Public-domain ebook
Language: en2,958 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Travel Writing·Nature/Gardening/Animals
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #68142.
The work is a posthumous collection of Alfred Edmund Brehm’s public lectures, assembled by his son Horst after the elder naturalist’s death in 1890. Framed by a moving preface that recounts the father’s untimely passing and the son’s sense of duty to preserve his father’s “treasure” of notes, the book presents a series of papers that were originally spoken to German audiences and later published to great acclaim. The opening pages explain that the English translation adds an introductory essay, a detailed table of contents, editorial notes and an expanded set of illustrations, all intended to convey Brehm’s “masterly powers of observation and description” across a globe that includes Lapland, Siberia, the African steppes, and the Nile. The contents list reveals a remarkable breadth, bird‑bergs of the Arctic, the fauna of the Asiatic steppe, the customs of Kirghiz herders, and the courtship rituals of tropical birds, each treated with the scientific rigor and poetic temperament for which Brehm is known.
Written in the late‑Victorian style of a learned naturalist, the prose combines meticulous description with a gentle, often humorous voice that reflects the author’s background as a lecturer and popularizer of zoology. Readers who enjoy richly illustrated travel narratives, detailed animal behavior studies, and the blend of scientific observation with literary flair will find this volume rewarding. It particularly appeals to those fascinated by 19th‑century exploration, the history of natural history, and the cultural contexts of wildlife, from the tundra’s Arctic fox to the deserts of Nubia, offering a vivid, scholarly portrait of the world as seen through Brehm’s keen eyes.
The opening · free to read
TO THE GERMAN EDITION.
Six years have passed since the grave at Renthendorf closed over the remains of my esteemed father, whose death--all too early--was as great a loss to Science as to those who loved and honoured him. It was strange that his eventful and adventurous life, in the course of which he visited and explored four quarters of the globe, should have ended at the little spot in green Thuringia where he was born. He had just reached his fifty-fifth year when his lips, so apt in speech, were silenced, and the pen which he held so masterfully dropped from his hand. He was full of great plans as to various works, and it is much to be regretted that the notes which he had collected towards the realization of these were too fragmentary for anyone but their author to utilize. But the manuscripts which he left contained many a treasure, and it seemed to me a duty, both to the author and to all friends of thoughtful observation, to make these available to the reading public.
The following pages form the first book of the kind, and contain the most valuable part of the legacy--Alfred Edmund Brehm’s lectures, once so universally popular. I believe that, in giving these pages to the world, I am offering a gift which will be warmly welcomed, and I need add no commendatory words of mine, for they speak adequately for themselves. Writing replaces spoken words very imperfectly, and my father, who was never tied down to his paper, may often have delivered the same matter in different forms according to the responsiveness of his audience, abbreviating here, expanding there--yet to anyone who has heard him the following pages will recall his presence and the tones of his sonorous voice; everyone will not only recognize in them the individuality of the author of the Tierleben (Animal Life) and Bird Life, but will learn to know him in a new and attractive side of his character. For it is my father’s lectures almost more than any other of his works which show the wealth of his experiences, the many-sidedness of his knowledge, his masterly powers of observation and description, and not least his delicate kindly humour and the sympathetic interpretation of animate and inanimate nature which arose from his deeply poetic temperament.
Therefore I send these pages forth into the world with the pleasant confidence that they will add many to the author’s already numerous friends. May they also gain new and unprejudiced sympathizers for the animal world which he loved so warmly and understood so thoroughly; and may they, in every house where the love of literature, and of the beautiful is cherished, open eyes and hearts to perceive the beauty of nature, the universal mother; then will the highest and noblest aim of their author be achieved.
So may all success attend these pages, may they receive a joyful welcome, and wherever they gain an entrance may they remain as a prized possession.
HORST BREHM, Doctor of Medicine.
BERLIN, September, 1890.
It has been a privilege to make available to English readers a book which shows a great naturalist at his best--a book that presents the reader with a series of vivid pictures of wild life and scenery, painted from actual observation, and with all the truth and accuracy that belong to the artist and man of science combined. It consists of a number of papers or articles that were originally read as public lectures and were afterwards collected into a volume that has met with much success in Germany. The subjects treated range over a wide and varied field. Some of them are unfamiliar to the ordinary reader, and besides their inherent interest have the added charm of novelty; others, if more familiar, are here invested with a freshness and charm that such a trained observer and practised writer as the author could alone impart.
To the translation of the German original have been added an introductory essay, showing Brehm’s position among naturalist-travellers, an extended table of contents, an appendix containing a number of editorial notes, and an index. The number of pictorial illustrations has also been increased.
For a notice of the Author and his labours see the concluding part of the Introductory Essay.
M. R. T. J. A. T.
UNIVERSITY HALL, EDINBURGH, December, 1895.
CONTENTS.
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