A Game Ranger on Safari (1928)

[See also Lot 24.]

The editor notes: "In a word, Mr Percival is primarily a naturalist: live animals are far more interesting than dead." Earlier: "In [his previous book: see Lot 24] he dealt for the most part with the large and dangerous game of the Kenya Colony . . . that made impossible inclusion of his notes on the antelopes and other animals . . . These form the bulk of the present volume . . . [However] we decided . . .  to give them a setting or background; hence the [five] chapters on daily life in the wilds with which the book opens." Although these were based on Percival's notes they were not checked by him because of his illness and they remained the responsibility of the editor.

The author's chapters were baboons and chimpanzees; monkeys; oryx, roan, sable and bushbuck; waterbuck and impala; wildebeest, duiker, klipspringer, oribi and steenbuck; hartebeest, dik-dik and reedbuck; gazelles; jackals; small deer; crocodile; snakes and monsters; settlement and game; disease and drought (2 chapters); war and game.

Maroon cloth-boards, blind-embossed lettering and box-rule to the upper panel, gilt lettering and rules to the spine, top edge gilt, other edges uncut, plain cream endpapers, xv + 305 pp of text and index + sepia frontispiece and 26 other inserted sepia plates + 10-fold map at the back.

CONDITION NOTES. The boards are near-fine, with a light 1 cm crease at the upper front corner and very lightly bumped spine ends. The gilt top page-edge has dulled. Douglas John Pennwill's heraldic bookplate is on the front paste-down as well as a different partly erased ownership signature; otherwise the endpapers are unmarked and undiscoloured. The binding remains tight and there are no between-section cracks. The half-title page is sunned. The contents - text, illustrations and map - are complete and in better than very good condition. A 3 cm tear in a fold at the top of the map has been closed.

Percival's two volumes may well represent the best published study of the wild animals in East Africa in the years between the two world wars. If we could have only one volume, it would be the second (this lot) which is in slightly better condition and which describes the terrain and most of the non-carnivorous game.