A Game Ranger's Note Book (1924)

The editor writes: "The following pages embody the observations . . . made by [the author] during nearly thirty years spent in Africa, of which about twenty-two were passed in the Game Department of what is now the Kenya Colony. It is well that such unrivalled opportunities for the study of wild animals should have fallen to one so well qualified to use them . . . It has been found necessary to withhold [the] copious notes on the great majority of the antelopes. I hope these may be given another volume." (See Lot 25)

The book covers lion (7 chapters); leopard; cheetah, serval and caracal; hunting dogs; hyenas; elephant (2 chapters); rhinoceros (2 chapters); hippo; buffalo (2 chapters); giraffe; swine; zebra; kudu, bongo and eland; tracking and stalking; game-birds; and photographing game.

Green cloth-boards, lettering and box rule blind embossed to the upper board, lettering and rules gilt to the spine, top edge trimmed, other edges uncut, plain cream endpapers, xviii + 374 pp of text and index + frontispiece and 31 other inserted photographic plates + a Stanford's 6-fold map at the back showing 9 game reserve areas in East Africa.

This was a review copy, received by The Guardian newspaper on Sept 19, 1924 (pencil on front free endpaper), which found its way to the United States (see next para).

CONDITION NOTES. The boards are near-fine. The spine is lightly sunned, with the spine-ends very lightly bumped. The endpapers are lightly sunned, with the pencil note referred to above at the front, "Pig sticking p 288" in blue pencil on the back paste-down and the small sticker of World Wide Hunting Books [a US dealer] on the free endpaper verso. The contents - text, illustrations and map - are complete, otherwise unmarked and undiscoloured, making this an attractive and collectable copy.