Peter Matthiessen, the author of the classic The Snow Leopard, here takes a long view of the troubled relationship between Americans and animals. Cataloging extinctions right and left, Matthiessen, who wrote this book in the late 1950s well before the rise of the present environmental movement, documents the decline of bear and wolf, caracara and crane, salamander and chub in the face of Manifest Destiny and economic progress. It's a sad tale, especially because what Matthiessen wrote of the last wild animals 40 years ago remains true today: "Such protection as is extended them too rarely includes the natural habitats they require, and their remnants skulk in a lean and shrinking wilderness." This is an essential book for environmentalists.