DOGS, BIRDS and OTHERS: NATURAL HISTORY LETTERS FROM THE "SPECTATOR". Chosen, with an introduction and notes by H.J. Massingham, with a preface by John St. Loe Strachey.

1921 1st edition. 8vo (141 x 223mm). Pp198,32[publisher's catalogue]. Unillustrated, eleven-page preface by John St. Loe Strachey. Blind-stamped ruled borders and title to red cloth, spine titled in gilt.

"Part of the pleasure of these letters is in their freedom from professionalism, from the grand air, from a dull literary foppishness, and any advertising of an escape from the ordinary. ...Many of these letters are in this transparent manner, plain tales of things seen, and no nonsense. ...But I mean something more than this. The evil of professionalism includes a bureaucracy of knowledge, the ...exclusivism of so much modern thought, which resents any intrusion upon its private affairs." H.J. Massingham. In his Preface, Strachey has quite other concerns for the book: he says that the Spectator was routinely mocked for its animal correspondence (he is bored of the "amount of jokes") and often accused of being "constantly taken in by practical jokers, who sent ridiculous stories about impossible dogs and super-cats and canaries. I knew that the letters were perfectly authentic." Amusing readers' letters describing their observations of animal behaviour, or a lethal blow against Massingham's "bureaucracy of knowledge"? Chapters include: Dogs - Animal ratiocination; Dog-logic; Dog -bargaining; Dog-giving, feeling, fellowship, loyalty; Dog-psychology and a case of apostacty. Birds: Bird-altruism and family lire; Birds that take the wrong turning; Birth, sleep, and death; Birds and the arts - their music, dancing, painting, architecture, drama, and flight, some critical appreciations; Bird sociology; Birds uncommon and memorable; Birds and men, partnerships and associations. Other animals: An anthology of animal notables, their endowments, policies, peculiarities, conquests, other matter, etc; Squirrel memoirs; Captive animals.