THE TAMING OF GENGHIS. By Ronald Stevens. With illustrations by C.F. Tunnicliffe.

(1956) 2010 3rd edition. 8vo (155 x 235mm). Pp127. Title-page vignette illustration by Tunnicliffe. Brown cloth, spine and upper board titled in gilt.

Originally published in 1956, this is Ronald Stevens's exciting account of his adventures and discoveries in the training of a gyrfalcon. "Genghis is a gyrfalcon - perhaps the noblest and greatest of falcons - and Ronald Stevens an expert and passionate falconer. [Here] is the creation of that strange, tense, absorbed relationship between man and bird that is the very heart of a sport as immemorially ancient as it is unbearably exciting. Captured in Iceland, brought back to ...the Welsh Marches, slowly - with an agony of patience - Genghis is weaned from his first instinctive distrust and terror to acceptance, to understanding, at last to exhilarating co-operation... Taut, concentrated, personal, evocative ...the distilled essence of one of the most exciting sports in the world." Other books by Ronald Stevens, Laggard, Observations on Modern Falconry and A Life with Birds, all also available from Coch-y-Bonddu Books.