If you want to know how to capture, and then make friends with an ant-eater, an electric eel, or a porcupine or a boa-constrictor, The New Noah is your book.

When Gerald Durrell goes wild-animal hunting he takes interest and affection along with his nets and traps. And his captives enjoy luxury treatment as he discovers how to feed and train them and prepare them for display in the zoos to which they are destined.

This is a fascinating book, for the reader is let into many secrets of the animal hunter’s trade, as well as being introduced to a variety of charming and curious animals such as capybaras, hoatzins, and tucotucos, not to mention a tame curassow called Cuthbert.