MERFIELD, Fred G. - Gorillas were my Neighbours - (Hardcover)

Book still in a good condition - Minimal foxing - Sadly no dust-jacket - 21 Photo illustrations - 288 pg.    >>>    Fred G. Merfield was a planter, hunter, explorer and naturalist. This book is the remarkable story of his life among the gorillas of the West African forests and is based on his memoirs written with Harry Miller in the 1950s. It covers the 35 years that he spent in the French Cameroons between the World Wars collecting rare animals and insects for museums and scientific research.     -    He was much more than a hunter and killer of animals and he had a distaste for rich European and American safari hunters. He had a real passion for the people, animals and insects of West Africa and did much to help advance scientific understanding of the behavior of primates in the 1920s and 1930s.     -    He was the first author to observe and record chimpanzees using twigs as tools to extract honey. It was only some 25 30 years later when Jane Goodall made similar observations, that chimpanzees were recognized as the only primates that can use tools in a similar way to humans.     -    He was also a true adventurer in the mold of Indiana Jones.    -    After the Second World War broke out, he was possibly the only Englishmen ever to have been appointed as a French police commissioner, Monsieur le Commissaire, working in the towns of Yabassi and Bafang and was awarded an Order of Merit and the Colonial Medal by the French Government.    -   Sadly, my grandfather died in 1960, two years before I was born so I never got to know him. Both Fred and Hilda lived an amazing life, venturing into regions of Africa where few had been before.   (One of his grand children wrote on Goodreads)

* Biography * Travel * Natural Science *