June 2020 - Page 2 of 2

Wild Cats

A Grosset All-Color Guide
by Michael Boorer

Wanted to read a book about a bobcat or lynx, and I don\’t have any that specific. This one is an overview of all wild cats (featuring a lynx on the frontispiece). It has the basics. How they evolved, structures of a cat\’s body, a few pages about domestic cats. Then it dives into the wild cats. All the small cats- ocelots, servals and bobcats to the flat-headed cat, kodkod and jaguarundi- get just a few paragraphs, with the exception of the puma that has a several pages with more details on behavior. Most of the cats it\’s very minimal information- distribution range, how many young in a litter, size and markings, what they eat. Beyond that, very little is consistent. For example some wild cats the book told me the gestation period, others there\’s no info on that. Maybe because it wasn\’t known? It is a rather old book. Names thirty-six feline species whereas the count I found online goes up to forty, depending on if some are actually considered subspecies or not. (Here\’s the lynx)

The last part of the book has the big cats: tiger, lion, leopard, jaguar, snow leopard and cheetah. This is more interesting; it goes into a lot more details about behavior and especially interactions with man. I did learn some surprising facts, such as that snow leopards have been found to make a den in vulture nests. Tigers will eat carrion or remains of their prey that have partly spoiled in the heat, if they are hungry enough. The book does have some old ideas, though- such as that cats are mostly driven by unthinking instinct, and will react the same way to a situation every time. It describes how lion-tamers are able to intimidate the big cats in order to display them for the public, and matter-of-factly relates how tigers, leopards and lions were hunted for sport (also with some notes about man-killers). Then there\’s this odd tidbit:

Lion hunting as a sport became really popular at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was the period when a man disappointed in love was supposed- if he could afford it- to redirect his resentment toward the fauna of Africa.

Really? Men who felt jilted used to go off and blast animals to make themselves feel better? I\’m sure some of them did, but I never realized it was a socially accepted thing to do so. I had more of the impression men went on safari hunting trips to show off, bag trophies, or just enjoy their marksmanship skill. Anybody heard this before? On a smaller note, I did find it odd that the author described the base coat color of tigers and leopards as brown, but said that cheetahs are yellow-tawny. Hm, I\’ve always thought of tigers as basically orange, and leopards as yellowish.

Overall, an interesting little book if you\’re into cats, or just want to gather some facts on them. However a lot of the unknowns when this was printed are spelled out elsewhere now, and most kids would of course just look stuff up online anyway. I do really like the illustrations by Peter Warner (they look like gouache paintings). Here\’s some samples- ocelot:

Sand cat:

\’King\’ cheetah:

Nevertheless, if I ever have to cull my library because of space issues, I\’m afraid this one will probably go. I have other books on wild cats that are more comprehensive and more current.

Rating: 3/5 159 pages, 1969

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

Flight of the White Wolf

by Mel Ellis

Boy and his pet wolf go on the run after the wolf kills a valuable, pedigreed dog that was pestering it. At first he\’s chasing his wolf to try and catch it- even though he raised the wolf from a pup, it doesn\’t let him come close enough to touch. When he doesn\’t return after a while, people assume the wolf killed the boy, and armed hunters with dogs come after them. Now boy and wolf are fleeing in earnest- he can\’t stand to see the wolf killed and can\’t figure out how to recapture it. It\’s companionable enough, but won\’t follow back to the kennels where they lived. So they strike out north, for a forested area devoid of people where the boy has heard a wolf pack lives. He wants to introduce his wolf to the pack hoping they\’ll accept him and the wolf can live free in the wild.

Most of this is an adventure story, the journey through the woods trying to find shelter, food, and evade capture. More than once the boy and wolf have to face conflict for their survival- confront a dog that tracked them, kill birds or rabbits for food, get the wolf freed from a leg trap. At one point the boy resorts to stealing food, though he does manage to contact his parents (who for some reason are ok with this dangerous trek- the kid is fifteen, and apparently they have a lot of confidence in his abilities-) at one point and get supplies and food, so then he goes into small towns to buy food along the way. Lots of places are named in the book, I glanced at a map and was easily able to see the route they took. Even though the writing style didn\’t really appeal to me, I really liked how realistic the wolf\’s character was written- its modes of communication and wariness reminded me a lot of those in Julie of the Wolves. Appreciate that even though there\’s quite a lot of killing, it\’s very matter-of-fact, and made clear that it\’s done by necessity. I think kids -especially those who like adventure stories (such as those by Gary Paulsen) and animals would find this book more exciting than I did, though I like it well enough to look for a few more by this author. There\’s only one part that made me raise my eyebrows: when the boy mentions an uncle who used to give him a glass of wine before bedtime, how he missed that!

