Abstract
MR. HUDSON has never written any book that is not extremely pleasant to read, though since he settled in England he has never had so much to tell us as was told in his “Naturalist in La Plata.” That book, though it may not be his own favourite, will always, if we are not mistaken, be reckoned as his best; and the reason is simply that it treated of animal life among which he was entirely at home, and of which we knew little or nothing. His English books have not this quality, though they have many other excellences. The one before us, for example, is charmingly written, full of grace and feeling, touched with a tender and sympathetic imagination, made piquant by a certain quite inoffensive egoism; but, as we read in his pages of the South Downs, we are forced to recognise the fact that he is not of them. He is a stranger there—a most appreciative one, it is true—but still a stranger. It is perhaps given to few who have not been bred among the Downs to enter fully into their spirit, and we will not deny that Mr. Hudson, rambling alone through their sweet air and lying on|Jieir delicious turf, has caught it as none could do withoitt rare gifts of sympathy and observation; yet there is something missing.
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Three Books of Popular Natural History 1 . Nature 62, 417–418 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/062417a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/062417a0