The pronghorn is North America's fastest mammal, reaching a top speed of 60 miles per hour. The National Bison Range in Western Montana, established in 1908 to protect bison, indirectly rescued the largest known remnant of Palouse Prairie. Within this grassland habitat - home to meadowlarks, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep, coyotes, elk, snipe and a panoply of wildflowers - Byers has observed the pronghorn's life. A vivid account of a 20-year encounter with a magnificent animal.
This is a book of natural history, rather than an ethological study of a single species, and it brings to mind Frank Fraser Darling's classic study of animal behaviour, "A Herd of Red Deer", first published in 1937. In similar style, Byers writes simply and with sensitivity about the ways of life of the pronghorn, and he also brings in his observations and thoughts about the landscape of the prairie and its other inhabitants, from bison to grasshoppers.--Juliet Clutton-Brock"Times Literary Supplement" (12/05/2003)