Friday, October 08, 2004

Peter Hathaway Capstick

is one of my favorite authors. As I mentioned earlier, hunting & fishing stories from the U.S, Central America, South America and Africa. Game ranger in three African nations over the years, pro hunter, and a marvelous writer. Anyone who can say that cape buffalo and elephants would vote him 'The One Who Got Away' is definately worth looking into.

Some of his books are broken into sections on different animals; lion, elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, leopard and so forth. Others are collections of various articles written for magazines. One, called "Maneaters", is a look about the world at critters who, as he once wrote about a leopard, develop bad table manners. And one article- actually two put together for the book- is about dealing with a large troop of baboons that had turned nasty, including an intro that lists some problems other people have had with them.

Did you know that the carnivore that takes more people than any other in Africa is the crocodile? The herbivore that kills the most people is the hippo. And hyenas tend to take a bite and run.

His first book was "Death In The Long Grass", and others included biographies of people who made an impression on Africa, and vice versa. He died a couple of years ago, and I hope he's in a place with old friends, good rifles and big critters.

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