AROUND MY HOUSE. By Ian Niall.

(1973) 1973 Book Club edition. 8vo (142 x 222mm). Ppx,148. B/w photographs. Dark blue boards, spine titled in gilt.

Ian Niall's observation of the wildlife (and domesticated animals) around his cottage near Llandudno. "He writes of hawks and hawking - falcons, goshawks, buzzards - and of what he learned about them and about himself. Then Ian Niall became a shepherd to his own few sheep with the idea of endless saddles of lamb and chops, - but the sheep too had their personalities which they pitted in their way against that of the shepherd. Whether writing of birds or sheep, ducks and bantams, reclaimed battery-crippled hens or a strange crossbred bird which could have been a mixture of tame and wild, Ian Niall is contantly interesting and informative. The house of the title is his cottage and what he writes of in this book went on around it." Chapters include:- Myself when young; My first affair; A hawk on my fist; A-hunting I did go; The innocent lamb; The year of the quail; Bees in my bonnet; Honey harvest; Duck-keeper; Bantams and battery birds; Pursuit of Phantams.