Wild Animals at Home

Ernest Thompson Seton drew on years of observing the wildlife of Yellowstone, and this 1913 collection gathers what he saw into a set of plain-spoken natural history chapters. He profiles the coyote, the prairie dog, the beaver, the badger, the well-meaning skunk, the grizzly and its smaller cousins, along with foxes, squirrels, rabbits, and the mountain lions he calls sneak-cats. Seton favored the park because its protected animals had grown used to people and would let a patient watcher come close, so his notes carry the detail of firsthand encounter rather than secondhand lore. His own drawings and photographs run throughout. For anyone drawn to early field observation written with warmth and a storyteller’s ear, it holds a place among the founding works of American nature writing.