment of truth, that mammal is only a more dignified name for fish. That is what comes of teaching innocent children what a Whale is. Something should be done about this.

I had no better luck with the young woman, a graduate of one of our foremost institutions of learning, whom I asked to define a marsupial, a special kind of mammal that comes into the plot later on. After she had flunked on the mammals in general by guessing that a mammal is any animal that is quite large (and I must confess there is a sort of fundamental Tightness in that view that I hesitate to disturb), she stated that a marsupial was something from the polar regions, and stuck to it. She could give no rational explanation, during a rather painful cross-questioning, of how such an association had occurred to her, and I wound up by feeling glad that she had heard of the polar regions at least -- on the radio, doubtless. Naturally, I apologized for what must have seemed to her a display of heartless brutality. I can't bear to see a woman cry.

As for the title of this book, of course it is stolen from, or let us say inspired by, that invaluable little volume I am always running across, How to Attract the Birds, by Robert S. Lemmon. Heaven forbid that I should ever attract a bird, or birds, but you can see how that title solved my problem when I was fumbling around for one of my own. If you knew my private opinion of birds, you would understand why I consider my version an improvement, with all respect to Mr. Lemmon. The whole subject of ornithology stirs me so profoundly that I mustn't go into it here. There isn't time. I will only say that the more I see of birds, the better I like Wombats.

There are moments, I may add, when my title, How to Attract the Wombat, does not entirely satisfy me. There's something a little cold, a little remote, about using a generic term like "the Wombat" when it's a question of attracting him. Nobody writes a book called How to Attract the Man, or How to Attract the Woman, so I took to favoring How to Attract a Wombat as more in tune with what really goes on, more urgent, more immediate, more business-like. Then I would wake up in the night thinking of people who might want to attract a lot of Wombats. Would they buy a book enabling them to attract one Wombat, or must I change the wording to How to Attract Wombats, in the plural? All those I consulted on these variations at the last moment said yes, they guessed it was all right if I liked it, and indicated that the subject, so far as they were concerned, was closed.

I suppose there are people who do not wish to attract even one Wombat, let alone a number of them. Most of these are simply indifferent. They do not care, one way or the other. Has it never occurred to them that they may be missing something, and that it might be Wombats? I am afraid their present attitude, if they persist in it, may occasion our sales manager more than one mauvais quart d'heure before he is through with it.

On the other hand, considering what we have learned of our fellow creatures in recent years, there are undoubtedly those who do wish to attract a Wombat or Wombats, just why is not for me to inquire. For them this book could be a treasure worth many times the price of admission. I might even say it would fill a long-felt want.

Finally a word to the more respectable of my readers, some of whom may be shocked by certain sensational passages I slipped into the text during final revision, just in case. God bless them all. I would not willingly bring a blush to their cheeks or upset them in any way, manner, shape or form whatever. Still and all, I realize that a book which hopes to receive even passing attention today must be pretty snappy in regard to you-know-what. In preparing my material for the printer, therefore, I have kept constantly in mind our large and growing body of sex maniacs. They read books too.


TOMORROW in WILL CUPPY TONIGHT: "The Wombat" (of course!), plus an additional mammal (or two) to be named later


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY TONIGHT and WILL CUPPY TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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