4 JANUARY 1935, Page 19

A Poacher's Genius

An old controversy about Robert Jefferies is re-aroused by the re-publication of his Amateur Poacher (Jonathan Cape, 8s. ed.). He is generally regarded as one of the founders of a school of rural thought. He wrote with a fervour that became wholly mystic towards the end of his life. One of his publishers held that The Story of my Heart was not only the best of Jefferies' but one of the greater books of the language. Others maintain that he never wrote so well as in his unregenerate days. Wherever the true decision lies, the sum of particular and precise observation in Jefferies' account of his rabbit-catching and pigeon-shooting days puts him near Gilbert White, from whom he wholly diverged in later life.

W. BEACH Thomas.