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THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL HUNTER by Cecil S. Webb

THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL HUNTER

By

Pub Date: Oct. 13th, 1954
Publisher: Longmans, Green

A collector and also officer of the Zoological Society of London, the Whipsnade and the Regents Park Zoo, at present Superintendent of the Gardens of Dublin Zoo, reviews his many years of wild life hunting, to bring them back, not only alive, but in perfect condition. From farming to bird trapping, his fame grew as the rarities he delivered attracted avicultural notice; orders increased and included many other specimens so that soon he was traveling with whole menageries. Throughout there was the nuisance of official red tape, the stumbling blocks of local superstitions, and the headaches of transportation; there was patience, the need for improvising individual methods of capture, for acclimatizing his charges to artificial surroundings and subsitute diets and for helping them adjust to captivity. His trained eyes miss no detail of the remarkable creatures he encountered from Africa to South America, from mountains to jungles, while his report of his work and anxiety, of his luck -- good and bad -- is rich in incident, a personal excitement, and the unique character of each large or small captive. Engagingly matter of fact, this is a pleasant arrival in its field.