Watched by Wild Animals

Enos A. MillsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 300K words
Chapters: 30

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Watched by Wild Animals by Enos A. MillsAuthor: Mills, Enos A., 1870-1922,Language: English, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Mar 21, 2013

Editor's review

This book is a precious early text of nature writing and naturalist observation. In firsthand prose the author records the activities of wild animals in their natural surroundings, and readers can feel the plain style and immediacy of early twentieth-century American nature writing. As a free Project Gutenberg ebook, its greatest value lies in the availability of the original text and its archival flavor: it offers detailed descriptions of animal behavior while also reflecting how people of the time observed and regarded the wilderness. The writing does not depend on images or modern ecological terminology, and is better suited to slow reading and note-taking. It works well as selected reading in nature literature, light reading of an English original, or supplementary material for a natural history writing course. One caveat: the book bears clear marks of its era, and some anthropomorphic expressions and observational conclusions cannot be taken directly as contemporary scientific findings. It is best read alongside today's animal behavior research, as a warmly human observational record.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nature writing and wilderness subjects and want to read an English original
Book lovers and researchers interested in early naturalist observation records
Learners who need light reading in English and can accept an old-fashioned style
Teachers and students who need a sample text for nature or popular science writing courses

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking systematic contemporary animal behavior knowledge or the latest research findings
Readers who rely on abundant illustrations, photographs, or charts to understand content
Those with little experience reading English who find early twentieth-century prose difficult

Reading tips

Start with the table of contents, pick the animal chapters that interest you, and read them piece by piece rather than straight through.
Keep a notebook handy and record the behaviors the author observes and your own questions for later verification.
After each chapter, compare it once with contemporary popular science material on animals, distinguishing observation records from period-bound explanations.
If the English is difficult, first read for the gist of each paragraph, then return to the details, keeping your reading rhythm unbroken.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable as an introduction to zoology?

Not really as a systematic introduction. It is more like early nature observation essays, strong in literary quality and immediacy but lacking a modern ecological framework, with some explanations limited by their era. For an introduction to animal behavior, choose a contemporary popular science book instead and use this as supplementary reading.

What English level does it roughly require?

The original is early twentieth-century English nature writing, with long sentences and dense description; the vocabulary is mainly everyday and natural history terms, and the overall difficulty is above average. Readers with a college English reading background and a habit of reading old-style prose will find it smoother; beginners may need a dictionary or a parallel translation.

Why is it recommended to read this book alongside contemporary material?

Because many of the book's observational conclusions and anthropomorphic descriptions were limited by the knowledge of the time and cannot be taken directly as scientific fact. Reading it alongside contemporary animal behavior research preserves the observational pleasure of the original while avoiding the mistake of taking period-bound explanations as today's scientific consensus.

What should I keep in mind when reading the free electronic edition?

The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain electronic text, laid out mainly as plain text, and may retain old-style spelling and paragraphing habits. Use reading software that supports font size adjustment and word lookup, and skim the opening note before reading to understand the source and text processing of the edition.

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About the author

Enos A. Mills Author · American · 1870–1922

Enos A. Mills (1870–1922) was an American naturalist and nature writer. Born in Kansas, he moved with his family to Colorado as a boy and spent the rest of his life observing nature in the Rocky Mountains and writing about it. His books draw on firsthand experience and cover mountain wildlife, the habits of grizzly bears, the lives of beavers, and thousand-year-old pines, among other subjects. His plain, companionable style combines the care of an observer with the tone of a guide. His representative works include Wild Life on the Rockies and The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal. Mills was also a key figure in the effort to establish Rocky Mountain National Park, and his writing and advocacy helped more readers come to know and care about the region's natural world. Public information on his early education and specific posts is limited, so this profile rests mainly on his works and his work as a naturalist.