THE GRIZZLY BEAR: THE NARRATIVE OF A HUNTER-NATURALIST. By William H. Wright.

(1909) U. of Nebraska Press edition 1977. 8vo (138 x 209mm). Pp274. B/w photograph plates by the author and J.B.Kerfoot, pictorial cloth gilt.

This book, "first published in 1909, is one of the best all-round books ever written on the Grizzly Bear. It is both highly informative and entertaining. Wright, an unusually keen observer with an enquiring mind, spent twenty-five years more or less constantly observing the Grizzly. His interpretations of what he learned are cautiously and meticulously arrived at and are accurate even when compared with the findings of recent studies having the advantages of the modern tools and disciplines of science. Wright began as a bear-hunter, and an extraordinarily succesful one. ...his book shows a hunter becoming a naturalist: Wright first studied the Grizzly in order to hunt him, then he came to hunt him in order to study him. ...'This is an animal much talked about but little studied. It is now well on its way toward extinction.' ...This book was Wright's attempt to help prevent the inevitable decline of the Grizzly". Frank C. Craighead, Jr., in his introduction to this UNP reprint.