A Shepherd's Life

William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) was an Argentinian-born American naturalist and author, who moved to England in 1874, and became known for his writings on natural history, both Argentine and English, and for his work with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He travelled the country, observing wildlife and rural life in general, and won high praise both for his work as a naturalist and for his literary style. A Shepherd's Life, published in 1910, contains his impressions of the Wiltshire Downs - the people, places, wildlife and history - which are enhanced by numerous line-drawings. The central character of the book, Caleb Bawcombe, an elderly shepherd, is fictitious, but clearly based on real people Hudson had talked to in Wiltshire, and the overall picture is of continuing closeness to nature, despite enormous changes in agricultural practice, in rural societies at the end of the nineteenth century.