Hardback, Putnam, reprint of the first illustrated edition, June 1942.
Book condition: Lacking the dust wrapper, some foxing to page edges, but otherwise a very nice copy. Tunnicliffe's woodcuts are well reproduced.

The publisher's blurb for the first edition (1926) states: 'This is a book of the countryside. Red-deer, foxes, herons, badgers, falcons, sun and sea and wind live in its pages, as they could only be made to live by one who has himself lived with them. There is the excitement of the chase, the natural human pity for the hunted, the intense joy of the bird "wild in its native air" – told in English that is precise and beautiful. The book reflects a personality original and vital, and every page testifies to the author's extraordinary powers of observation and interpretation. Of the author's earlier book, The Peregrine's Saga, Mr. John Galsworthy wrote – "I've been greatly struck by it. He has a real gift – many real gifts. You see – he sees, and that's rare; he will come into his own."'

(For a further consideration of the book and the background to the writing of it, see Anne Williamson's The Old Stag.)