Excerpt from Wild Creatures Afield He seemed to get worse as time went on, for after awhile, in the very places on each side of his head where he had formerly had his beauti ful antlers, there appeared two small, velvety knobs, so tender, sensitive, and painful that he dared not let even a branch touch them. These velvety little knobs grew steadily, and every bit of nourishment that Elker Obtained from the food he ate went to feed and supply those little knobs with fresh blood, while his formerly strong and vigorous body got thin and weak, and he was so tired and weary he could scarcely stand. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Over the past four decades, Bruce L. Smith has worked with most big-game species in some of the American West’s most breathtaking and challenging landscapes. In Stories from Afield, readers join Smith on his adventures as a naturalist, sportsman, and wildlife biologist, as he pulls us into the field of learning and discovery across wilderness areas of western Montana, the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a South African temperate forest. Ranging from humorous to harrowing, Smith’s essays recount capturing newborn elk calves, stalking mountain goats on icy cliffs, being stranded on a mountain after riding out a helicopter crash, confrontations with bears during his research, plus quirky and edifying hunting tales. Throughout his adventures, the magnetism and danger of wild nature are ever present, reminding us that our fascination with wildness often stems from its unpredictability.