The Bafut Beagles

The Bafut Beagles was the name which Gerald Durrell gave to the Africans and mongrel dogs with which he hunted and captured many of the oddest and most elusive creatures in the Camer oons. His adventures in pursuit of such fauna as flying mice and booming squirrels were often as strange as the animals themselves. The Africans would not touch a Que-Fong-Goo until he pro vided them with a magic potion; and he did not find his first Hairy Frog until he escaped into the cold dawn after spending a night drinking with the Fon, the convivial King of Bafut, and teaching him and his councillors to dance the Conga.
The author succeeded in capturing a collection of very queer animals. In this book he has now caught their spirit and humour. A supercilious toad, a hypocritical chimpanzee, or a wide-eyed baby galago innocently dismembering a locust, is for him a character as vivid and interesting as Jacob, his remarkable cook, or even the Fon himself.
“There are not many travel books with a more natural sense of humour’ – The Guardian