Rating: 3/5 195 pages, 1970

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, Juvenile Fic

A Pigeon and a Boy

by Meir Shalev

I didn\’t realize this when I first picked it up (at the Book Thing), but it\’s a love story. Two love stories actually- past and present which have an almost too tidy connection, but also confused me at first keeping straight who was who. Doesn\’t help that the narrator sometimes addresses his mother in second person, other times referring to her in third. Not just in the same chapter or paragraph, but often in the same sentence. This is also a war story, and pigeons have a key role, because several of the main characters work in pigeon lofts. Two of them start as young people, boy and girl in different cities, sending love notes to each other via the birds (even though they\’re only supposed to carry official messages). I did like the parts about the pigeons and how they are kept, the symbolism quite strong as a lot of this story is also about home. What makes a home, what holds you there, what draws you back when you\’ve been away. And a large part is also about one character (present day) having an old house remodeled to suit his tastes exactly. Some parts were interesting and others bored me a lot and then a key event occurs which seemed so implausible (plus the pigeons start talking to people- and this is not a talking animal story- maybe they were delusional?) that I really had difficulty finishing the book at all. Well, it certainly was a romantic idea, but kind of ridiculous too. I did not like the ending. Characters did things that seemed really unlike them, made no sense, and even angered me. This one\’s not staying in my collection.

Rating: 2/5 311 pages, 2007

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, General Fiction

Maverick Cats

Encounters with Feral Cats

by Ellen Perry Berkeley

The author and her husband lived in a rural area of Vermont, and soon noticed cats around their property. At one time or another they fed or closely observed six different cats, and here describe the feline characters. Some only came to eat and they left again without much interaction. One brought her kittens, which disappeared within a few days. An obviously ill black cat staggered onto their driveway, laid down and died (while the author watched from inside, considering shooting the cat to end its misery but unable to bring herself to do so). Two male cats- one that hangs around for a while then goes off to make its individual living elsewhere- they often see it at some distance in a field later on- and another which starts to act pushy towards a female cat they really admire- are prominent characters. The cat that gets the most pages is a female tortoiseshell that gradually became very friendly and eventually lived inside their house. In alternate chapters the author discusses facts about feral cats. There\’s several studies on feral cat populations on individual islands mentioned, how the cats do or do not affect other animal populations. Other studies on feral cat numbers in different areas of the country, how prevalent disease is among them, how old they live, etc etc are also referenced. This book was written before trap-neuter-release was really done, so other methods of control- and questioning the need for it at all- is gone over. Reports on findings inside the stomachs of feral cats are given, indicating that they don\’t kill many songbirds- the vast majority of their prey is rodents. It\’s a nice little book, but seems to have so many unknowns stated, especially in those chapters on studies that don\’t have any consensus- because many of them were not finished, or done extensively enough, or had different results in different areas. The main conclusion I drew was that cats are definitely survivors, they don\’t really need people, they are very much individuals, and thus is all the more a mystery and pleasure when they share your home. But I would have preferred more detail about the cats the author personally knew, then reading all the people she quoted. Maybe this is one of the first books to consolidate research on feral cats, but if so it\’s done rather casually is my opinion.

Rating: 2/5 142 pages, 1982

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

The Triumph of Seeds

by Thor Hanson

How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History. This book was plenty interesting. Some parts are about the minutiae of how seeds work- what kinds of energy storage different species have, what triggers growth after periods of dormancy, how they have evolved chemicals to avoid being eaten (which humans use for medicine and poison in turn) or fruits to tempt animals to disperse them (make humans in essence slaves to plants in some cases). Other parts are about the history of seeds that had huge impacts on civilizations: coffee beans, cotton, wheat, chili peppers, etc. Other sections are more personable, describing the author\’s own investigations into the nature of seeds, including participation of his enthusiastic three-year-old son, and his interviews with researchers who do various work dealing with seeds. Sparked a lot of interest, and prompted me to attempt to finish another heavier book simply titled Seeds which is more like a dense textbook and has been languishing on my bedside table for months on end.

Rating: 3/5 277 pages, 2015

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Month: June 2020

Wild Cats

Flight of the White Wolf

A Pigeon and a Boy

Maverick Cats

The Triumph of Seeds

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