The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands, with Some Notes on Seals—and Digressions

The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands, with Some Notes on Seals—and Digressions

IN the spring of 1900 I paid my first visit to the Shetlands, and most of what I then saw is embodied in my work Bird Watching. Two years afterwards I went there again, arriving somewhat later, and it is the notes made by me during this second stay which fill the greater number of these pages. They are my journal, written from day to day, amidst the birds with whom I lived without another companion, nor did I look upon them as more than the rough material out of which I might, some day, make a book. When it came to making one, however, it struck me more and more forcibly that I was taking elaborate pains to stereotype and artificialise what was, at any rate, as it stood, an unforced utterance and natural growth. I found, in fact, that I could make it worse, but not better, so I resolved not to make it worse. Except for a few peckings, therefore, and minor interpolationsmostly having to do with the working out of ideas jotted down in the roughI send it to press with this very negative sort of recommendation, and with only the hope added that what interested me so much will interest others also, even through the veil of my vi writing. Besides birds, I was lucky enough this time to have seals to watch, and I watched them hour after hour and day after day. I believe I know them better now, than I do anybody, or than anybody does me; but that is not to say much, for, as the true Russian proverb has it, "Another man's soul is darkness." But I have them in my heart for ever, and I would take them out of the Zoological Society's basins, and throw them back into the sea, if I could. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 51429
Author: Selous, Edmund
Release Date: Mar 13, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Smit, Joseph, 1836-1929