Vanessa Manceron is a social anthropologist and researcher at the Centre national de recherche scientifique and director of the Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative in Paris. Michael Taylor has translated not only many book-length essays in art history, including Matisse's correspondence with M.-A. Couturier, but several volumes of poetry, including Victor Segalen's Stèles and Horace's complete odes. He is also the author of books on Rembrandt and Vermeer. Stephen Hugh-Jones is Emeritus Research Associate at the Cambridge University Department of Social Anthropology. His research and publications focus on the culture of the Eastern Tukanoan peoples of Colombian Amazonia.

• ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Knowing and Recognizing1.InvolvementAn English CountrysideConnectingWatching Over 2.PairingGenesisComing into Contact3.A Window on ExistenceCompletenessFreeing Oneself4.AssemblingMicrocosmClassifications and Variations5.CollatingSpecimens and ImagesMisidentifyingPerceptual PitfallsFusing6.Wonderful CreaturesAvian ZoographyOtherness and ImmersionParting the Curtain7.VanishingStill SuccumbingWhat Is Going on?The Burden of ResponsibilityRecomposingConclusion. A Form of AttentionReferencesIllustrations

“I haven’t read an academic text in some time that brought me quite so much pleasure as Wild and Wonderful…[i]n total, [it] is a quietly powerful book that intricately details how the naturalist tradition is one of “keeping watch'….I only wish I could have read this book sooner; my past scholarship would have been all the richer for it."

Vanessa Manceron is a social anthropologist and researcher at the Centre national de recherche scientifique and director of the Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative in Paris. Michael Taylor has translated not only many book-length essays in art history, including Matisse's correspondence with M.-A. Couturier, but several volumes of poetry, including Victor Segalen's Stèles and Horace's complete odes. He is also the author of books on Rembrandt and Vermeer. Stephen Hugh-Jones is Emeritus Research Associate at the Cambridge University Department of Social Anthropology. His research and publications focus on the culture of the Eastern Tukanoan peoples of Colombian Amazonia.

• ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Knowing and Recognizing1.InvolvementAn English CountrysideConnectingWatching Over 2.PairingGenesisComing into Contact3.A Window on ExistenceCompletenessFreeing Oneself4.AssemblingMicrocosmClassifications and Variations5.CollatingSpecimens and ImagesMisidentifyingPerceptual PitfallsFusing6.Wonderful CreaturesAvian ZoographyOtherness and ImmersionParting the Curtain7.VanishingStill SuccumbingWhat Is Going on?The Burden of ResponsibilityRecomposingConclusion. A Form of AttentionReferencesIllustrations

“I haven’t read an academic text in some time that brought me quite so much pleasure as Wild and Wonderful…[i]n total, [it] is a quietly powerful book that intricately details how the naturalist tradition is one of “keeping watch'….I only wish I could have read this book sooner; my past scholarship would have been all the richer for it."

Vanessa Manceron is a social anthropologist and researcher at the Centre national de recherche scientifique and director of the Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative in Paris. Michael Taylor has translated not only many book-length essays in art history, including Matisse's correspondence with M.-A. Couturier, but several volumes of poetry, including Victor Segalen's Stèles and Horace's complete odes. He is also the author of books on Rembrandt and Vermeer. Stephen Hugh-Jones is Emeritus Research Associate at the Cambridge University Department of Social Anthropology. His research and publications focus on the culture of the Eastern Tukanoan peoples of Colombian Amazonia.

• ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Knowing and Recognizing1.InvolvementAn English CountrysideConnectingWatching Over 2.PairingGenesisComing into Contact3.A Window on ExistenceCompletenessFreeing Oneself4.AssemblingMicrocosmClassifications and Variations5.CollatingSpecimens and ImagesMisidentifyingPerceptual PitfallsFusing6.Wonderful CreaturesAvian ZoographyOtherness and ImmersionParting the Curtain7.VanishingStill SuccumbingWhat Is Going on?The Burden of ResponsibilityRecomposingConclusion. A Form of AttentionReferencesIllustrations

“I haven’t read an academic text in some time that brought me quite so much pleasure as Wild and Wonderful…[i]n total, [it] is a quietly powerful book that intricately details how the naturalist tradition is one of “keeping watch'….I only wish I could have read this book sooner; my past scholarship would have been all the richer for it."