fresh air
bright water
Whether his subject is hunting wild
turkey in West Virginia, the opening
of the trout season, the sex life of
oysters, or the sad fate of the heath
hen, Nelson Bryant writes about the
outdoors with humor, authority, and
more than a small touch of the poet.
Readers of his "Wood, Field, and
Stream" column in The New York
Times know that Bryant's writings
provide a refreshing respite from the
frustrations of twentieth-century life.
Some 125 of his best columns are
collected in this volume.
As Bryant writes in his Preface to
this collection, he does not rely on
the "where the fish are biting" ap-
proach. Rather he tries--with great
success--to bring to his readers the
delights of wood, field, and stream,
and to give them memorable glimpses
of such glories as "a mountaintop
trout pond wreathed in mist, of black
ducks flying low against a dark No-
vember sky over a brown salt marsh,
of great, silvery tarpon rolling in the
Caribbean, of red grouse rising above
the purple blooms of Scotland's
heather." Fresh Air, Bright Water is
a book to be cherished by hunters
and fishermen, conservationists, and
nature lovers of all sorts.