Gerald Durrell

"We have inherited an incredibly beautiful and complex garden, but the trouble is that we have been appallingly bad gardeners. We have not bothered to acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of…"

"To say that Gannet City was busy would be an understatement. New York in the rush-hour would appear immobile in comparison. There were gannets incubating, feeding chicks, flirting, mating, preening an…"

"Presently, however, we came to a small clearing and there, squatting at the mouth of its burrow was the musician responsible for the ringing, flute-like cry — a fat ground squirrel, wearing a tasteful…"

"An immensely tall, angular figure … His gown hung round him in long folds like the wings of a bat, and his wig was perched slightly askew over a lantern jawed face with a blue chin, soulful spaniel-br…"

"Firstly what does conservation mean? It is not merely the saving from extinction of such species as the Notornis, the Leadbetters Possum or the Leathery Turtle; this is important work but it is only p…"

"Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquillity, a timelessness, about it so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark ski…"

"There would be a dreadful outcry if anyone suggested obliterating, say, the Tower of London, and quite rightly so; yet a unique and wonderful species of animal which has taken hundreds of thousands of…"

"Right in the Heart of the African Jungle a small white man lives. Now there is one extraordinary fact about him that he is the friend of all animals."