Books: Birds & Bigotry

THE STRANGE LIFE OF CHARLES WATERTON (231 pp.) — Richard Aldington —Duell, Sloan & Pearce ($3).

Even when he was riding an alligator in the forests of British Guiana (see cut) or indulging his habit of "scratching the back of his head with the big toe of his right foot," Naturalist Charles Waterton (1782-1865) could not forget or forgive the Reformation of the Church of England. The Watertons of Walton Hall were one of Britain's most ancient Roman Catholic squirearchies, and ever since the day of "Harry the Eighth, our royal goat" (as Charles Waterton described the monarch), they...

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