JUNGLE COMPANY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23685, 17 December 1938, Page 4

JUNGLE COMPANY

HUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA ■' White Hunter." By J. A. Hunter. Illustrated. London: Seeley, Service. £1 2s 6d. _ ,■' ■ "On Jungle Trails." By Frank Buck. Illustrated. London: Harrap. 9s 6d. To the literature of big-game hunting in Africa, Mr J. A. Hunter's book. "White Hunter," may be hailed as an interesting addition. The author, one gathers, has shot almost every type of game with which the African forests and jungles abound, whether bird, beast or reptile. In the days when ivory had a marketable value far and away above what it is to-day he was in the trade—a lucrative one, as may well be believed. He writes of many trips when, as he says, the good had to be taken with the bad, the rough with the smooth; the impression from these fascinating chapters is that the good predominated. Some of Mr Hunter s experiences almost strain belief, but they are vouched for, and the reader who knows what strange things come out of Africa may well allow himself to be persuaded. Mr Hunter has a good narrative style, and his accounts of hair-raising adventures disclose the powers of observation of the expert tracker as well as of the student of natural history. Excellent photography is a feature of the book. Mr Buck, as is well known, arms himself with camera rather than with gun. The terrain covered by him in his latest book is in the Far East, that portion of southern Asia which may be comprehended by India, the Malay Peninsula, Burma, Sumatra, Java Nepal, Borneo, the Sulu Islands, and the Philippines. His life's work has been the taking alive of the rarer jungle specimens for zoological purposes, and he is consequently well-equipped to do justice to the subject covered by such an intriguing title as "On Jungle Trails." This is a book mainly, it may be suggested, for boys and girls. From it will be learned much that is of intense interest, of jungle company and jungle ways—animal as well as human. Again the illustrations are an instructive feature. F. H.