Born in 1841, W.H. Hudson spent his early years in Argentina, where he honed his skills as a naturalist and as a writer. He left for England in 1874, never to return. Thereafter he produced a stream of books and papers on all aspects of the natural world in England, particularly birds. This comprehensive anthology, first published in 1964 by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, of which Hudson was a founder-member, is now reissued with a new Introduction by Rob Hume, Editor of BIRDS, the RSPB magazine, and newly illustrated with classic woodcuts by Robert Gibbings.