["The Goshawk"], widely hailed in England with such phrases as "a masterpiece," "unforgettably interesting," and "an ornithological 'Moby Dick,'" is certainly nature writing with a difference. Ostensibly it describes how the author undertook to train a hawk for the intricate sport of falconry. Actually it is the story of a sick soul which took this unusual method of relieving its frustrations.

Mr. White never tells us what reasons other than the prevalent ones he may have had for hating the modern world, but he is almost hysterically angry from almost the first sentence and he was obviously far beyond the point where the healing presences of any Wordsworthian primroses could do him any good.

Beginning as he does in medias res, Mr. White never tells us even what first suggested falconry as an occupation but it is soon evident that falconry became for him an escape, a...